Brown or LL salmon??

[bulletbob]

 Help us out.. this is from a NJ site, and yes NJ has LL salmon in several lakes as well as browns lakers, bows, SMB Muskies, Pike, walleyes, and LOTS of hybrid  Stripers.. Guy caught this one and thought it was a LL, but it looked a lot more like a brown in coloration.. Any thoughts??... bob
 

https://postimg.cc/3kp00vSd

[treerat]

It's looks like a brown to me . Get lots in pa streams .

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[Bassin Bob]

Brown, fall colors

[Lewis863]

Actually it is a landlocked two major keys are the maxillary or back of mouth extends past the rear of the eye on a brown.  This one does not...The adipose fin on top would have orange flecks and be a different shape... color can be affected by diet...so don’t judge the fish by color alone the way he is holding the fish isn’t helpful for another difference but my money is he’s right..

[Lucky13]

I can see red spots on the sides, and more red on the adipose and caudal fins than I would associate with a landlocked, so I'm voting brown.  This is a great example of why ECO's count the rays in the anal fin, and check the roof of the mouth ( I've been with an ECO when he did it to some landlocks we caught in Fourth Lake in the Fulton Chain.)  The way I see it, the mouth does extend behind the eye, also.  

[spoonfed-1]

I am seeing the mouth extend past the back of the eye. Brown.

[Skidplate]

It's definitely a brown fin tuna.

[bandrus1]

Small

[ontherise]

Brown trizzle for shizzle


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[jerktroller]

Hard to tell but I think there are some spots on the adipose fun which says brown trout. I don’t trust the jaw and eye thing. It doesn’t hold true. 

[Roys Boys]

I’d say brown.. landlockeds have more of A V shape tail

[Trouthunter]

It is a brown no question about it

[Sk8man]

Brown Trout. The angle at which it is being held can influence both the tail curvature, thickness of the peduncle area (just n front of the tail) and also the degree to which the mouth jawline extends beyond the rear edge of the eye making the ID a little trickier. The way to tell for sure is to look inside the mouth to the roof of the mouth . There will be only one set of vomerine teeth in a row down the center area for a Landlock but on the Brown there will be 2 sets with a zig zag appearance. The dense spotting on this fish suggests brown in that it extends downward past the midline densely near the stomach. On the Atlantic spotting is usually less dense and usually doesn't extend downward to that degree. The pelvic fin shape is that of a Brown rather than a landlock and there is some  spotting on the adipose which is not present on the landlock. As mentioned specific coloration can relate to being in a stream rather than the lake and diet. Spotting is usually more densely distributed over the body and gill area of browns than landlocks. Younger fish of each species are the ones most often misidentified because the features aren't very exagerrated yet.

Edited January 17, 2019 by Sk8man

[stinger]

A topic like this comes up every now and then. These are lake run browns and salmon to compare.

Three browns on top and three LL's below.

 

3 browns & 3 salmon.bmp

Edited January 17, 2019 by stinger

[bulletbob]

 Thanks Stinger, very nice photo.. Typically, browns and LL salmon are easy enough to tell apart.. However, once in a while you get a LL with more spots and a more bronze sheen than most, or a brown with less spots  and a more silvery look, and there in lies the confusion..... this photo show a very clear contrast... bob

[cmc5028]

Thats a Brown Trout


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[Reel Doc]

That first fish has color just like the browns we caught in the streams in Connecticut back a couple decades.....ok more than a couple decades. 😉.  I wonder about the strong silver look of Finger lakes browns.  Is that typical of most lake browns or just unique here?  

[Sk8man]

Stream browns or lake browns that have been in the stream awhile color up probably for a variety of reasons; diet being one. The lake run Finger Lake browns feed mainly on alewives, smelt, shiners, or fatheads etc. although they will eat other opportunistic items. Fish in the streams pretty much eat whatever they can find such as earthworms, grubs, minnows, snails, clams, insects  and various other food items. If you think about adaptation to the environment it makes sense that the stream fish in the shallower water need to camoflage themselves and perhaps protect from the sunlight so probably there is some mechanism that triggers to color them up to blend in to their surroundings. Some of the lake fish color up pretty good too and they can appear different color wise in the different Finger Lakes too.  There may also be genetic variations in the color changes as well. hard to say how much any one thing contributes because coloration also changes with spawning status as well. The short answer is there are probably a number of reasons for the color differences among the fish.

[suttontroller94]

They are easy to tell apart when they are smaller but I've personally seen so many people say a 7+lbs landlock a brown trout that's when it gets tough

[bulletbob]

Well, It looked like a Brown to me, and most others that responded here, but NJ Fish and Wildlife says it is indeed a LL salmon... bob

[Sk8man]

I guess they are the "experts" but I'm scratching my head

[IrishGoodByes]

LMAO who are the real experts here


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[bulletbob]

 Yeah I was 100% sure it was brown, but the NJ DEC says no.. However,  who knows.. they might think its a salmon if browns were not stocked in the lake where it was caught, but that means nothing.. Different trout/ salmon species get thrown in with the "correct" ones at times.. Several years ago, I found a   freshly stocked dead LL salmon here in Candor in Catatonk creek, that somehow got mixed with the small browns they  stock here.. bob

[Skamaniac]

This fish looks very similar to the browns I caught in the Adirondacks in my younger days. The biggest tip-off for me is the square tail.  The post by Stinger shows the difference in the tails. The coloration and the shape of the adipose fin say brown trout as well. 

[Capt. Lou]

On 1/17/2019 at 8:49 AM, bulletbob said:

 Thanks Stinger, very nice photo.. Typically, browns and LL salmon are easy enough to tell apart.. However, once in a while you get a LL with more spots and a more bronze sheen than most, or a brown with less spots  and a more silvery look, and there in lies the confusion..... this photo show a very clear contrast... bob

The  tails  salmo fork tails !