Fish ID

[supcoop]

A very defiant crew in spite of claimed experience. How about a nail in the coffin regarding the topic at hand? Steelhead spawn timing for the area described is from March to early June. The picture shows a fish that is 1 to 3 days post-mortem and is reported to have been taken on Labor Day. That places that fish well outside of steelhead spawn timing and smack in the middle of prime Chinook spawning time. Enough or do we need to track down the carcass to pull some DNA? Tight lines.

[Teenangler07nwest]

Definitely a king salmon. I ran into this same problem two years ago swinging streamers for cutthroat on the Teanaway river in October. I hooked into a fish much bigger than a 16" cutthroat. After a prolonged battle on my 4 weight fly rod I had a big greenish bronze salmonid heavily spotted over the whole body and black gums. What the hell is a king doing on the Teanaway (near cle elm tributary of the Yakima). Turns out there are small runs of heavily spotted chinook on rivers and streams near cle elm. I hope this clears up this confusion, this fish is not a steelhead as I had initially thought in my experience but is in fact a chinook. P. S. I have had these facts confirmed. Later that same trip we ran into a couple of WDFW workers counting redds. They said these chinook could be spotted in the river spawning. I told them about my encounter and they said yes it was a chinook because the small number of steelhead that return to this area didn't show up intil December

[Teenangler07nwest]

riverhunter in all due respect this is a king the reason it is slender is because of how much energy and body fat it has burned traveling so far up the river. The heavy spotting is just charteristic to the species of chinooks in that area

[riverhunter]

Supcoop. Excellent observation I completely overlooked the fact that he did say Labor Day time frame which in that case puts that fish closer to chinook spawning timeframe. Perhaps I was incorrect the whole time and that is a king given the time frame
Whatever it is let's just hope it was able to spawn and build up a cle elum run!

[Bodofish]

Supcoop. Excellent observation I completely overlooked the fact that he did say Labor Day time frame which in that case puts that fish closer to chinook spawning timeframe. Perhaps I was incorrect the whole time and that is a king given the time frame
Whatever it is let's just hope it was able to spawn and build up a cle elum run!

There's been a run of kings up the Yak for many, many years. They seem to spawn in a bunch of the tribs. I don't believe its supported by any Hatcheries. For that matter Steelhead too. but they run in spring and summer. It's not so much the time even though it's a give away, the anal fins are totally different between Kings and Metal despite the dark color.

[BARCHASER10]

When the fish is dead or at an advanced state of deterioration, it gets harder to tell the difference. One way to tell is the tail fin. On a salmon, any of the 5 species, the front of the tail fin is a bone and you can easily lift the fish be holding it in front of the tail fin. With a Steelie, the front of the tail fin is cartilage and you can squeeze the tail fin together and it is harder to lift the fish by holding it in front of the tail fin. Also with a Chinook, it is the only salmon with black gums.

[riverhunter]

When the fish is dead or at an advanced state of deterioration, it gets harder to tell the difference. One way to tell is the tail fin. On a salmon, any of the 5 species, the front of the tail fin is a bone and you can easily lift the fish be holding it in front of the tail fin. With a Steelie, the front of the tail fin is cartilage and you can squeeze the tail fin together and it is harder to lift the fish by holding it in front of the tail fin. Also with a Chinook, it is the only salmon with black gums.

What kept leading me to believe steelie is the heavily spotted anal fin and the anal fin rays count. Also fish seems to have all white gums but that is hard to determine as the fish is decomposing. Second reason is that it looks as if it has the red stripe along lateral line and rosy cheeks like spawning steelies but again decomposition makes that harder to detect. It could just be road rash lol. The third reason was he stated that several smaller fish were lying near it but those could be jack kings also. Fourth and final reason is the snake like body. At this point it really doesn't matter what that is as by now it is long gone but one thing is certain, that this fish definitely stirred up several opinions what anglers with various experiences and skill.
Tight lines!!

[riverhunter]

A lot of great info either way

[The Quadfather]

Since I started this thread, maybe I could ask that we just put it to sleep.
On a positive note, I will say that I did learn quite a bit of good information about both species.
The whole part about the number of rib... Or whatever those bony structures in fins are called. (That was very good info. at least to me, to keep in mind, in the field.
Thanks for all your input.