Looks like a brook trout to me. This is a splake I caught a couple weeks ago outside of Algonquin. Slight fork in the tail, and other features as described by DanPM, but the primary give-away: it came from a stocked splake lake. I can't imagine the odds of catching a natural splake hybrid would be very high- that must be a rare occurrence. That said, splake are far from 'frankenfish.' All cultured fish are products of artificial fertilization, so whether the milt came from a brook trout or lake trout is moot IMO. It's no more a lab animal than any stocked brook trout, laker, walleye or musky. Those Atlantic Salmon you can buy in the grocery store however....
This splake was a large, healthy, hard fighting, delicious fish, and I'm happy to see them stocked and have the opportunity to catch them, helping to take the pressure of the sensitive natural trout populations.
And, so long as the Algonquin lake is stocked, my impression is that it's free to name. I would assume the lake in question is not stocked, or you would have known splake would be on the menu.
Last edited by nvm (5/26/2017 2:57 pm)
