Unknown Fish

Type: Nontidal
Region: Northern
Location: Conowingo Dam

This fish was caught below the Conowingo Dam on February 20th. I thought it was a brown trout but I'm unsure. It looks similar to a landlocked salmon that we caught in Maine. Please let me know what you think it is.

DNR RESPONSE via Erik Zlokovitz - Fisheries Biologist The crescent or forked shape tail indicates that the fish is an Atlantic Salmon. This is most likely a stray from stocking programs or aquaculture programs along the New England Coast. The book "Fishes of the Chesapeake Bay", by E.O. Murdy, Ray Birdsong, and John "Jack" Musick, indicates that the southernmost natural river for the Atlantic Salmon is the Connecticut River, which flows into Long Island Sound. However, several stray Atlantic Salmon have been caught in the Chesapeake Bay.

In "Fishes of the Gulf of Maine", (1953), Henry B. Bigelow and William C. Schroeder reported that "Occasional salmon that have been taken along the New Jersey coast and off Delaware, may have been the product of attempts to stock the Hudson". Smith (Bull. U. S. Fish. Comm., vol. 14, 1895, p. 99) reported salmon seined among some mackerel off Delaware in 1893.

For more info on the history of salmon in the northeast, see this link: http://www.gma.org/fogm/Salmo_salar.htm