Hello everyone so I want to talk today about species identification. Many of the Anglers who will be fishing with me on the Kenai River and the Kasilof River this summer also have plans to fish some on there own from shore and I thought I would do a short explanation of fish identification on the Kenai and Kasilof Rivers, hopefully this will help you to avoid keeping a fish that you are not targeting. Okay so first on the list is King Salmon, they are the largest of the Salmon and be sure anything over 20lbs is going to be a King Salmon. However smaller Kings might be confused with other Salmon species, so the easiest way to tell is by looking at the back of the Salmon, all King Salmon will have black spots on the back area and black spots on both the upper and lower lobes of the tail. Also King Salmon will have a black mouth and a black gumline. Next Sockeye Salmon, so Sockeye are much smaller than King Salmon and top out at about 12lbs. Also Sockeye have no black spots a white mouth and a white gumline and a large gold eye. Moving on next we have Silver Salmon,typically larger than Sockeye but smaller than King Salmon, however it is easy to mistake a small King Salmon for a Silver Salmon. So the main difference is Silver Salmon have black spots on the back but only on the upper lobe of the tail will there be spots, also they will have a black mouth but with a white gumline. And finally we have pink Salmon, first they are the smallest of the salmon next they have much smaller scales and they have a hump on the back especially the males but also the females. Pink Salmon will also have black spots on the back and tail but the spots will be more oval in shape and larger, and they will have a white mouth with a black gumline. Okay well that is a quick summary of Salmon species identification for the Kenai and Kasilof Rivers here in Alaska.

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