Fish I.D.
Arctic Grayling
- Colorful and large dorsal fin.
- Large scales and brown or black spots on body behind the head.
- Black line under their mouth.
- Found in rivers and streams.
- Spawn in May and June in streams (Not lakes and rivers).
- After spawning, grayling returns to lakes and rivers.
- Eggs hatch in 13 to 18 days.
- Eats aquatic invertebrates fish eggs and maybe small fish.
Brook Trout
- Very Colorful.
- Dark green with pale wavy lines.
- Sides are purplish.
- Lower fins have a black stripe behind pale edge.
- Spawn in October, eggs hatch in spring.
- Can spawn when 18 months old.
- Eat aquatic invertebrates and other fish.
Brown Trout
- Are golden brown with large black spots on the back and red spots with pale halos on the sides.
- Are the only trout with both red and black spots.
- The Bow River and Red Deer River in Alberta are good areas for these fish.
- Feed on insects and invertebrates.
- Larger fish are predators of other fish (including young brown trout).
- Usually not active until late afternoon or early in the evening.
Chinook
- Largest of all Pacific Salmon
- In British Columbia, Chinook are called Spring Salmon
- In Washington And Oregon State, they are called Chinook
- They are also known as Blackmouth or King Salmon
- Have black, irregular spotting on back and dorsal fins, and both sides of the tail fin
- Black Gums
- Blue-Green back
- Largest and most - prized game fish
- Lives from 4 - 7 years
- When spawning, the colours of Chinook can be from red to dark, almost black
- Male Chinook are usually deeper in colour, have a "ridgeback" and have a hook nose
- Chinook hatch in fresh water, move out to the ocean, and then return to fresh water to spawn
- Chinook salmon die after spawning
- Small Chinooks that mature after one year in the sea are usually called "Jacks" and they are usually male Chinook
- Chinook do not feed while spawning in freshwater
Chum
- White tip on anal fin
- Looks like a sockeye, but is larger
- Silvery sides
- Tail base is narrow
- Silver in the tail
- Live 3 - 5 years
- Also known as dog salmon or calico salmon
- Metallic-greenish-blue on top of fish
- Small black speckles
- Change colour when getting close to fresh water - get bars of green and purple
- Males develop a hooked snout
- Have very large teeth
- Females get a dark, horizontal band where lateral line is
- Live 3 - 6 years
Coho
- Also called Silvers
- Adults in saltwater are bright silver in colour, with bluish dorsal area
- Have black spots on their backs and upper portion of their bodies
- Have white gums, black tongues
- Tail base is wide
- The collar of the fish (called the cleithrum) is bluish and mottled
- Live 3 - 5 years
- Spawning adults have blackish heads and backs
- Males develop a hooked nose and large teeth
- All fins are usually tinted with orange
Cutthroat
- Named for the bright red/orange streak in the fold under their mouths.
- Native to mountain and foothills streams in Southern Alberta.
- Spawn in spring.
- Like cold water.
Dolly Varden
- May also be known as Bull Trout.
- Have a trout-like body.
- Are slim and long, and have a small head.
- Have light speckles n a dark background.
- Often are brown on their backs and upper bodies and are lighter on their belly.
- They may also have pale pink to orange spots.
- When Dolly Varden spawn, their colour becomes much brighter.
- They have teeth on both jaws and the male Dolly Varden may have a "hooked jaw".
- Dolly Varden may live in both salt and fresh water.
- They spawn for the first time between the ages of three and six years.
- After they spawn for the first time, they spawn every year after that, in the autumn.
- Females make a nest of gravel (Called a redd,) the eggs hatch in the spring and alevins leave the gravel in the late spring.
- Some Dolly Varden migrate to the ocean after living in a lake for a couple of years.
- Sea-run Dolly Varden become blue and silver.
- Lake Dolly Varden are green and white.
Golden Trout
- Olive-green back and red to gold sides and belly.
