Ok, I give up. What did I catch?
May 13, 2020 15:41:41 #
Bait Fisher 55
Loc: Bellingham, WA
I did say it had been years since I fished last, and when I did it was always warm water fish (I did say I grew up in Iowa).
So I was fishing in Lake Whatcom a couple of days ago and caught (what I take to be a large trout - has teeth), later I got a small perch and a bluegill (all three swallowed the hook, so they're on the stringer). The next was probably a school of something (pic in my hand). After catching and releasing around 15 of them, I figured I needed to move if I was going to keep them off my hook. (of course no bites at all after moving). So what are they?
Help with an ID would be helpful.
Location Lake Whatcom, outside of Bellingham, WA
So I was fishing in Lake Whatcom a couple of days ago and caught (what I take to be a large trout - has teeth), later I got a small perch and a bluegill (all three swallowed the hook, so they're on the stringer). The next was probably a school of something (pic in my hand). After catching and releasing around 15 of them, I figured I needed to move if I was going to keep them off my hook. (of course no bites at all after moving). So what are they?
Help with an ID would be helpful.
Location Lake Whatcom, outside of Bellingham, WA
May 13, 2020 15:55:06 #
Bait Fisher 55 wrote:
I did say it had been years since I fished last, a... (show quote)
Well,,,,,, you got a nice trout there, and a bunch of little shi!, maybe chubs. You should have used some cut bait from the chubs to catch more trout.
May 13, 2020 15:56:41 #
charlykilo
Loc: Garden Valley Ca
If top has a black mouth King salmon
bottom looks like a pike minnow. I think there is a bounty.
bottom looks like a pike minnow. I think there is a bounty.
May 13, 2020 16:45:41 #
That top one sure looks like a silver (coho) salmon, but to be sure look in it's mouth at the bottom gums. Coho's mouth (gums) are kinda grayish. Chinook (king) have black gums. A steelhead, which I don't think that is, has pretty much no color on the gums. Coho are not legal to take ever in California waters. You should check the regs in Washington. This is the time of year to catch em - May thru June usually. That bottom fish is a pikeminnow, used be called squawfish - my granddaughter caught a pretty big one last week.
May 13, 2020 17:04:51 #
Bait Fisher 55
Loc: Bellingham, WA
It doesn't look like a black mouth, and I don't believe that Lake Whatcom is an anadromous fishery.
I looked up the Pike Minnow and the mouth doesn't go back far enough for that. It did list a fish called a peamouth that is easily confused with. The pictures and description looks like a match. PeaMouth Chub.
As for the trout... not a King. They say we have Kokanee, but the pictures of those don't have all the spots that the one I caught does.
I looked up the Pike Minnow and the mouth doesn't go back far enough for that. It did list a fish called a peamouth that is easily confused with. The pictures and description looks like a match. PeaMouth Chub.
As for the trout... not a King. They say we have Kokanee, but the pictures of those don't have all the spots that the one I caught does.
May 13, 2020 17:14:41 #
May 13, 2020 17:28:02 #
Bait Fisher 55
Loc: Bellingham, WA
The marking look more like that of the cutthroat. I would have expected more red around the gills. Can't find any pictures of a cutthroat though that have the teeth on the lips that this one has.
May 13, 2020 19:24:35 #
That mouth looks like a steely, but I've never seen one colored like that - the spots are generally bigger and more distinct. And they generally have that reddish/pinkish band on the lateral line. I still think it's a coho. Did you eat it? What color was the meat? And if that's a Kokanee they must get way bigger up your way than they do down here.
May 13, 2020 20:21:09 #
Bait Fisher 55
Loc: Bellingham, WA
The meat was a light colored creamy pink. Not as tasty as a regular trout.
May 14, 2020 13:16:08 #
In some parts of Washington State and Idaho along parts of the snake there is a bounty for pike minnows. There is another name they use for them and my memory slips me but in places there used to be as much as a five dollar bounty. I've sat at nine mile falls Washington on the Spokane river and caught as many as 75 a day. But I found out about the bounty after I could not catch any more
May 14, 2020 13:22:29 #
Bait Fisher 55
Loc: Bellingham, WA
I think the name you were looking for is Squawfish. The funny thing about the squawfish is that it looks a lot like a walleye when the walleye are smaller. I thought it was really funny when the walleye were first making their way down the Columbia River. I would be fishing in one of the side Interstate made ponds connected to the Columbia River catching Walleye while the people down the shore were catching them, calling out "another squawfish" and throwing them back. I kept mine.
May 14, 2020 13:30:24 #
That is the name I was looking for, I bet I caught thousand or more over the course of one summer. I took pictures, googling them trying to figure out what they were. I caught one and a person was in the presence and told me about the bounty. It's just the way it goes after that one I never caught another. Now that was crazy.
May 14, 2020 14:32:28 #
Bait Fisher 55 wrote:
The meat was a light colored creamy pink. Not as tasty as a regular trout.
I think that was a coho (silver) salmon. My FIl used to catch em out of Lake Michigan and he would smoke em, they turned out pretty tasty that way. Kokanee are land-locked sockeye salmon and their meat is bright neon orange and they are very good eating. King (chinook) salmon meat is orange and it tastes an awful lot like salmon, because that's exactly what it is. And steelhead meat is usually bright pink or orange-ish, and they are also very tasty. And steelhead is just another name for ocean-run rainbow trout.
May 14, 2020 14:40:19 #
Fishinmaniac
Loc: SW Washington
Bait Fisher 55 wrote:
I did say it had been years since I fished last, a... (show quote)
The trout looks like a cutthroat.
The small fish looks like a pea mouth chub.
I’ve attached a picture of a sea run cutthroat that I caught last fall. One way to identify is that they have a lot of spots and a red or orange colored “cut” under the Jaw line. Their fins are also light to dark, orange to red in color.
May 14, 2020 15:56:20 #
Fishing Fool
Loc: redding, ca
Spiritof27 wrote:
That top one sure looks like a silver (coho) salmo... (show quote)
Did they close Oroville to Coho's? We used to catch quite a few out of there as it was open to Coho's year round.
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