Cutthroat Trout Spawning Season

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Cutthroat trout spawning season. 24092020 Part of it has to do with the different life cycles of fish species. A short stream flows into Trout Lake located in Lamar Valley in Yellowstone National Park where the native Cutthroat Trout go to spawn. Cutthroat trout spawn in approximately 68 of these tributaries with the peak of the spawn occurring from late May through July Gresswell and Varley 1988.

14052019 Rainbow and Cutthroat Trout spawn every spring anywhere from February to May. The eggs hatch in. 12072017 Reporter Michael Wright visits Yellowstone National Park during the spawning season for the native cutthroat trout.

Brook trout for example spawn in the fall giving them a full six months. But these two species do not spawn at the same time. This is a sea-run strain of the coastal cutthroat that travels into the saltwater estuaries for a few months of the year.

Varley and Gresswell 1988. 03022021 Limited research on Coastal Cutthroat Trout O. This suggests that it may be possible to determine reproductive status of Cutthroat Trout with ultrasound well before the spawning season.

Another reason to pursue trout early in the spring are flows behind many of the regions. By the time they return to fresh water to spawn these fish can be up to 18-inches long and are bright silver much like a small steelhead. Cutthroats generally spawn a bit later than their rainbow trout cousins west slope cutthroats native to the Northwest often wait until water temperatures hit 50 degrees before actually spawning but often their spawning seasons overlap with rainbows.

There is typically a 95-100 day egg incubation period. Clarkii indicates that oocyte development in maturing females begins more than eight months prior to spawning 21 40. Rainbow Trout lay their eggs as the river levels rise April early May while Cutthroat Trout spawn as flows are declining late May June.