Tiger Trout?

Hi Everyone,
 
I have read this board for a while and just recently joined.  I was hoping for some help deciding whether this trout I caught in April is a tiger trout.  Originally I thought it was a brown but the more I look at it I question if it was tiger.  It doesn't look a lot like the tiger trout pictures I saw on google, but it also doesn't look like a normal brown trout to me either.  This was almost certainly stocked because I don't think there are any wild trout in the stream (Pine Creek Allegheny County).
 
I've never posted here before so I hope you can see this picture I'm trying to post, took me about half an hour to get it small enough to try to attach.
 
Please let me know what you guys think.
 
Thanks
 
Attachments are not available: Download requirements not met

I've never heard of a Tiger trout before. Are they a hybrid or something?

They also seem to be pretty warm water tolerant. I've caught them in July when rainbows sitting right next to them seem to be gasping for their last breaths of the year in warm streams.

quite a bit of color variation, some look like browns (to me)  i probably have caught them and just thought hmm its a trout must be a brown

I caught two in traverse creek below raccoon lake last week. So they must be stocking a few here and there.

Caught a few over the years that now I believe were tigers. I always just thought they were regular browns with unique patterns. Like I said before, you learn something new everyday.

The one in the OP looks like a fairly standard stocked brown to me

 
They look similar, but brown trout don't have vermiculations. That's the give away.
 
Look at this one, it almost looks like a big water rainbow (other than the vermiculations):
 

This one wasn't too healthy looking.

For reference, here's a few browns, showing "vermiculation" to a greater or lesser degree.
 

 

 

Last one was definitely a wash down stocked fish from Rolling Rock. It still had signs of hatchery wear and tear. I wouldn't have taken it if I thought there was a chance it was a wild fish.
 
Although wild tigers are exceedingly rare, I actually think there's a chance the 3rd to last you mention may very well have been one. I caught it in a stream that believe it or not supports some wild production of brook, brown and rainbow trout, even though it's only stocked with the latter two. The fish and its markings were about as clean as you can get. The most likely answer is that it wasn't wild, but it definitely could have been.
 
The first fish (in the net) came out of the exact same hole two years earlier.
 
 

the original fish is a stocked brown... no question
 

I didn't realize you could now do DNA testing of photographs through computer screens. And to an absolute certainty no less! I'll have to download that program.
 
Biologists should probably get a copy too, since it can be difficult for them to properly ID tigers at times, even with DNA.

That's like saying, "since the manufacture of moonshine is illegal in the U.S., it seems that bottle you found under the still in the mountains of Kentucky marked 'xxx' would be Jack Daniels."
 
Non sequitur.
 
We actually don't know whether the PFBC has completely halted all tiger breeding since they stopped announcing exacts on their stocking program quite a while ago. The only real notice of their stocking of tigers that I have ever even found over the years is that little side note in an FAQ made after the fact that says "this practice was discontinued around 2005." The PFBC has also been known to source fish and fish eggs from outside hatcheries and agencies, so perhaps some tigers came in that way.
 
And beyond the PFBC there are several private clubs that stock tigers (noted a few times in this thread), hatcheries that raise them, and probably limited wild reproduction.
 
Tigers are unable to reproduce, but in the right situation browns and brooks can get together and make magic (documented in several cases, in several locations). And since tigers have the alleles of brown and brook trout they can exhibit the features of either parent species, a combination of the two, or neither.
 
You have pictures in this thread from different sources of tigers from several waters taken well after the PFBC says they stopped stocking tigers. They obviously exist.

Nice Tiger !

2 Tigers, 2 color variations. Caught out of Kooser Run in 2011.