I feel like a real dummy, but I recently foul-hooked a fish and couldn't figure out what it was. I was hoping the experts on this forum will be able to clue me in.

I hooked the fish in a pod of silvers and chum just above tidewater on a Hood Canal river. It was fair size-- about five pounds, maybe 25 inches long. When I first saw the fish, I thought searun cutt since it was that golden color they get in the salt. The body shape was like a steelhead.

It had a trout tail-- no vee like you'll see in a salmon with no spots on the tail. No red gill slashes, but I've come not to expect those in SRC in the salt.

When I opened its mouth to help ID it, things got strange... it had a white gumline and white tongue, but the tissue on the bottom of the mouth was black.

I thought maybe Atlantic, but I've never seen one of those that wasn't filleted and for sale at Costco. There were no spots on the gill plates, which is supposed to be a point of identification for Atlantics, and besides the spots on the back of the fish were searun/steelhead like.

Was this just a big searun? A late summerrun? A hybrid? An Atlantic? A silver (can't explain the tail and color though)?

Thanks for your help and opinions.

Keith

Was there teath on the tongue?

I didn't specifically check the teeth on the tongue as I was pretty startled by the black in the mouth... but my somewhat fuzzy recollections says they were there..

I bet ya it was a dolly. Some dollys live in the Canal and some of its glacial tribs like the Dosie, Duckabush and Skoke. Its just rare to actually see one.

Some of them are a goldish color this time of year and your description of the mouth sounds like dolly to me.

You mentioned that Dollies turn a golden color. Is that in the Fall or the Spring time and in the salt or the fresh water. As I caught a fish in Boardman Creek many years ago and I thought it was a Brown Trout. It was golden in color with spots on it's back and a mouth full of teeth. And I caught it in June or July. I can't really remember when as it was about 35 years ago. We hiked up the creek for about 4 hours and then fished our way back down. I was a lot younger then and I wish I could do it again just one more time.

Hi folks-- This fish wasn't a dolly or bull trout-- they have light spots on a dark-colored background. This fish had black spots, which also takes it out of the Atlantic camp as well, I believe. In discussion with some other fishermen, the thinking is now that it was either a steelhead, a big searun or a hybrid of the two.

The gold color was what I would expect from a searun in the salt, but the spots didn't continue down the sides past the median line-- it was steelhead looking from there down. It was a nice fish regardless; it's just too bad it didn't take the fly instead of being foul-hooked.

kj-
I have seen pictures of some pretty chrome sea-runs that I would never have thought they were sea-runs.

A couple pics I have run across, the first thing that pops into your head is 'steelie' but upon closer inspection, they are actually sea-runs.