Holland am, 8-22-16

[littleboat]

Fished through channel, pulled one sheephead and a small throwback king just on the outside in 35fow. Proceeded out to 80ft and dropped lines working the area between 80-125. Went 3 for 6 with a nice 8# coho hanging on to my uv green flounder pounder. 3 other releases that spit the hook out. DR was down 99ft, on east troll, 2.6 sog, ball temp 46.8, bk 35, in 115fow. Anything I had that was uv took a hit no matter what the pattern or lure make. Waves were 2-3 feet from the south and se. Gentle rollers. Only saw 3 other boats out at depth. DRs and 270 cu took hits.


 

[reelsmoker]

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[FBD]

Let's settle this once and for all.  Tail dots, loose scales, coloration, whether you can tail it all help, but this is how you tell:

Count the rays in the anal fin.  13-15 coho, 15-17 king.  Push the forward tip of this fin down until it touches the body of the fish.  If the til falls in the forward half of the base of the fin, king.  More than halfway down, coho.

[littleboat]

Anal fin closeup. I count 13-15 (coho) not the 15-17(king). But I  will do the fold  test on the next one. I  think  the more information the better.

[Lured Inn]

That's a king.

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[Martin1950]

That's a good looking "Salmon".  Period!!!!

[jerryriggin]

Everyone of the last 3 "coho"s he has post have been kings. There is no part of any of them that looks like a coho. 

[littleboat]

Everyone of the last 3 "coho"s he has post have been kings. There is no part of any of them that looks like a coho. 

Do you just look at the mouth and ignore the rest of the fish? I did that earlier this season and I was told it was a coho and those catches were no different than what you see today. So I guess I'll just call them fish.

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[jerryriggin]

It's not ignoring the rest they are young kings

[littleboat]

Got it! I'll check on my future catches with the input I have received and try and get them better identified.

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[Lured Inn]

Either way, it's damn good eating. And a damn good catch. And it can't hurt you on your limits so no harm done.

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[jdh]

Often times, I find the coho will appear more like steelhead than kings.  Dark back, but greener than a steelie.  Immature kings often have a purple/blue hue to them.  The dots on the tail are not the best way to distinguish them.  I've found that I can determine if it's a king or not simply on the structure of the tail.  If you can pick up the fish by the tail and it doesn't collapse - its probably a king.  If you try to pick it up by the tail and the tail collapses and slides out of your grasp its not a king.  If it looks salmonish - then its probably a coho if the tail doesn't hold up.

Once you start catching both in the same trip they're much easier to distinguish between them.  I know I've come back to clean fish before with 6 or more steelies in the box only to find out 2 of them are coho when pull them out!