The gold of Fish of the Week: Exploring/explaining golden rainbows caught in Illinois’ trout seasons

Bob Lubek emailed a note and photo of a gold-colored trout caught as part of “a group effort by my son-in-law Bob Derzinski and grandson Jim.” They were fishing at Lake Milliken in Will County. (Just to be clear, the photo at the top is not what they caught but a California golden trout for comparison.)

Every year, readers send notes about catching gold, yellow or pale trout during Illinois’ trout season. Spring trout opened Saturday. Illinois fisheries chief Mike McClelland said they are a color variant of the rainbow trout the state stocks.

Provided by Bob Lubek

“We have them in most of our waters,” he said. “We don’t order them, that is the way the hatchery sends them. There are two or three or four at most sites.”

The gold colored rainbow is not to be confused with golden trout, a species generally found in higher elevations in California. The state freshwater fish of California is “[w]idely regarded as one of the most beautiful trout in the world,” according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. See the photo at the top.

All around the family had a great day, part of their catch included a regular rainbow trout of 18 ³⁄₄ inches weighing 2 pounds, 11 ounces.

Provided by Bob Lubek

FOTW, the celebration of big fish and their stories (the stories matter, as this one shows) around Chicago fishing, runs Wednesdays in the paper Sun-Times. The online posting here at https://chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors goes up at varied days of the week, depending on what is going on the wide world of the outdoors.

To make submissions, email (BowmanOutside@gmail.com) or contact me on Facebook (Dale Bowman), Twitter (@BowmanOutside) or Instagram (@BowmanOutside).