I know a lot of you guys target trout, and frequent the LMF. Ive gone up there 2-5 times a year for the last 7 years. Started out just for trout and have migrated to canoeing and bass fishing.

Anyway, I know most of you have either seen, caught or seen an albino trout caught. So that leads me to my real question...

Are those mysterious whitish/golden trout albino rainbows or are they golden rainbow trout. Ive done some research as best I can and everything Ive come across says albinos in animals and humans do not necessarily have red/pink eyes. So from a fly fishers perspective, what do you guys call em? And for reference here is one i caught 5 or 6 years ago when i was in high school and for your pleasure here is my PB rainbow trout ...

I think it is a golden

I have talked to the hatchery guys on a few occasions. There are usually a few gold colored rainbows in each stocking. They are simply a color variant of plain old Oncorhynchus mykiss

Here's an article I dredged up with the Googles
http://fishandboat.com/images/pages/qa/fish/trout_golden.htm

They are albino. Golden trout are variation of rainbows. IE-Oregon's red band rainbows, or the many variations of cutthroats are all cutthroats.
I have heard that some hatcheries use them to count trout, not sure it is accurate though. One of the albinos equals so many pounds of fish. So if each albino means it equals 100 pounds of trout then a tank with 5 albinos has 500 pounds of trout in it. It would be easier on the drivers if that is the case.

EJ

It's called a Palamino rainbow trout. People call them goldens, which is a misnomer, since true golden trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss aguabonita) are an entirely separate subspecies of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). Palamino rainbows are technically not albinos, but just a color variation of a rainbow trout, hence the non-pink eye.

If I recall correctly, lots of hatcheries use these fish as "markers" of a sort, since they're easy to spot, to know how many fish are in a particular stocking cell.

Hope that helps.

Pretty much what TFG and RRHYNE said - A color variation on onchoryncus Mykiss. Golden Trout are a subspecies found mostly in remote mountain lakes in CA, NV, OR. I can't add pics for whatever reason, but I have caught a few in LMF (like the pic above). Cool fish.