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[Jk47]

Thought some of you might like to see this two headed Chinook currently residing at my local hatchery. While they have seen these two headed mutations before, usually the lesser dominant head will be underdeveloped and often end up falling off during growth, or the entire fish will die prematurely, but in this case both heads have seemingly functional eyes, mouth and gills! Both heads seem to be actually FEEDING! This amazes me! Imagine catching this guy in a couple of years!!

[Dave]

Pretty common actually but the chances of reaching maturity are slim to none. ... any pics of albinos?  They were far more common and I know a hatchery guy who saved and reared a few hundred sockeye albinos about 20 years ago.  No idea what he did with them though.

[Jk47]

Haven't seen any albinos. Sure you don't mean "whitefish"? 

[Dave]

No, I meant albino salmon.   Pretty common in hatchery coho as well but I reared and saw far more albino sockeye than other species.

Hatcheries can produce some interesting fish if the culturalist has the space, water, and inclination ... I reared coho, normally a 3 year to maturity fish, for 7 years.  The trick to keeping them alive that long was manipulating diet and photoperiod.  Gotta say they were gumboot ugly, about 8" long, and deformed as hell, when I ended the experiment.

[Jk47]

I was joking, I actually caught an albino Coho years ago. But my god, 7 years and they only grew 8 inches??

[Dave]

I was joking, I actually caught an albino Coho years ago. But my god, 7 years and they only grew 8 inches??

They were in a trough 16' long, 12" wide and 10" deep.  Water temperature varied between 4 and 6°C and, here's the secret ... the trough was covered (no light) for 14 of the 16'.  Fish were fed a very minimum basic maintenance diet.
I think I started with about 100 fish left over from some bioassays we were doing at the time, 6 years later I had about 40 left.  Really, the only reason I stopped this experiment was my job changed and I did not have the time to look after these guys ... so I buried them.  Before that though, I offered these fish to the leading DFO fish physiologist of the day, who had no interest in studying them. I thought for sure they would spark some interest.

I still wonder how long some would have survived ...

[John Revolver]

[RalphH]

Years ago I caught by hand, a pair of conjoined twin chum fry. It was when there were large groups of fry heading downstream and I noticed a twisting, flashing fry close to shore and picked it up to discover it was these twins. They were joined along the abdomen .To me it was amazing that they made it as far downstream as they had - without being eaten as they could hardly swim in a straight line.

Once I also saw quite a number of chum fry in the holding ponds at the Chehalis hatchery. They stood out like a sore thumb so there may not have been as many as it seemed.

[Jk47]

 

I've heard stories of people catching two headed fish and other odd deformities in the Columbia River around Trail as a result of the Cominco mine dumping toxins into the river but they're just stories, don't know for sure.

[dave c]

I can see it now.  Fisherman1 on the north side of the river has his float go down, solid hookset fight is on, fisherman2 on the south side of the river, float down solid hookset fight is on.......same fish.  LOL

[dave c]

I can see it now.  Fisherman1 on the north side of the river has his float go down, solid hookset fight is on, fisherman2 on the south side of the river, float down solid hookset fight is on.......same fish.  LOL

I guess the guy with 50lb braid wins.

[Jk47]

Just another day on the Vedder 😜

[skaha]

--have seen a fair number of these in kokanee hatchery as well... usually only live a few months...haven't seen any as distinct as in the picture.