sea run brown??

[AndyS]

With salmon the eye is right in line with the end of the jaw bone, on trout the eye is much further forward. It was caught in South Bound Brook, not far from tidal waters.

[Perfect Drift]

what color was the flesh? Pink or grey/white?

[AndyS]

Found this on another site, if I caught it I could have looked at the teeth on the tongue.

[Falcon]

To me if you look at the fins they look beat up...def. not common with a trout in the water that long...I think it's a Brown trout that had a hard life....

Chinook Salmon are black on the inside of there mouth and tongue...
They would be a great fish if ever stocked, in the deep they smoke some line, Bass would run away..

[AndyS]

Salmon were stocked in the Raritan River in 1988

NEW JERSEY'S stocking steelhead trout and chinook salmon in the Raritan River has infuriated the Hudson River Fishermen's Association. John Cronin, the association's riverkeeper, said that the unheralded introduction of what he called exotic species to the Hudson estuary was thoughtless and may harm indigenous species, including the striped bass and shad, that use the estuary in all or portions of their life cycles. Both the chinook, or king, salmon and the steelhead (a migratory strain of rainbow trout)
May 1, 1988

[Lard Almighty]

I would put money on it NOT being a sea-run brown. It just doesn't match up with any I have ever seen or heard of. Probably just a mutant brown.

As for chinook salmon, it's certainly not one of the ones that was stocked in '87 or '88 (or it would be much, much bigger). That means the only way this theory holds water is that there is a spawning population of chinooks in the Raritan. Not impossible, but extremely unlikely.

[AndyS]

......

[muskynut]

Your fish is definitely a brown trout....with only a few spots....tiger trout have white edges on their fins with a tremendous number of vermiculations along their sides. Browns can be very variable...many spots, few spots and almost no spots...but the do have some spots on the upper part of their caudal (tail) fin....so...your fish is definitely a brown....and a male at that seeing the large jaw and developing kype....beautiful catch! Capt. Dave Vollenweider

[ALL SEASONS GUIDE SERVICE]

was speaking with an old timer @ rt 84 bridge in port Jervice ny...great spot btw... and he fishes there regularly for cats, smallies, walleye & all seasonal fish.... last September he said he observed two pods of large fish, seemingly swirling and in some sort of spawn run, he could only come up with some sort of salmon run. this i found extremely interesting and have heard for years of possible Salmon stocking and the ideas were mostly shut down. But perhaps a species test??? could be? maybe some renagade stocking?

[muskynut]

Another give-away that this fish is indeed a brown is its tail....have a good look...it is perfectly square...whereas salmon do not have a square tail....definitely a brown....just one with very few spots...