Massive salmon
This massive salmon carcass was found last week near Anderson, California. It's 4 1/2 feet long and weighed around 85 pounds. Loren Coleman has more on giant salmon over at Cryptomundo.Giant Salmon Photo
This massive salmon carcass was found last week near Anderson, California. It's 4 1/2 feet long and weighed around 85 pounds. Loren Coleman has more on giant salmon over at Cryptomundo.Giant Salmon Photo
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O.M.Y.Gawd It voted Repug. Poor thing.
Also.. this photo is phony.
photoshop.
For starters, a fish that big would weight oe hundred pounds or more. Not one would hold it at arm's length like that.
This is actually a picture of a regular sized salmon and a really small Fish & Game agent.
please, I've eaten larger chinook than that.
it's not a photoshop we just cant see the size of the warden's knuckles.
Stefan @4 may be right. : ) But either way, I don't think the photo is fake. Here's another photo.
He's trying to smile, but the stank is getting the best of him. Reminds of McCain lately.
Man, I had no idea salmon were so g*d damned UGLY.
The scary thing here is that I used to have EXACTLY THEIR JOB with Fish and Game. The second photo looks much more real.
#8 They're like that when they're old and falling apart and using their last resources to reach their spawning ground.
@3 He's not holding it at arm's length. If you look at his legs his right one is forward and he's resting it on that.
I think this one is a better representation of the fish (and a better looking shot).
http://www.flickr.com/photos/danwashburn/3007727152/
The gaff hook doubles as a measuring stick. And as big as they are, you find the fish with your nose. In the insider lingo it's a "creamer survey" when you hack the dead fish in half so you don't count it twice if it washes downstream.
Anybody remember the story about the GM chop shop busted in Australia back in the mid 90s?
Seems an ichthyologist went shopping for dinner. Saw a salmon steak bigger than all hell. "Muscle fibres the size of #2 pencils", iirc.
Wound up busting an illegal fish farm that had been duping growth hormone dna segments and splicing them back into the eggs. I read the salmon were as large as dolphin. Anyhoo, reportedly those fish were bigger than this photoshop 101 lameness we see before us. And a heck of a lot more interesting than bigfoot, the loch ness monster, and assorted puke-y lame-o manufactured mysteries so in vogue in these otherwise genuinely exciting times. Now that's what I call aquaculture! Dunno if it was a hoax or not, but I spit coffee 25 yards when I read it. (hoax!)
It is not uncommon for Salmon to grow that large in Alaska nor was it down south before they were fished out.
Heh.
Salmon.
Anderson.
85 pounds.
Makes a girl think.
@3 It's 85 pounds after decomp. They estimated closer to 90 when it was alive.
I'm with #2. This photo is decidedly fishy.
(I can't believe I'm the first one to go there).
Fltndboat, are you having a bad day?
5000!, nothing looks pretty when it's been submerged and rotting for a while.
I've seen old descriptions of how big the salmon used to get in the Pacific Northwest, and I have no trouble believing in this one. I find the idea of a 90-pound salmon less disturbing than reports I've seen of raccoons weighing in excess of 60 lbs.
SCDevine: Um, really? What were they feeding them -- Miracle-Gro plant food?
I remember reading in Biology class (ack, was it really 24 years ago?) that fish had no inherent limitation on the size they could grow...if they had enough food, they could just keep on growin'.
presuming of course they didn't knock themselves trying to get somewhere to get their ashes hauled...
The guy holding it is a state biologist. I can't see him perpetrating a fraud that would definitely put his job at risk.
poor giant salmon. so delicious and sadly uneaten...
chinook rule! blow up the dams! bring 'em back! long live celilo falls! etc etc
salmon are truly the food of the gods. no wonder sasquatch eat 'em.
"Adult fish range in size from 33 to 36 inches (840 to 910 mm), but may be up to 58 inches (1.47 meters) in length; they average 10 to 50 pounds (4.54 to 22.7 kg), but may reach 130 pounds (59 kg). The current sport caught World Record is 97 pounds 4 ounces (44.1 kg) and was caught in May 1985 by Les Anderson in the Kenai River (Kenai, Alaska). The commercial catch world record is 126 pounds (57 kg) caught near Petersburg, Alaska in a fish trap in 1949.[
now if you want some REAL excitement, trying landing a large halibut in a small boat.
Did that fish eat that giant house cat from a couple of years back?
Real story and real fish. I live in the next city north of Anderson (where the fish was found). Here is a link to the local paper which covered the story:
http://www.redding.com/news/2008/nov/04/07/
Are there any photos of the 60lb raccoons?
It's just a slightly deceiving perspective, but I see no reason to believe the fish is fake. Dead, post-spawned salmon completely reek, so I would hold it out there too.
I went fishing on the Kenai river in Alaska this summer, and caught a 48", 53 lb. king salmon that looks only a little smaller than this guy. My wife got a 44", 48 lb. fish that actually looks a lot bigger in photos because of her smaller frame.
We saw many photos and mounted specimens of salmon in the range of this fish while we were up there, but to my understanding the primary reason that the fish up there (mostly from the Kenai and Kasilof rivers) get so much bigger is that instead of returning to spawn after 2-3 years, like they do in California, Oregon and WA, they often wait for 5-7 years before coming back, resulting in these huge fish. It's presumed to be a genetic thing in those king salmon stocks, so I guess it's entirely possible that a Californian fish could have a genetic mutation (or perhaps some sort of developmental aberration) causing it to behave in a manner more similar to a fish from the Kenai.
All of you calling "fake" don't realize how big king salmon can get.
WATER PIG!
LOL you people saying this is fake crack me up.
I have a picture somewhere of my father in the early 80's wearing (yes, wearing) a salmon head. It was so large that his own head fit inside of its head... he was a little drunk.
Anyways this was about 5 miles from my house. When we have good runs along the Sacramento its not unusual to see salmon in the 3 foot range along the banks after spawning. Its amazing to think that salmon this large used to be a somewhat normal thing.
What's the smallest human a salmon ever caught?
http://www.yoshino.net/delica/images/Salmon_Roe.jpg
I don't know, tak, it's hard to tell the size of a fish without a scale. Those could be giant salmon eggs!
Is there some kind of add-on for Firefox that parses out stupid people claiming fairly common things are Photoshop hoaxes, and which then goes and kicks them in the 'nads?
#30, KennyBoy019:
A relative of mine found a (dead, but fresh) 70lb salmon in Scotland in the early 1980s- he sold it to a local hotel for £70. This wasn't considered outrageously big at the time (though it was considered outrageously lucky).
As Paul Merton said on seeing a fish of similar size: "You wouldn't want one of them trying to swim up your arse."
the chinook butt candiru?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candiru
Montauky
I don't know why all you guys say this is fake. I worked with the Dept of Fisheries here in Northern BC and we got a nice pic here in our office of one that measured out at 136 lbs (alive) caught in our beach seines. Lots more of 70 lbs +. Skeena system has a lot of these fish.
#33 those are not giant salmon eggs they are wrapped in seaweed to eat!