Northwest Fishing Reports

I caught this little bugger at an undisclosed lake last may, just wondering what it is... googled all sorts of salmon/trout fry and am unable to find a perfect match. I was leaning to it being a cutthroat fry, but the eye looks different to me. BTW, this lake has the potential to hold all species of salmon fry; that is the reason I would like ID. Thanks

Tough call without a view of the tail in it's entirety, and even then would likely be able to only narrow it down.

The appearance of the eye probably has more to do with it's diet / nutrition than species.

onmygame

At that size, it is pretty easy to distinguish salmon from trout as the salmon have developed a black or grey coloration in their mouth/gums. Once you have made the determination between trout and salmon, you can use the jaw length, eye color, spotting, etc. to identify the species.

Looks like a trout to me, most likely a rainbow or possible a cutthroat.

Ian Horning wrote:googled all sorts of salmon/trout fry and am unable to find a perfect match. I was leaning to it being a cutthroat fry, but the eye looks different to me. BTW, this lake has the potential to hold all species of salmon fry.

Searching for "fry" probably won't give you a match. It looks well past fry and probably past parr stages. Try searching "smolt" images. Because of the month, it's size and silver color, I think smolt might be what you're looking for. My guess would be steelhead smolt.