Char, Arctic nchull

Photo: 

Species:

Location: 
Anchorage, Alaska
Date Caught: 
Thursday, July 19, 2018

Comments

uconn fishhead's picture

Alaska has so many salmonids and ID'ing parr is really challenging (takes an Salmonid expert, which I'm not).  I found the guide below on the Internet.  Based on the descriptions and photos in this guide, I can pretty much (but not certainly) rule out Chinook, Chum, Sockeye, Cutthroat, Rainbow, Dolly Varden and Grayling.  The fish in this photo could possibly be a Coho, Sockeye or Arctic Char.  It looks most like the Coho description, but that's about as far as I can go with the photo given.

Anybody else have some expertise on Salmonid youngins?  Check out the guide:

https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/static/home/library/pdfs/habitat/adfg_hr_id_cards_v1.1.pdf

nchull's picture

This is an arctic char. Arctic char were placed in several anchorage lakes years ago such as the one i was fishing in the main way to tell tge difference between an arctic char and a dolly varden is the slight fork that the arctic char has in his tail. As im sure you know, coho and sockeye salmon are anadromou therefore they could not reproduce in these landlocked lakes. Thanks for the source and i always appreciate help in my ID’s. Heres another source you may like:

https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/static/fishing/pdfs/sport/byarea/interior/publications/arcticchardollyvarden.pdf

uconn fishhead's picture

Sorry. I was just wondering because these animals are so difficult to ID when they're young.

It would be most helpful if everyone was more specific about where they caught their fish.  (For example, we had no idea the Char parr was caught in a lake)

SomewhereDownstream's picture

I'm not a salmonid expert either, but the shape of the tail makes me suspect that the original ID is correct.

SomewhereDownstream

Corey's picture

Technically, we disqualifty all juvenile salmonids entered into species contests because they are impossible to conclusively identify from a photo alone. However, we currently still allow them on the lifelists (I'd rather not, but people seem to want them on their lifelists).

uconn fishhead's picture

I think they're OK, but I acknowlege the problem concerning the contests.  Of course, many juvenile fish are difficult to identify, but it's cool to have photos of them on the site because people are always going to catch them and wonder what they caught (see them here!).

Actually, I've started to include secondary photos of juvenile fish (where I have them) on my lifelist for people's reference.