Coho in Nipissing

[Jonny]

Ol' Harv again.

 

This reminded me of Randy from Sturgeon's post about lake trout in Nipissing.

 

Harv dropped by a native friend's place not long ago and the friend said, "Come have a look at this."

 

Harv told me he said, "Holy smokes! That's a coho!" The fish was 13 lbs. Believe me, Harv knows his fish. Among many other things, he's done a lot of fishing at South Baymouth and also ran some charters from there.

 

He says there was also a 25 lb coho caught (by angling) in the Sturgeon River, and that the MNR allows that there are a few in the lake, probably coming up from the French at high water in the spring, like Randy mentioned for the lake trout.

Edited July 18, 2009 by Jocko

[Muskieman]

I had posted a photo of one caught in the Sturgeon River last fall... I cannot seem to find the thread..

One of my buddies caught it at the foot of the dam..If I remember correctly it was around about 10lbs.

I'll keep looking..

 

Randy.

[Spiel]

Have to say I'm skeptical on the coho identity. Chinooks have indeed been documented in Nipissing but I've not heard of any cohos. The source of course is Georgian Bay which I spend a great deal of time fishing salmonoids and cohos are rare, at 25 pounds there nearly non existant.

 

I'm not saying it's impossible but a picture would be worth a thousand words.

[Jonny]

Awesome. I hope you can find it --- I'd sure like to have a look.

 

Same as the lake trout you posted about, I'd never heard of coho in Nipissing. I figured probably others hadn't either.

 

I wonder how suitable coho find the lake environment and whether they will proliferate. Proliferation always seems to be at the expense of some other species.

[Muskieman]

here it is...but I now think it was a Chinook..It was in 2007

Edited July 18, 2009 by Randy from Sturgeon

[Jonny]

cohos are rare, at 25 pounds there nearly non existant.

 

Harv didn't say he saw the supposed 25 lb Sturgeon River coho - only that he had heard a story to that effect.

[Muskieman]

Harv didn't say he saw the supposed 25 lb Sturgeon River coho - only that he had heard a story to that effect.

 

 

I think I know what Harv is talking about... about 15 years ago a guy called Denis caught one at the foot of the dam... It was a 30lb Chinook....made the front page of the "Tribune"..

He was fishing for Walleye with a Rapala at dusk.

 

Randy

[craigdritchie]

here it is...but I now think it was a Chinook..It was in 2007

 

Body shape does suggest chinook rather than coho.

Edited July 18, 2009 by Craig_Ritchie

[Rich]

I used to see smiley face dude out fishing all the time when I was in college. Those late night fishing trips involving extra shrooms on the pizza.. he was always sittin there on shore catching leprechauns and zebras...

[Jonny]

Body shape does suggest chinook rather than coho.

 

I wish Harv had taken a picture of the one he saw. I'll have to ask next time I see him. He just might have. I imagine that someone who has fished for salmon as much as he has would know his fish.

[steelhead hunter]

100% chinny

[aplumma]

Man does smiley face dude get around....He was down here in Virginia a few years back when I was drinking some home made shine.

 

 

Art

Edited July 19, 2009 by aplumma

[curlrap]

That smiley faced guy is my Dad and it was a chinook. I gave Randy that picture, but told him to hide his face because he was on duty when he caught the fish. He is now retired so i don't care about the smiley face anymore!!

[Twocoda]

Yep Chinook all the way ....based on the lack of hooks ill commit to a hen that has been in the river for a few weeks...from the underside of her ill say she was in the process of or just finishing spawning ...not much girth on a fish that dark is also an indicator..regardless not a very pretty fish ..hopefuly it was smokable but im sure fun was had from its capture...

[tambo]

hen chinny, i guess the only coho would come from the american side of huron, or even michigan..........pretty long journey

[Jonny]

I'm not that familiar with either species, only having fished several times for salmon on Lake Superior (Wawa, Michipicoten River). The ones we caught were identified for us as chinook. That was fine with us - they could have called the beauties we caught "Polka Dot Salmon" and we would have been just as happy!

 

I've been doing some research in "Freshwater Fishes of Canada" (Scott and Crossman) and the two species - coho and chinook - are so similar that I think you'd need a much better photograph to identify the difference, especially with the darkened spawning colour. Better yet, you'd have to see the fish itself.

 

Marine (ocean) coho have pale gums, but Great Lakes coho usually have grey to black gums, the same as the chinook. One of the best indicators seems to be the spots on the caudal (tail) fin. In the coho the spots are only on the upper lobe of the tail. On the chinook the spots are on both upper and lower lobes of the tail. At spawning, the males of both species develop a hooked snout and lower jaw, the coho snout just slightly thicker and blunter. (It seems to me you'd almost have to see the two side-by-side to make a meaningful comparison.)

 

This all according to the book, which I gather is one of the bibles, if not THE bible, of Canadian fish identification.