- Spawn in the spring.
- One of the most colorful of the trout.
- Native to lakes and streams at higher elevations – sierra Nevada in California.
- Can find some in Southwest Alberta.
Halibut
- Live on or near the bottom of the ocean.
- They are the largest flatfish.
- They are carnivorous (Which means they eat meat.)
- They eat almost any animal they can catch (cod, turbot, pollock, rockfish, sablefish, sometimes octopus, crabs and clams.)
- Halibut usually have both of their eyes on their right side.
- Can be really big – the largest record for northern Pacific Halibut is 495 pounds! (Caught near Petersburg, Alaska).
- Are really strong swimmers.
- Are usually dark on their upper side, and lighter on their underside. This helps them to avoid being seen by their prey.
Lake Trout
- Grey fish with irregular white spots.
- Not very colorful.
- Spawn in the fall – their fins near the tail become pale orange.
- Grow slowly – mature are 8 – 10 years.
- Heavy fishing pressure can deplete lake trout populations.
- Feed on shrimp and other invertebrates.
- Larger Lake Trout eat other species of fish.
- Feed near surface of lake when it’s cold.
Lake Whitefish
- Olive green – blue back, silver sides.
- Have a small mouth and a rounded snout, deeply forked tail.
- Spawn in Fall to Winter.
- Are Bottom Feeders – eat crustaceans, snails, insects and other small organisms.
Mountain Whitefish
- Large Scales.
- No Spots.
- Small Mouths, No teeth.
- Bronze/White or Green/White.
- Often Called Rocky Mountain White Fish.
- Move in large schools from pool to pool.
- Spawn in fall, feed in spring.
- Cold Water Fish.
- Spawn in gravel in shallow water (usually October or November).
- No nests are built.
- Eggs hatch in March.
- Eat bottom living aquatic insects, may eat other small fish or fish eggs.
Pink
- Also known as a humpy or humpback
- Big flattened hump develops on the back of males before spawning
- Tiny scales
- Tail heavily marked with big oval spots
- Tail has no silver in it
- Flesh is pink
- In the ocean they have silver bodies and spotted backs
- Smallest Pacific Salmon
- Only live 2 years
Rainbow Trout
- Generally, have small heads and well-developed teeth on the top of their mouth, but no on the bottom, near their tongue.
- Have black spots on the back, side and fins.
- Usually they are silver in colour, and can look pinkish.
- Their tail is forked. (It’s more of a fork when they are young.)
- Have a red stripe along their side, becomes more pronounced during spawning and their bodies go very dark.
- Eat leeches, crustaceans, mollusks and insects.
- Usually spawn in their 3rd or 4th year.
- They enter their spawning streams in the spring to lay their eggs.
- They lay their eggs in gravel nests called redds, that the females build.
- The eggs hatch into alevins after four to seven weeks.
- It can take up to seven days for the alevins to absorb the remaining yolk to develop into fry.
- The fry leave the gravel in the summer, and may move to the lake soon, or may live in the stream they were born in for up to three years.
Sockeye
- Almost toothless
- Lives 4 - 5 years
- Don’t have large black sports like Chinook, Coho and Pink Salmon
- Breeding male Sockeye get a humped back, and long, hooked jaws with lots of sharp teeth
- Both male and female sockeye turn a dark red on their back and sides while they are breeding (Spawning?) They also turn pale green on their head and white on their lower jaw.
- Female sockeye pick spawning sites, and digs a nest using her tail
- Deposits eggs in nest, 1 or more male sockeye swim up beside her and fertilize the eggs
- The female covers the eggs up, using her tail
- The female produces 2,000 - 4,500 eggs
- The eggs hatch in winter
- The young (Alevins) stay in the gravel and survive on the matter that’s in their yolk sacs
- They leave the gravel as fry, and they head off into the oceans
- May spend 1 - 3 years in the fresh water before they go to the sea
- Some populations of sockeye stay in freshwater all their lives. They are called landlocked salmon - Kokanee, and they get to be a smaller size than their relatives who get to the ocean
Steelhead
- Steelhead often resemble Rainbow Trout
- Steelhead eat invertebrates such as crustaceans, insects and may also eat salmon eggs.
