I *caught* a really nice rainbow trout yesterday on the south branch raritan (read: a guy next to me gave it because he felt bad for me not catching anything). 19 inches and I would estimate around 2 to 3 pounds. I was really surprised to see stunning red/orange meat, it even resembled the farmed salmon that they dye outrageously red. I was expecting it to be gray/white as I've heard stocked trout usually are. My theory is that they the feed dyes their flesh orange. I've eaten one other stocked trout, much smaller than this giant and the flesh was the slightest light orange. So bigger fish who spend longer in the hatchery would have eaten more of the dyed feed making them more colorful. Or, maybe it was a holdover for maybe one or more multiple years (its fins and in general were pretty clean and not torn up). That's what I would hope but seems a bit unlikely for it to get that colorful especially since I don't think there are many shrimp or crustaceans in the river.
Anyways here are some pictures of it.
https://ibb.co/JxwdKrm
https://ibb.co/KyQmkmV
https://ibb.co/Lr3d4Sm