 

--

 

An interesting sidebar on the chinook:

 

"Establishing this voracious fish-eating but non-reproducing species in the fresh waters of New Hampshire led to the interesting suggestion of using it in fresh water for control of coarse fish. The chinooks exterminated smelt from the lake in 3 years and then died out themselves, leaving the lake ready for the re-introduction of native trout."

 

And one on the coho:

 

"Adults will be competitors of other predaceous fishes such as the rainbow and lake trouts. However coho probably feed at depths much shallower than those used by lake trout and are dominated in a competitive situation by rainbow trout; thus they may not adversely affect either of those species, or other highly valued predatory species in the Great Lakes."

[Jonny]

hen chinny, i guess the only coho would come from the american side of huron, or even michigan..........pretty long journey

 

Ontario stocked coho in Erie between 1873 and 1878.

 

Later, the book says coho were stocked by Ontario (1969) but doesn't say where, just "the Great Lakes". Could they have been stocked in Huron?

Edited July 19, 2009 by Jocko

[tambo]

if i'm not mistaken, coho were stocked before chinook in lake o........cronzy had a big part in that.

 

i personally havent' seen any coho in quite a while, although, i do remember hearing of one caught on the notty a few falls back, but that could have been one of the g bay runts mistaken for a coho..........they were really pretty fish, and the roe worked well on the nott.

 

when my parents moved to mississauga almost 30 years ago, my dad said the credit would get a huge run in december, and they were big, averaging over ten pounds. Does anyone have any old pics? Speil, you always had good old pics of you on the tribs

mike

[steelhead hunter]

we had the first good run of ho's in years 2 years ago on lake O more ho's than chinny's

[CLofchik]

we had the first good run of ho's in years 2 years ago on lake O more ho's than chinny's

 

Ho's were stocked for three years in Bronte, Humber & Credit, huge numbers too for the 2007 return 90kish fingerlings stocked in 2004 if I remember right. Eggs from the US and the idea was to get a good return to ramp up stocking into more streams. The damn Atlantics put a kibosh on that, but there's still some small natural runs on Lake O. Good news is the MEA crew at Ringwood are going to start coho stocking again.

 

Don't know exactly when the last ho was stocked in G'Bay but it was a long long while ago, Huron never really got many Ho's on the Canadian side.

 

Oh and that's a jack male chinook.

[4thgen]

Have to say I'm skeptical on the coho identity. Chinooks have indeed been documented in Nipissing but I've not heard of any cohos. The source of course is Georgian Bay which I spend a great deal of time fishing salmonoids and cohos are rare, at 25 pounds there nearly non existant.

 

I'm not saying it's impossible but a picture would be worth a thousand words.

 

I agree. I remember someone caught a chinook ice fishing a few years ago.

 

That picture is of a small male chinook.

 

Having seen both species many times, I would say that it is possible to confuse the two out on the lake if you're inexperienced, but in the river it is nearly impossible. They might sound similar in description but they both fight and look quite different in my opinion.

[Jonny]

Here's an interesting article which bears out what you're saying about the differences being accentuated once the fish are in rivers and shows a good comparison of the tails...

 

http://www.tahoe.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article...0104&Ref=AR

 

Note that according to the info I got from the FFC book, the differences in the lower jaw gum line are NOT a reliable indicator in fresh water salmon.

 

Can you still see the difference in the tail spots even when the fish colour goes dark?

Edited July 19, 2009 by Jocko

[Twocoda]

This last spring during the extended rainbow run....there were several beautiful cohos caught in the Sauble river...average size 8-9 pounds...i personally wasnt fortunate enough but was witness to several caught...even one i wish i never seen caught ..

 

Ill explain...was drifting for bows and noticed right in my wake @ ankle deep was a fish...he sat there for several minutes then moved on to the next fishermans wake...i was having a hard time distinguishing his features ( wrong coloured glasses)...i mentioned to the guy beside me to look down and he gracefully tailed the fish ...it was a beautiful coho...much to my surprise he cracked it on the head ...well there were alot of pissed off fisherman that witnessed this making it so uncomfortable for the fisherman ...he grabbed the fish and left....

 

In 2005 Cohos were in abundance off the kincardine shores....people were mistaking them for bows ...mainly because of the characteristics of the fight ...as opposed to diving hard for the bottom like a chinny they were launching themselves out of the lake several times ...somewhat like scamania...regardless Georgian bay is just up around the bend ...i cant see them not being up in the area by now...

 

 

the frosted tail tips almost made the call for a bull in the pic....but ...have you ever seen a doe with spikes???

Im sticking to hen as stated before based on the info ...none the less im sure it was a good fight for a bit

Edited July 19, 2009 by Twocoda

[aplumma]

Know what the difference between a HO and a COHO is?????

 

 

 

About 25 bucks each.

 

 

Someday I got to talk Speil into taking me salmonoid fishin so I can talk about ho's and thinggies.

 

 

Art