Rainbow Trout (3″ figure by Replica Toy Fish)

Back with another figure in the Replica Toy Fish Salmon and Trout releases, this time a very familiar species, the rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss. More properly, based on the colouration and the North American focus of the company, this is likely meant to be one of the many subspecies of rainbow trout. The company was never great at identifying exact subspecies/species though, so it is mostly a very educated guess, but there are two general groups that are most likely, and a reasonable guess can be made from the design (we’ll see a different subspecies after this that’s more distinctly identified).

As with the preceding brook trout review, we are dealing with a fish species that has already been reviewed on the blog, so I don’t need to go too deeply into it. But I can go into the North American rainbow trout, and what we’d expect from there. As with most trout, they are predators in clear, flowing streams, as well as anadromous populations when they can reach coastal areas. Rainbow trout have also been introduced…seemingly everywhere…as a very popular fish with anglers, often excluding native trout species (including different rainbow trout subspecies!)

There are two subgroups within the species that would likely be chosen from. The first is the redband trout subspecies-group of Oncorhynchus mykiss (O. m. gairdneri plus O. m. stonei and O. m. newberrii) which are generally found in the Columbia river and associated areas in the northwest continental USA. They are typified by a very distinct, red stripe down the lateral line and par marks (light vertical bars) along the sides. Their usual size is up to 25cm (10 inches) long, so kind of smaller than most rainbow trout subspecies. Honestly, probably not this one.

The other major form of rainbow trout is the coastal rainbow trout, O. m. irideus (and an isolated variant O. m. irideus var beardsleei). The coastal rainbow trout are found in Pacific tributaries from the Aleutian islands south to California. They have a light pinkish or reddish highlight along the middle of the body and only spots, no par marks; in terms of length, coastal rainbows get to about 40cm – 50cm (16 – 20 inches long). Anadromous forms referred to as steelhead are sea-going populations of O. m. irideus and O. m. gairdneri and in general are larger, usually with little or no pink hue on the sides. The colours of this model are very suggestive of a coastal rainbow trout, which is what I will work from (outside chance of a steelhead…)

It’s honestly difficult to describe the trout figures without basically saying the same thing for all of them…like the previous revised brook trout, this figure has the improved pelvic fins with fins radiating from a point on the body, and the other fins are also well sculpted. The pectorals, as is almost universal, are sculpted against the body. The dorsal fin has the free tip which is a nice touch, the adipose fin is properly small and rounded, and the anal fin is quite large. The tail fin is emarginate, with a slight indent that I honestly don’t know if it should be present. The overall body proportion is sleek and fusiform, with a slightly elongate, rounded head. The overall length of the figure is 7.8cm (3.1 inches) so about 1:6 scale for a big coastal, or 1:10 if used as a larger steelhead.

The overall paint job is quite nice, although not perfectly applied–this was a major issue with this entire last series from Replica Toy Fishes. But they did a serviceable job. The main body and back are a very light olive, extending onto the whole of the tail. There is a thick, light pink band along the lateral line extending from the cheek to the anterior margin of the anal fin; this is the characteristic leading me to treat the figure as a coastal rainbow trout. The belly has been left white. The entirety of the sides are speckled with tiny black dots, extending into the dorsal and tail fins. The ventral fins are unspotted with some being given a light green wash, and the pectorals left unpainted. The one eye that is painted is yellow with an off-centre black pupil. In general, to look at this figure, you’d know it’s a rainbow trout.

It is curious to me that it took this long to get a rainbow trout; other than the Yujin figure I’d discussed, and a small figure from NewRay (which might be a redband) this familiar and common species is not tackled as a toy model very often. It does show up in pretty much any other art medium though…but that’s not of interest here! Either way, it was great to see it make an appearance with the Replica Toy Fish line, even if it was short-lived, and I’m hoping that another company takes it on someday. At least there is at least one other Oncorhynchus mykiss figure to go, and we’ll get to that next time!