Fishing rivers and streams often results in some of the best tasting freshwater fish that can be caught. Trout, salmon, and walleye all live in fast moving rivers and streams in North America, and all are highly sought after for their delicious filets. Fishing for any of these fish requires slightly different techniques, and may even require fishing at different times of the day, or even the year.

If you’re looking to go out to the river and catch dinner, it’s important to know what you’re fishing for, and how you should be fishing for it. In this article, we’ll be going over two of the tastiest fish that can be found in North American freshwater, the walleye and the Chinook salmon.

Walleye Appearance

Walleye are a game fish related to yellow perch. They’re typically gold or olive in color, with 5 or more dark brown or black bands running the length of their body. The belly of a walleye is white, similar to many freshwater fish.

When looking at a walleye from the side, you’ll notice that they have two dorsal fins. The front dorsal fin is spiny, while the rear fin is soft-rayed. They have a slightly forked tail fin. Walleye are thicker near the gills, and taper as you move towards the back of the fish, making them very streamlined.

At the front of the fish is a large mouth, filled with sharp teeth. These teeth are indicative of their predatory nature, as walleye eat fish and invertebrates smaller than them. The eyes of a walleye are cloudy, giving the impression that they may have poor vision. This is the opposite, in fact. The cloudy appearance is actually light reflecting off of a thin layer on the back of the eye of the fish. This thin, reflective membrane allows the fish’s eyes to gather more light, making them a formidable predator in low-light conditions.

Walleye, on average, reach a length of 20 to 24 inches, and weigh anywhere from 3 to 5 pounds. In the wild, walleye live to be around 10 years in age, but specimens that live in colder waters live for up to 20 years and grow slower as a result of the lower temperatures.

Walleye Behavior

As mentioned prior, walleye have eyes that make them formidable predators in the dark. Walleye will take advantage of this, and are primarily nocturnal fish, feeding from sunset to sunrise. Their eyes influence other behaviors, as well, though. Walleye will avoid bright light at all costs, and during the day spend most of their time in deep waters, or water that’s shaded from above.

Walleye are wary predators, requiring optimal conditions to feed on prey. As such, they can be difficult to catch for inexperienced or unfamiliar anglers. Unlike other predatory fish, they don’t strike lures with force, and they seldom strike a lure more than once. This means that anglers need to treat walleye fishing with a certain level of finesse, coaxing the fish out of their hiding spots with appropriate jigging and casting.

These fish are most active in the late spring and the early fall. Walleye spawn in the spring as waters begin to warm up, and once spawning has completed they feed more actively than they do at any other time in the year. When the waters reach temperatures that are too high during the summer, walleye will begin to relax once again. As summer temperatures cool in early fall, the fish will become active once again, feeding heavily to prepare themselves for winter. Once temperatures have fallen in mid to late fall, walleye will begin to become dormant once more, conserving energy until the following spring.

Walleye Range

The majority of North America is walleye habitat, with the fish’s range extending from the northern reaches of the Arctic in Canada all the way south into Georgia and Alabama in the United States. The fish are also present from coast to coast, for the most part, with expansive range in Canada, from Quebec all the way to the Northwest Territories of Canada. Walleye inhabit ponds, lakes, creeks, and rivers across the continent.

Salmon Appearance

Salmon, specifically the Chinook salmon, are some of the most prized sport fish in the parts of North America that they inhabit. The fish have two distinctive looks in terms of coloration, depending upon the environment that they’re living in. In the ocean, Chinook salmon are blue-green on their back with silver and white sides and underbelly. When in freshwater, Chinook salmon change colors. They can be brown, red, or purple in appearance, and males change colors drastically. In both environments the Chinook salmon has black spots running the length of their body.

Chinook salmon have torpedo shaped bodies, indicative of most ocean-dwelling fish. When moving into freshwater to spawn, however, their body composition changes slightly. Males’ upper jaws become hooked, while females maintain a blunt-nose, and their torpedo shape becomes more robust as they begin to produce eggs.

On average, adult Chinook salmon are about 36 inches long and weigh nearly 30 pounds. However, larger fish can reach nearly 5 feet in length and weigh up to 100 pounds or more, though it is uncommon.

Salmon Behavior

Chinook salmon are a migratory fish that are born in freshwater, then migrate to saltwater to live before reaching adulthood, and once more returning to freshwater to spawn. Because these fish are highly migratory, they have adaptable feeding behaviors. In freshwater, juvenile and adult salmon will feed on insects and small crustaceans. Once they’ve reached the ocean, adult salmon will mostly feed on other fish, chasing down schools of baitfish.

Once ocean-dwelling Chinook salmon have reached spawning age, they’ll undergo the migration from saltwater back into freshwater. Here, they’ll travel hundreds, if not thousands of miles back upstream to lay their eggs. Once their eggs are laid, they’ll stay with the nest to defend it until they inevitably die. Chinook spawning happens from September to December annually.

Salmon Range

These fish are primarily found in the Pacific Ocean, and in freshwater rivers and streams of the Pacific Northwest in North America. They can be found as far south as northern California, and their range stretches north into Canada and Alaska. Some of the strongest populations of Chinook salmon are found in Alaska, specifically. Chinook salmon have been introduced outside of their natural habitat as well, and can be found in the Great Lakes, as well as in other parts of the world such as Russia and Japan.

Do Walleye and Salmon Get Confused With One Another?

While both fish are sought after for their meat, as well as the enjoyable experience of reeling one in, it’s unlikely that many anglers would confuse walleye with salmon. Walleye are much smaller, and cannot tolerate even brackish waters. They are primarily nocturnal, as well, with entirely different feeding habits than that of Chinook salmon.

The only real similarity that the two fish have with one another has to do with spawning. Walleye, much like Chinook salmon, will travel back to the spawning grounds that they were born in to lay their eggs. The key difference between their spawning, however, is that walleye spawn annually, where as Chinook salmon spawn only once, and die once they’ve completed their reproductive mission.

Read more about Walleye and the Fish They Get Confused With

Sources

1. nwf.org Walleye
2. Walleye – Freshwater Fish of America
3. 5 Important Facts about Walleye Behavior that Will Make Fishing Them Easier – Wildewood On Lake Savant
4. illustration of a Chinook salmon
5. Chinook Salmon | NOAA Fisheries
6. Chinook Salmon