Caught a chinny...with a white mouth/gums?

[kemper]

So I hooked me a big chinny today, after losing a battle to a chrom coho and when I landed this fish I Realized it had a white mouth and tongue...which is strange for a chinny, no?

 

What do you guys think?

 

 

Fish is clearly a chinook and not a coho though from this picture...

 

 

Just thought it was strange, all the kings I have ever caught have had the dark mouth

[danbo]

Sometimes, the Hen's wear white Lipstick to attract males..

[CLofchik]

You can't really go by the mouths to differentiate different salmonids, I've caught plenty of chinooks in the fall with whitish gums and plenty of coho's with dark gums. USUALLY the gums are dark on chinooks, but not always. Then again there are some africans with blue eyes & red heads with brown eyes.

 

A more reliable way is the tail, if it is really stiff it's a chinook, if it folds and is hard to tail with a bare hand it's a coho. Also spots are a dead giveaway, coho's won't have nearly the amount of spots a dark king will, if the whole tail & head are well spotted like yours it's a chinook. No matter what the mouth looks like.

 

Actually looking at the fish it could be a fairly common wild hybrid of chinook & coho, a cohnook! They'll have the head & girth of a chinook, but the length of a coho, and really look like they're 10" too short and be really stocky.

 

Either way that nice looking fish was a nice surprise eh?

[ccmtcanada]

Cant help you with the white mouth thing, but great job on landing it

[Greencoachdog]

Actually looking at the fish it could be a fairly common wild hybrid of chinook & coho, a cohnook!

 

Either way that nice looking fish was a nice surprise eh?

 

 

Why wouldn't that hybrid be called a Chinho?

 

... and it is a very good looking fish!!!

 

Good job on landing that thing in such small water Kemp!

[Victor]

Nice fish kemper! I love the first pic. Don't know a thing about the gums neither though

[danbo]

It's just a colour phase not a "Hybrid." They don't inter-breed. Want proof?...

 

The Minnesota Fish and Game Comission wanted to develop a fish that would offer more for their sportsmen.

So they crossed a Coho with a Walleye and called it a Kowal.

It grew to a nice size and reproduced well but it wouldn't bite.

They crossed the Kowal with a Muskie and called it a Kowalski but

it was so stupid they had to teach it how to swim.

Edited August 26, 2008 by danbo

[smbhunter]

Don't really have a great look at the tail, but it looks like a chinook. The gum and mouth discoloration is just a phase issue with genetics, like a silver pike, or the blue coloured walleye. The tail would be a dead giveaway to the species, chinook have spots covering the entire tail and coho only have spots on the upper lobe of the tail.

In terms of hybrids, the only salmon hybrid I know of is a pinook (pink x chinook), which to my knowledge, are all created in hatcheries. I've only seen one of these creatures in person, never caught one, but they are quite distinct in appearance. However, if this hybrid exists, I'm sure it's possible with others, but not with this fish.

 

Good job on the catch.

[kemper]

Cool ideas, thanks for the replies.

 

It definately was a chinook, just thought it was strange about the white mouth.

[yo_guy]

It's a Chinny with out a doubt

[jace]

it's not the whole gums that you look at, it's the gumline around base of the teeth...and yours looks dark to me. Just like how some coho's will have black mouths, but the gumline around the base of the teeth will be white or light.

[LeXXington]

Nice fish all the same , congrats

[StrealHeader]

Like shootin' fish in a barrel.