No scales?

Hi all

Hey when a chinook gets kinda mature and is still in the salt, does he lose or shed his scales? I caught a chinook this weeks and went to blow the scales off with the garden hose and nothing. Raked his skin with my fingernails and did not feel one scale. First time I've ever seen this.

Thanks

Each scale of a salmon or other salmonids is encased in a pocket of skin. After the fish has stopped growing and the fish matures and prepares to spawn that skin thickens and shrinks which surrounds the scale in a tough covering. This provides protection from injuries during the fish's spawning migration and while spawning.

That tough skin covering accounts for the changes that you noticed on that mature fish.

Curt

Thank you!

Mike.