How Old is That Fish?, Great Lakes Angler Magazine Article

[sdcaller]

Good read.

Here is the link"

https://www.glangler.com/blogs/articles/how...mike-schoonveld

SDC

[Disco]

Good article. I talk to many guides who all talk about hooking and boating mature fish. Reality is we have no idea what fish is mature or not unless it has started to stage and colour up.

I remember a study that was done for Credit River Steelhead and they had first run maiden Steelhead that were various sizes up to 28”. Meanwhile you can have repeat spawners under 24” long. Just goes to show fish are just like people. We come in all shapes and sizes and age has nothing to do with it.

I was interested in the three year old comment from the science point of view. I have read that some salmon can spend up to 4 years in the lake before running to spawn. I did hear it’s not common but can happen and usually those fish are very large. I wonder how much truth there is to the 4 year Salmon?

[MarkDv]

Yes, very interesting.
I was really surprised to find out that salmon is not growing equally throughout the year but mostly during the summer time and kind of hibernating or slowing down in winter.
Salmons are coldwater species and I expected they would feel comfortable during winter temperatures and feed normally.
I would like to see real scientific data on this, at least to be sure. Or if I knew that fish in warm water (for example, in the tropics) do not have these rings on their scales.
As for the question ‘I wonder how much truth there is to the 4 year Salmon?’... Even though I have no idea about that I could guess there should be some because I know that nature is full of exceptions and for sure that there are some salmon which - for one reason or another - missed normal spawning season.
However, how big is that fish is a different story… It does not necessarily have to be bigger than three years old ones.