This is not a Steelhead.

Nope, she’s a resident rainbow trout from the home of Alaska West, the Kanektok River.

She doesn’t need to swim out into the ocean to get fat.  She lives in the Kanektok year round.  Come summer, she parks herself on some structure on the lower river and chows on a salmon part buffet – eggs at first, then flesh of many kinds.  Yeah, she’ll eat the odd clumsy sculpin that swims by, and for sure she’ll ‘rescue’ an occasional furry mammal, but it’s salmon that gave her the weight problem.

Don’t give her a hard time, OK?

More on Rainbows at Alaska West

• Bead Fishing for Rainbow Trout
• Steak and Eggs
• She’d Love to Eat Mr. Hankey