The Chinook salmon is a Pacific Ocean salmon. Chinook Salmon are typically divided into "races" with "spring chinook", "summer chinook", and "fall chinook" being most common. Races are determined by the timing of adult entry into fresh water. A "winter chinook" run is recognized in the Sacramento River.
The Chinook salmon is blue-green on the back and top of the head with silvery sides and white ventral surfaces. It has black spots on its tail and the upper half of its body; its mouth is dark gray. Adult fish average 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 (5 to 25 kg), but may reach 130 pounds (50 kg). The current sport caught World Record is 97 pounds 4 ounces and was caught in May 1985 by Les Anderson in the Kenai River (Kenai, Alaska). The commercial catch world record is 126 pounds caught near Petersburg, Alaska in a fish trap in 1949.
Chinook salmon range from San Francisco Bay in California to north of the Bering Strait in Alaska, and the arctic waters of Canada and Russia (the Chukchi Sea ), including the entire Pacific coast in between. Populations occur in Asia as far south as the islands of Japan. In Russia, they are found in Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands.
The most significant spawning runs are in the Columbia River, Rogue River, and Puget Sound. Within this range there are probably more than 1,000 spawning populations, yet the species is the least abundant salmon in North America.
The Chinook Salmon goes by other names such as king salmon, tyee salmon, Columbia River salmon, black salmon, chub salmon, hook bill salmon, winter.
