Nature Table: Brown Trout

The brown trout is a native Irish freshwater fish. It is related to the salmon and there is a sea-going race called the sea trout or white trout.

There are several local variants of the brown trout with names like sonaghan, dollaghan and gillaroo, but they are all races, or sub-species, of the brown trout.

Rainbow trout are also quite widespread in Ireland today, particularly in lakes and ponds, but they are a species native to the mountains of western north America. For more than 100 years they have been introduced to selective waters in Ireland for angling but they almost never breed in this country. Brown trout are found in lakes and rivers but will not tolerate water pollution and require relatively large amounts of oxygen to be dissolved in the water.