This picture would make a great fishing story, but the truth is that this enormous Chinook salmon was found dead in Battle Creek, California.
Biologist Doug Killam made the find while conducting a survey of spawned-out fall-run salmon on lower Battle Creek near the Northern California town of Red Bluff. (Salmon die after they spawn.)
"I have counted tens of thousands of salmon during my career, and this is the biggest I have ever seen," Killam said. "When alive, it could have weighed more than the largest Chinook officially recorded in California, an 88-pound fish caught in the Sacramento River."
Most of the salmon found in these surveys weigh 20 to 30 pounds.
Link -Thanks, Geekazoid!
(image credit: California Department of Fish and Game)
Unfortunately, the ringer ended up dead after mating. Ouch. And the bears got an 88 pound meal. ;)
Chino, however, is in Southern California, nowhere near Salmon spawning areas.
Something about the eye-socket looks...suspicious.
51" long is a big fish, I wonder if the lady-salmon believe that whole thing about if size matters....
I am from Redding! I have seen this fish, and after I saw the fish, the officer picked it up, and they posted the article in the Record Searchlight.
Not EVERYTHING is photoshopped people.
sorry, that's been building up for like a week and a half now.
http://www.redding.com/news/2008/nov/04/07/
An aside: It's nice to know other Redding-ites have an interest in the strange and unusual, Amberae.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/bigphotos/97503725.html
Scary stuff that fish this big live in rivers
And don't you think that counting fish would be the dullest job ever...my uncle did it for a while and loved it so I guess you have to be a real outdoorsy type to handle it