- When steelhead are in the ocean, they will eat squid or fish.
- When they come right out of the ocean they are a bright silver colour.
- When they get ready to spawn, they become a dark pink almost red colour around their gills.
- Eventually, they become a dark brown or grey colour.
- Like Rainbow Trout, Steelhead spawn in the spring, in clean gravel.
- Steelhead may be named for the season they return from the ocean to spawn: Summer – run steelhead and winter-run steelhead.
- The summer-run steelhead return first (in the early spring up to late fall.)
- Winter run Steelhead go into the river in the late fall or maybe, the early spring.
WHITE STURGEON - ACIPENSER TRANSMONTANUS
Names: Sturgeon-, diamond sides, in reference to the rows of plates which are roughly diamond shaped. It has been given the name white sturgeon due to the cream colored flesh - the fish's outside coloration is gray. Acipenser is Latin for sturgeon; transmontanus means across mountains.
Size: The white sturgeon is the largest freshwater fish of North America, reportedly growing to 18 feet and to over 1800 pounds. The current sport-caught specimen (taken from Carquinez Straits, California, in 1983) weighed 468 pounds. During this century a 900 plus white sturgeon was caught by an angler using a set line on the Columbia River near The Dalles, Oregon. Depending upon the water and its size restrictions, the average sport caught sturgeon ranges between 3 feet and 8 feet. Before restrictive regulations were set on sturgeon, they were fished for in the Columbia and Snake rivers using mule teams to haul them from the water; some mule teams were reportedly lost during these tugs of war.
Identification: White sturgeon (actually grayish colored) are easily recognized by their elongated, flattened, trowel-like snout, five rows of bony plates running the length of the sides, the ridge of curved spines running down the back and the long forked tail. On the underside of the flattened snout is a suckling mouth with four barbers located in front of it. White sturgeon can be differentiated from the similar looking green sturgeon by the location of the barbers; the white's are locate-d further toward the snout's end than are the green's. Also, the meat color of the white sturgeon is paler colored than the green's, and it is better tasting.
Range: White sturgeon have the distinction of having anadromous populations; landlocked populations; and populations with access routes to the ocean available which do not show any tendency to migrate to it. In the salt water their range is from Ensenada, Baja California, to the Gulf of Alaska. Only the larger rivers of Canada and the United States host spawning runs or have landlocked populations, the most notable being the Fraser River in British Columbia, Sacramento-San Joaquin system, , the Columbia-Willamette system and the Snake River. Smaller sturgeon populations are found in the Klamath, Russian and Trinity rivers in California; in Shasta Reservoir, California; the Rogue River, Coquille River and several other rivers and coastal lakes in Oregon. In addition, white sturgeon were stocked in Lake Havasu in 1967 and 1968 from stock obtained from San Pablo Bay, California. While some dead sturgeon were found downstream from Havasu (probably killed during passage over dams), living fish have not been recorded and it is doubtful whether any success will be achieved through the stocking. Very small lake populations are found in Siltcoos Lake and Ten Mile Lakes on the Oregon Coast, although these are probably strays. A relic population presumably still exists in Blue Lake where diking landlocked them from the Columbia River.
Walleye
- Yellow-Olive Back.
- Brassy. Silvery sides.
- Yellow Spots.
- White underbelly.
- Largest of Perch family – has two distinct fins on its back, first one has spines.
- Found in lakes and Rivers.
- Has large eyes (Hence the name Walleye).
- Spawn in late winter/early spring.
- Feeds on other fish (Yellow perch, lake Whitefish, minnows) and insects.
- Northern Pike is its chief predator.
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