Trout are highly variable in color. In streams, they have spots or wavy lines over backgrounds ranging from dark olive to light brown. In large lakes, they are often silvery. Trout also vary a great deal in size. Feeding Trout eat a wide variety of organisms.
Young trout eat small items, such as plankton, crustaceans and insects.
Older trout eat snails, salamanders, frogs, snakes, small mammals and fish, as well as smaller food items. Although trout will not grow to record size in waters where larger prey is not available, they still survive and grow quite well. The ability to live on smaller prey allows them to provide fishing in some waters too small to support other game fish. Spawning Rainbow trout spawn or reproduce in the spring, while New York's other trout spawn in the fall. Like salmon, most trout species build nests, called redds.