Coho
went lake fishing today and caught 2 coho. 1.5 and 2lbs apiece. are they considerd kokanee to be bonked or coho to be released.our local hatchery has net pens on this lake so they are probabley escapees.

wayne, what lake were you fishing? A kokanee is considered to be a landlock sockeye and not a coho.

oconner lake. i am sure iread somewhere that kokanee can be any kind of landlocked salmon. this lake isnt landlocked and they were way to big to be smolts.

Kokanee are landlocked Sockeye. that being said they are sometimes found in lakes that do have access to the sea,Lillooet Lake being a good example.

Coho do sometimes residualize in the lake just like the kokanee. You can catch them in Kawkawa Lk, everybody mistakes them for trout.

Steve, I've heard of similar cases in some lakes up and around the powell river area. I went to Spout lake last May up in the Cariboo Chilcotin and one of my buddies got a kokanee that had black spots. It wasn't a rainbow because the meat was blood red (like a sockeyes/Kokanee's) and it didnt have a pink lateral line or pink tinge on the gills that the rainbows that we caught had. It had to have been a coho, although I know this lake has no access to any watershed feeding into the ocean and also, I'm sure the trout hatcheries do not purposely stock them, so I'm lead to believe that its a Hybrid between a rainbow and a Kokanee Salmon. Any comments? Scott

Scott you are so full of BS it's almost funny! a cross between Oncorhynchus Nerka and Oncorhychus Mykiss? LOL!! you really should be in showbiz kid!!!

Rod, I'm just going by what I see. All the rainbows we got there had a peachy type meat. This fish had a dark deep red meat (which a Sockeye/Kokanee has), but it had spots like how a Rainbow should. It looked a lot like a steelhead or a Coho, but it had deep red meat as I just said. I didn't say it was, but judging from my knowledge of fish species, that is the only conclusion I could honestly make. I'm just looking for answers, and I hope the more expierience anglers/people with knowledge on this board could maybe clarify it. Got anything better to do?

"It looked a lot like a steelhead or a Coho"?!? Do these species of fish look similar to you, Scott? Without having seen this fish for myself, I cannot speculate on the type but I can agree with Rod's comments on your piscatorial knowledge. Hey Wayne, coho salmon and steelhead smolts may remain in freshwater if there is an adequate food supply in the lake, which I would guess in Oconner would be provided by excess food from the fish pens. Salmon regularly remain in freshwater when they are raised to large smolt sizes. It used to be a problem when large steelhead smolts were released only to become year-round residents in the streams.

Rudiger, Chrome Coho and Chrome steelhead are very tough to differentiate. I didn't take note of the tail (which will have either half spots or full spottning, square steelhead tail or v Salmon tail), but I do know that it appeared to be a Kokanee with Spots. In fact Chrome coho and Chrome steelhead are so tough to differentiate, tht when there was a commerical fishery for coho, they often bagged steelhead because they couldn't tell the difference sometimes, and they canned them and sold them as Coho. FACT! Rudiger, how they solve the problem of steelhead smolts residulizing is they release them lower down in the river near the estuary. Therefore they will almost certainly make their way into the ocean. At least on coastal watersheds they do that. On the trib streams of the Fraser,i have no clue how they solve the problem of Steelhead residulizing. They probably just release them sooner. Comments?? Scott

hint Scott-when does O.Mykiss spawn and when does O.Nerka spawn? when do they get together for a little 'cuddle'?Hmmmm?

Rod, Like I said, thats the only conclusion I can make. Also, is it jsut common knowledge that all coho and all rainbows spawn at different times in this province, because I'm sure I can find several distinct Coho runs that spawn at the same time as summer run steelhead and several coho runs that spawn at the same time as winter steelhead. I said from my knowledge, its the only conclusion I can make and that maybe someone from this board can inform me if they have more knowledge than me, of Kokanee with Coho spotting. My hypothesis is nothing but merely a hypothesis from my Knowledge. Thats all I can make. Maybe someoen with MORE knowledge (You obviously don't have it) can set me straight or inform me of similar expieriences of Kokanee with Spots, or maybe rainbows with blood red meat, or who knows? Thats all I'm looking for, plain and simple.

