Let the fun begin!
 

Spots not stripes were the highlight of the day.

Very nice Mike!!

well done!

Could I have kept that for the table?? No cooler anyways, and I was a few hours from home.

Nice catch Mikey

what is it? Can't tell, salmon?

Either that or a giant white perch. Not sure if it was a an Atlantic or a stock?

Any body with more salmon experience?? Noonan

Fun mission little early 4 swimming nice catch mikey
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Were you still in MA? It would be legal to keep except from the Ct River or a tributary, or the Merrimack below the Essex dam. Above the Essex you can only keep salmon that have a yellow tag near the dorsal.

In CT

If you're going to release stripers it only makes sense to release salmon... if it actually was a wild fish it's rare then hen's teeth!

Just like the old episodes of Crank Yankers..."I think they saw your brother floatin down the river."

Never really thought of keeping the fish. I released as soon as I could snap a pic. A bit harder to handle than a striper or blue though. Can't lip it, don't want to man handle it like a blue behind the eyes either. Slippery basstards. Just curious if it is a legal beagle?

Is it fair to point out that Mikeys pictures are consistently terrible? It seems like he intentionally keeps a foggy lens for subterfuge. No offense of course.

i'd say that was a very astute observation....

Your lucky you are bigger and less handsome but with more hair than me. Other wise I would take offense. The blurry is because I am always pulling my phone out of my pocket to take pics of fish. SORRY Christoph!!

I take offense to not only the poor picture resolution, but also the poor grammar used to fire this barb back at Chris.

I am also confused at the Christoph name here...is this some weird kind of special nickname that you guys have?

If you were where I think you might be, it could be an atlantic salmon. I've got them there before and have seen some monsters over 40". I've got them on 7" redfins as bycatch and have taken them on 1" flys sight fishing to them. They hold in certain areas along current breaks. CT and Merrimack and some others have them along with other tribs, some are wild fish. You'll randomly see them jump clear out of the water at times when they are staging. They are around all summer and hold in the same pools and brook mouths year after year. You can get them on waked flys when the water warms up a bit. Mike give me a call if you want more details - done a TON of research on these and put a lot of effort into figuring them out. They are protected, so release them all unless you're in a designated brookstock area where you can take them.

now you done it-lol
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c6.../Christoph.png

My season will not be complete until the Bombas join me for some fishing on the Rosabella.

I'll be out in Welfleet the last week of June when things start to get going good. We just picked up a boat ourselves, a 21 foot Seacraft center console. I'd love to take you up on thast offer.

Very hard to tell by the photo, but I would assume it was a salmon of the broodstock variety that was released in the Naugatuck or Shetucket Rivers late last fall and eventually made its way downstream to where you caught it. If it was indeed wild, that's a very rare catch and should be reported to CT DEEP. Nicely done either way.

Perhaps his camera just had its beer goggles on? :buds:

Does CT clip the adipose fins on their hatchery fish?

To me it seemed the fins were in good condition and not all banged up from the tanks. It definitely could have come from the Naugatuck though. The stock ones I have seen always look a bit fatter in the pics I see. I have very little experience with these fish however, so I guess we will never know.

They definitely lose the excess weight and look more like a bullet once theyre held over for a while. Its like they get in better shape. Fish that have been in the river for a while turn a brownish molted color, searuns just like steelhead are super chrome body with black top when they first arrive, then darken up. There are fish dropping back now too that have wintered over that are called dark/black salmon and are extremely weak from not feeding. That fish looked wicked chrome, so probably just arrived - I've got ones like that in early april that came from the ocean. I know the CT broodstocks in the river make it over the dams with heavy rains and go back to the ocean then return later.

20 feet, Mikey. I'd much rather spend the day with Chris on his boat, though.