Columbia River Redband Trout
Redbands look very much like a coastal or hatchery rainbow. Pure redbands, however, typically have rounder, larger spots, a brighter red-orange lateral stripe, and a bright orange cutthroat mark. Often they have white tips on their anal, dorsal, and pectoral fins, and retain their parr marks into maturity.
The colors are often more muted and silvery in the anadromous redbands, sometimes known as steelhead redbands, and the redbands from large lakes like the Kamloops. Spawning male steelhead redbands, though, usually have a bright red stripe and gill cover.
Most of the redbands today are hybridized to some degree with hatchery rainbows that derived mostly from coastal rainbows (Oncorhynchus mykiss irideus). This can make identification even more difficult.
If you do want to find a pure Columbia redband, you'll have to look in remote headwater streams where asphalt, logging, grazing, and irrigation haven't degraded the habitat too much and hatchery rainbows have not been stocked. Many of the high alpine streams in Oregon's Blue Mountains still hold strong populations of these fish, as do the eastern Cascades in southern Washington, and the Bitterroot Range in central Idaho.
For more information on where to look for them, take a look at Thurow et al. 2007. It includes a few maps that might give you some ideas for your next trip.
There may be more information on these fish in the forums, trip reports, and other posts. Click here.
Oncorhynchus mykiss
Oncorhynchus mykiss gairdneri
