Splake Trout - What Are They?

Splake trout are produced when a female Lake trout mate with a male Brook trout. These hybrid trout are mostly man-made and were originally developed to enhance trout fishing opportunities in Canada.

Like most hybrid trout, splake trout tend to grow faster and survive longer. Splake feed heavily on crustaceans and insects during early life, and other fish later in life. Because these trout tend to school, if you find one, you're likely to find others.

Since splake trout are a hybrid between brook and lake trout, they tend to have characteristics of both species. Their tails are slightly forked (but not as much as lake trout), and their spots tend to be whitish or slightly pinkish.

Unlike many hybrids, splake trout are able to reproduce and while they prefer the gravel beds usually used by brook trout for lake spawning, in the absence of these it will use the boulder shoals favored by lake trout.

Splake are usually mature in their third year of life and their spawning period falls closer to that of the brook trout in late October or early November.

In addition to Canada and the Great Lakes, you'll also find splake trout in Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Maine, Minnesota, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

By the way, in case you were wondering, the largest splake trout, currently on record weighs 20 pounds 11 ounces (9.38 kg) . It was caught in Georgian Bay Ontario Canada in 1987 by Paul Thompson.