Forever Young I BAY 4-7 report

[Mortigan]

Fishing Report

Your Name / Boat Name: Forever Young

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TRIP OVERVIEW

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Date(s):4-7-12

Time on Water:

8:30am - 1pm

Weather/Temp: 36 & clear

Wind Speed/Direction: 7mph nw

Waves: 1-3

Surface Temp: 45.4

Location: Irondequoit Bay & eastbound

LAT/LONG (GPS Cords):

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FISHING RESULTS

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Total Hits: 6

Total Boated: 5

Species Breakdown: 2 browns, 2 steelhead, 1 king

Hot Lure: Walmart special - yellow knockoff daredevil spoon

Trolling Speed: 2.2 - 2.5

Down Speed: unknown

Boat Depth: 8 - 12 fow

Lure Depth: 5

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SUMMARY & FURTHER DETAILS

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We started late and found the lake to be fishable for our 18 ft Starcraft but only just. Charlie ran out the planer boards and had a small brown hit a silver & black stick as he was letting out our first line. Took a king & a brown over the next couple hours on the Walmart spoon before the wind & waves forced us off the lake and into the bay. limited traffic allowed us to run riggers and boards there as well and produced two nice dropback steelhead - one just south of the bridge (eastern side, southbound) & one mid-bay as we swung back around in front of Bay Village. Fun morning - and all for less than 1 gallon of gas in the kicker! Got to wrap up by comparing notes dockside with the guys from Bahtender - glad you stopped to say hello.

[Pike Hunter]

That's a great report. I'm very glad to see pix of steelhead from the bay!

April is the best month to catch bows inside the bay.

Tight lines.

[Cheers]

Nice work! Looks like a small king in the first pic.

[Mortigan]

That's what I thought at first but the tail isn't fully spotted & it has three spots on it's head. Wouldn't that be an atlantic? I'm pretty new at this...

[bill]

Looks like a coho

[BAZOOKAJOE]

I'd say it's a ho

[Mortigan]

You're right - it's a coho. The mouth was black with light colored gums, not an all white mouth.

[Tim Bromund]

nope, that top fish in the first pic an immature king for sure.

Tim

[LongLine]

Yep - little natural

Tom B.

(LongLine)

[Mortigan]

I may just have to settle for being able to pick salmon from trout - lol.

From what I've read this weekend, all-black mouth & gums = chinook, black mouth with white gums = coho, white mouth & gums = atlantic. If that's always true, then it was a coho. The tail spotting seems atypical though - along the upper edge as you'd expect but also along the lower edge. I don't know if mouth coloration or tail spots are rules or just true most of the time.

[LongLine]

I always look at the tail first, then the anal fin, then the mouth. “Black mouth†is misleading as I’ve never known “how black is blackâ€. There are many shades of black from pitch black to charcoal.

This guy’s anal fin is a dead giveaway. The King is the only one with an anal fin like this. It's much longer than it is high.

http://www.seagrant.sunysb.edu/glsportf ... io2012.pdf

Tom B.

(LongLine)

[Mortigan]

That's the reference I started with .

You are absolutely right about the anal fin - but the tail isn't fully spotted. The fish has a coho mouth (black mouth & white gums), a king anal fin, tail spotting that doesn't fit either and three spots on its head like an Atlantic. It's Frankenfish.

Do Coho and Chinook ever crossbreed?

[Mortigan]

I found an old thread that Tim commented on, discussing coho/chinook hybrids. I think that's what it was - and it's dinner tonight. Thanks for the help guys.

Pike Hunter - I grew up on the Webster side & we had a boat at Mayers but never knew you could catch steelhead in the bay. The boat got used more for skiing and then dinner at Jack Daniels (now the Bayside) with the occasional perch for my little sister. We'd hit the piers at Charlotte (where my dad grew up) or head to Sodus when we were looking for something bigger.

[Gill-T]

King

[Tim Bromund]

No I don't think that is a hybrid. That looks like a typical small two year old king. There is always some variation in spotting, but there is enough spotting on both the upper and lower lobes of the tail for me to consider it typical king. The anal fin is totally king. On a chinook/coho hybrid the leading edge of the anal fin is typically noticeably longer than on a pure chinook. Take a look at this photo that someone posted on here last year of what I'm pretty sure is a chinook/coho hybrid. Take a look at the long leading edge of the anal fin and the tail that displays the attributes of both species, the rigid structure on top and bottom that would allow tailing, but totally devoid of spotting with the distinct radial bands that you'd see on a coho.

here is a pic of a nice mature pure coho for comparison.

Tim

[Mortigan]

Def see difference between photos & good to know the tail spots can vary. Thanks for the input Tim; I'll get it eventually.

[Tim Bromund]

no worries, I've been doing this a long time

[Gman315]

Hi Mortigan,

We launched next to you, we're the gray Sea Nymph with the blue canvas. We ended up with 5 browns and one atlantic. We stuck it out in the waves but should have followed you into the bay to try for steelies.

[Mortigan]

Hey, there. Yeah, when we launched the lake was about the max we could handle... and then it got worse and we were two-thirds of the way to Webster Park. Thought Charlie was going to christen his boat bfr we made it back to the bay

I wish we all flew LOU flags so I knew who to strike up a conversation with. Get nervous walking up to a stranger and going "Psst. You on LOU?"

[REELJERKS]

Wow that’s a monster Tim

[Tim Bromund]

Wow that’s a monster Tim

Mark,

if you're talking about the hybrid, I only wish it was ours.

That was a pic someone else posted on here last year that I copied because it was such a good example of what a chin-ho hybrid looks like.

Tim