Originally Posted by
sansou
The dirt funk taste you are experiencing is the result of "geosmin tainting". It's my experience that you get it in practically all Socal trout, cause all you can catch around here are stocked trout that have been bred in relatively crap water (meaning high bioload or silty/muddy), and re-ingest crap water in the lake they get stocked in. Hence the reason high altitude clean water lakes result in a "cleaner" tasting trout, even if they too are initially stocked with hatchery fish.
Mushy trout is simply trout that has been bruised, and/or not kept iced immediately after it is dispatched.
If you plan on poaching gutted trout, try liberally rubbing coarse salt or sea salt in the cavity and letting it rest 20 mins. Wipe it off with a paper towel. The salt cures any bacteria, and absorbs moisture and funk. You will find your poached fish will taste better.