The trout's diet...

So the other day my daughter & I kept three fish for dinner. For those
of you aghast at my political incorrectness, I offer no apology. FWIW,
these were not wild fish. Indeed, we were so close to the hatchery it'd
be embarrassing for me to fish there without my daughter.

Two of the trout had white flesh while the third had orange/pink flesh.
Not as pink as the (landlocked) Dolly Varden I used to catch in Alaska,
but distinctly _not_ white.

Coincidentally, the 'orange' fish had a belly full of bugs while the two
'white' fish had very little in their stomachs.

My assumption, and I'd like to think the obvious one, is that the
'orange' fish had been in the creek substantially longer than the
'white' fish. Long enough to learn how to eat and even thrive in the
wild. OTOH, I figure that the 'white' fish were relatively new to the
stream and hadn't figured out how to eat & thrive in the creek.

Now I'm wondering about the lack of survival skills in hatchery fish.
How many of them fail to thrive in the wild because they don't know
how/what to eat? Could this be part of the problem with the low success
rate of fish restoration projects like the one Stan Gula was working on
with Salmon in Massachusetts? Does this imply that preservation is even
more important because restoration is not an effective possibilty after
preservation has failed?

Just a thinkin' and wonderin'...
Tom G
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