whats better brown trout or rainbow trout? And why?

[4liters]

They seem to taste more or less the same so I can't decide. Carp are way more fun to catch.

[trout-hunter]

Reason why i ask this is because i fish all rivers around vic, mainly the goulborn up around Thornton because we can wade long stretches of immaculate water, i seem to catch browns 80% of the time and there an average size of 35cm and sometimes hit the 50cm mark, any rainbow i catch of a decent size look a bit off and dull. Dont get me wrong though cos i have caught some beautiful looking rainbows with very nice colors, but browns are always looking very healthy and tastey..

[meppstas]

I prefer the browns mainly because they're a real challenge to catch most of the time, where as the rainbows are more aggressive and will take just about any thing you throw at them.. Still the rainbows are great fighters for their size too, small 'bows (250/270 gms approx) will fight as hard as a 400 gram brown in a river. Can't say anything about them in lakes as I only fish rivers.. Browns & rainbows here in Tasmania's river are all wild fish..

cheers
Adrian

Tassy is like a different world...it's one place I'd love to explore. Curious mate, have you ever chased any of the sea run trout down there? They get some good'uns from my understanding.

No I haven't chased them, they run from September through to December roughly.. There are quite a few that do fish for them in the Lower reaches of the rivers that flow into the sea and they do quite well with some good size fish being caught.. The West Coast of Tassie usually give up the large sea runners, rivers such as the Pieman & Arthurs are very popular for sea run fishing.. Several friends of mine regularly fish them and have caught some beautiful trophy fish.. The troll those two rivers for 7-8 hours a day when they're over there. They all have some lovely mounted trout on their walls too.. The Mersey River (flows into Bass Straight at Devonport) which is 30 kms from Sheffield has some nice sea runners that come in various sizes from 1 kg up to 4kgs.. I'm pretty sure troutandbream (Clint) has chased and caught quite a few too in the lower reaches of Mersey River..

cheers
Adrian

[Paulanderson]

Showing my age but I was lucky enough to fish Lake Ecumbene quite a bit when it first filled. One trip we were fishing at Providence Portal when it was first flooded. Along the banks were heaps of rolled up grass and debris and scrubworms galore. The trout were feeding in very shallow water on the scrubworms (and frogs) and were easy to spot. In those days 5 lb Rainbows and Browns were very common with plenty of larger fish and were shaped like footballs. They were all powerful fish but the Rainbows were a bit like Formula 1 cars - very fast and glitzy with long surface runs while the Browns were more like Le Mans endurance racers and were far more likely to snag you. They all had bright orange flesh and were great to eat. I really don't think one species was better than the other - just different in the way they fought. Great memories!

[deathray]

I love the look of rainbows but they really can be idiots. I've had them try and eat the float rather than the bait and even come out from under the bank and attack the rod tip while retrieving a lure.

[Cornacarpio]

Small rainbows might be stupid but in my experience the big rainbows can be just as wary as the big browns.

If forced to make a decision I would go in favour of the rainbows. Hearing the lure rattle

I'm going to go against the grain and say rainbows as well. I once had a 53cm Brown literally swim straight into the shore. I thought it was a tiny reddie until I pulled it out of the water!

[brybry]

Not much in it but I think I prefer catching Browns. They just seem to be a bit more challenging than rainbows. Would dearly love to catch a Brook trout though!