Scott, If you divorce thought from action, take the sum and divide it into productive reasoning then I think your answer would be clear and simple. Prof.

A lake or two in the cariboo region have been stocked with coho - to help control local populations of shiners and other course fish. Flesh colour is not a good indicator of species. Kokanee never have spots. Rainbows can't hybridize with sockeye.

Ralph, so basically you're saying it was a rainbow? I guess thats a fair thing to say, only all the rainbows we had bonked were of a quite different meat, and they all that pink tinge. This fish didn't have the pink lateral line/tinge at all, but my friend kept insisting it was a Kokanee despite the fish having Coho type spotting (again, I didn't notice the tail though). I dont know too much about the shiner population but I do know there is a fair population of Squawfish in this lake, only the way you picked them up was fishing the reed beds and around the edges of the lake most of the time. The one thing I learned, thanks to a friends fish finder, was that on the lake bottom there were several drop offs and that the fish would hold in these drop offs. Almost everytime we brought a subtlely jigged (and trolled leach pattern) the fish would hammer it if it was just above the drop off and they could see it. Maybe the Nymph activity is more abundant in the deeper sections of the lake? There were a lot of mid day hatches going on, so I dont know if the fish were hiding from the warmer weather. The ice came off only 2 weeks before. Oh well, I have a lot to learn about lake fishing. Scott

anyways those fish were some of the best i ever ate.

You had better watch it Wayne. Scott will give us the snorkel count on those babies and then cut loose.

well Scott you just might be right-imagine this,a dark sultry Cariboo nite,a bored rainbow female,casually taking the water in a quiet corner of the lake meets a virile early arrival Sockeye,a casual conversation leads to a more 'intimate' setting,the lovers fall together-biology be d***ed they say-and nature takes it's course. in due time beautiful healthy children result,only to be cut down in their youth by a cunning voracious human,their flesh used to sate his voracious appetite. sad but there you have it,humankind once again wreaking havoc upon the world,or is it just nature taking it's normal course? stay tuned for the next installment of............ As The Fish Swims!

Whew. Rod has invented a whole new genre of outdoor writing ... "Angling Erotica". Sure beats the obligatory "fishing humour" column on the back page of all the outdoor magazines.

Diet has a big bearing on flesh color. Maybe it was a cut-bow.

Upper Dean has cut-bows. There good fishing but I think it's C&R

Hey fishy, do you fish the Dean?

Not for a long time. I use to work for a guide outfitter out that way. Mostly hunting thought,the fishing I did was pretty well on my own time. Do you fish the area?

Barry's right, it could have even just been a 'bow. Different kinds of 'bows have different kinds of diets, and as a result different colours of meat. I think it's that predatory 'bows have orangey meat and 'bows that feed on insects have red,(maybe vise versa, can't remember)and in rivers 'bows tend to have a lighter coloured meat. Maybe there's more than one kind of 'bow stocked in that lake.

No, I haven't fished there yet however my fishing partner was one of the river guardians on the Dean last year and will be in charge of this years new guardians. I'll get there sooner or later though. It's just to sweet a place not to try and get there. Jesse, I believe a diet that contains the algae spiralina will give the flesh of fish a deep red color. That or also a diet of shrimp will deepen the redness of the flesh. I don't know if that lake contains either of those, but both would have an effect

Hmmm ... I wonder what a diet of pepperoni pizza and beer produces (in terms of flesh colour, I mean) ?

Bobber, I do believe that would fall under your zitty shades. I would pay good money to watch you dine and then put neoprenes on and go fish the middle of Sheridan in your tube. Can you say float tube wake? Prof.

Well I know what effect a diet of wood chips has on a fish. About ten years ago I was fishing near Castlegar right beside the pulp mill and caught about a four pound rainbow. Sickest fish I've ever seen, it had bubbles all over its head, never touched it just pulled the hook out in the water. Classic example of the government thinking about money in their pocket.... not the stream or habitat that's being destroyed

welfare is always an option. This has been the most amusing set of posts I've seen in a while. Keep up the good work. Commercial captains confusing steelhead for coho? LOL.

Flesh coloration is usually a result of health, genetics, food consumption, lipid/fat content, maturation (pre/post spawn), and a variety of other factors. If it tasted good and your here to talk about it, no worries.

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