CHINOOK   (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha)

King Salmon, Spring Salmon, Tyee, Frühlingslachs, Königslachs

The chinook, a favourite of sport fisherman, is the largest of British Columbia's five salmon species.  The world record is 57.27 kg. The chinook is a powerfully built fish.  While still feeding in salt water, the chinook has a dark back, with a greenish blue sheen. As it approaches fresh water to spawn, its colour darkens and it develops a reddish hue around the fins and belly. The teeth of adult spawning males become enlarged and the snout develops into a hook.

The major runs of chinook salmon are in the larger rivers of British Columbia, with the Fraser being one of the most important. A large number of runs are also found in the Canadian portion of the Yukon River.

Chinook are frequently dubbed "spring" salmon, because they return to some rivers earlier than the other four species of Pacific salmon. In the Fraser and Columbia rivers, the early run starts in April and continues into May. There may also be a summer run in June and July and another in August and September.

Some river systems have more than one stock of chinook, sometimes with the stocks migrating in spring, summer and fall.  Fish in the early runs usually go farthest upstream, with those in later migrations spawning closer to salt water.

While the majority of chinook salmon head for sea a few months after they emerge from the gravel, some remain in their home stream for one or two years. Chinook returning to spawn vary greatly in age - from two to eight years. In southern areas, three, four and five-year-old chinook are most common, while farther north, five, six and seven-year-olds are more abundant. In the Yukon River, a northern stream, almost all chinook spend their first year in fresh water. Here the females usually return to spawn as six or seven-year-old fish and the males a year younger.

In the sea, chinook feed on large zooplankton, herring, sand lance and many other fish, ranging widely in the ocean and growing rapidly during their last year in salt water. Those spawning after three or four summers of feeding at sea weight from 6.75 to 25 kg. Smaller two or three-year-old male fish returning to spawn are called jacks.