Rainbow with bright orange bellies

[BBH]

Gotta love Hank Paterson..

I fish a hopper dropper with a hopper..thats 3 hoppers..hahaha

Love that Betty White fly..

[Sasha]

I know that Rainbows and Browns cant hybridize

Yeah, I figured you knew that but the OG post was a little confusing to me the way it was worded, sorry.

Anyway, I went through an exhaustive search of my photos and came up with two not-so-great pics of orange bellied rainbows, both from the same creek, which may be the creek you describe.





The 1st photo is a better representation of what I've observed spawning rainbows to look like in small SoCal creeks. The second is certainly not. Also, the colored up bigger bow was caught in September, the smaller in April. I also have observed without a doubt fall spawn rainbows in SoCal, but on a different creek.

So, for me at least, the debate as to whether these are features of spawning rainbows continues. They could be spawning fish, but like Sasha and flocktothewall say, they seem too small/young to be spawners.

Those examples are quite different than what I have seen up here. I didn't want to say it but I thought I had caught a golden based on coloration etc. Funny thing is, I found out through a friend today (well actually yesterday) that they did stock goldens in the drainage that I am talking about back in the 60s and 70s. Who knows though as I have caught very few that have had the coloration in that drainage. I would spend more time there if it wasn't 4ish hours one way from my house.