Off the scale: Biologist finds 4ft 88lb salmon in Californian creek

By Caroline Graham, Mail on Sunday LA Correspondent
Updated:

It was just a routine day at work for biologist Doug Killam - until he pulled this whopping 4ft-long salmon out of a Californian creek.

Mr Killam had been conducting a survey of salmon when he came across the monster fish which had died after spawning.

According to his calculations, Mr Killam determined that the live weight of the fish was 88lbs (6stone) and was between five and six years of age.

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Supersized: Mr Killam with the six-stone Chinook salmon

Mr Killam said: 'I have counted tens of thousands of salmon during my career, and this is the biggest I have ever seen.'

The fish was found in Battle Creek, a spawning tributary of the Sacramento River near the town of Red Bluff.

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Tall tale: Mr Killam shows off the 4ft-long fish

The fish is a pacific salmon, which die after spawning, so counting the dead carcasses is a common method to estimate the numbers of salmon spawning in each stream.

However most of the spawned-out salmon found on such counts weigh between 20 and 30 pounds.

Fishy facts

  • The largest Chinook officially recorded in California was an 88-pounder caught in the Sacramento River.
  • The largest Chinook salmon ever landed though was in Petersburg, Alaska in 1949 and weighed 126lbs (nine stone).
  • Chinook salmon are highly valued, due in part to their scarcity relative to other Pacific salmon along most of the Pacific coast.
  • They range from San Francisco Bay to the Bering Strait in Alaska, the arctic waters of Canda and Russia and populations occur in Asia as far south as Japan. The species has also established itself in the waters of the Patagonia in South America, where escaped hatchery fish have colonised rivers and established stable spawning runs.

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