11-05-2003, 08:51 PM
No, it is not a disease...these fish sound like hatchery fish. Fish that are grown in hatcheries past their fry period of life often develop fin deformities from living in cement raceways packed side by side with thousands of other fish. Almost any time you catch a cutt that has poor fins, you can bet that it is a holdover from a hatchery...the UDWR is trying to reestablish cutts in many fisheries. To do this, they will hold a fish in the hatchery a little longer than normal and then stock them...as time goes on, though, it is expected that the cutts will reproduce and the hatchery "holdovers" will be weeded out. Rainbows, on the other hand, are often stocked at "catchable" sizes...these "catchable" trout will often have poor fins and are used in many put-and-take fisheries.
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