The Lake Trout

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Lake trout
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Image of animal

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General Information;

Type: Fish
Diet: Omnivore
Size: 38.5 in (98.7 cm)
Weight: 46.3 kg (102 lbs)
Conservation status: Not applicable
Scientific Classification: Kingdom: Animalia, Phylum: Chordata, Class: Actinopterygii, Order: Salmoniformes, Family: Salmonidae, Genus: Salvelinus
Size relative to a 6-ft (2-m) man: Not applicable
Lake trout Range


Lake trout is a freshwater char living mainly in lakes in northern North America. Other names for it include mackinaw, lake char (or charr), touladi, togue, and grey trout. In Lake Superior, it can also be variously known as siscowet, paperbelly and lean. The lake trout is prized both as a game fish and as a food fish.
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Physical Features;
The lake trout has the following characteristics:

an elongate, trout-like body with a stout head; a large mouth and a snout which usually protrudes over the lower jaw when the mouth is closed; the overall body colour, including the head, dorsal, adipose and caudal fins, consists of white or yellowish spots on a dark green to grayish background; the underside is white; and sometimes the paired fins are an orange-red colour, especially in northern populations. Plus, Lake trout are the largest of the charrs; the record weighed almost 46.3 kilograms (102 lb) (netted), and 15– to 40-pound fish are not uncommon. The largest caught on a rod and reel was 72 pounds (33 kg), caught in Great Bear Lake.
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Mental Features;
Males are the first to arrive on the breeding grounds, where they can be seen swimming at nearly any hour of the day or night, waiting for females to appear. They tend to spend daylight hours offshore in deeper water, moving shoreward as light levels drop. Once the females arrive, which often coincides with periods of heavy winds, fish begin to congregate in groups, swimming slowly (traveling) over the coarse gravel substrate found along the wind swept lake margin.
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Diet;
The Lake trout's diet consists of the following: Zooplankton, insect larvae, small crustaceans, clams, snails, leeches, several kinds of fish, mice, shrews, and even occasional young birds. When available, lake trout may feed extensively on other fish such as whitefish, grayling, sticklebacks, and sculpins
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Habitat;
The preferred habitat is large, deep, cold-water lakes, although in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut it is also found in shallow tundra lakes and large, deep rivers. Lake trout spawn in the fall but the time varies among lakes and depends on such factors as latitude, weather, and the size and topography of the lake. Spawning most often occurs over a large boulder or rubble lake bottom at depths of less than 12 metres (40 feet) and sometimes as shallow as 30 cm (1 foot) for inland lakes, and at depths less than 360 metres (120 feet) in the Great Lakes.
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Credits (c);

Images:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/luckyporter/5298515960/

Information:
http://individual.utoronto.ca/manuesteve/Laketrout.pdf
http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=laketrout.main
http://stoneflysociety.org/fishinfo/laketrout.htm
http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/regions/central/pub/factsheets-feuilletsinfos-ogla-rglo/laketrout-touladi-eng.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_trout
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