Best way to tell cold water fish apart

[Reelax]

Thought I would start a thread on species identification....

What is a way to tell a salmon from a brown from a steelhead.

I vote the tail. Tails don't lie.

Square is a brownie.
Spotted is a steelie.
Vee'd is a salmon.

My vote.

[tuckhunts87]

agreed, tho I have seen salmon with a squarish tail I have never seen a brown with a veed tail and never seen either with a spotted tail

[riverrunner]

The sure fire way to tell a salmon from a brown is the vomerine teeth. These are located in the roof of the mouth in the very center. Salmon are arranged in a single row, and are soft to the touch. While brown trout have a two row zig-zag pattern, and are hard to the touch. It's tough when fish get to trophy size because many of the characteristics of the fish kind of blend together. But the vomerine teeth never change. They are closely related with their names being Salmo solar (LLS) and Salmon trutta (BNT). Hope this helps

[raz]

I've always tried to keep the jaw in mind, at least when I'm close enough to the fish.
Sometimes when viewing pictures of others, I pay closer attention to the tail.

[tuckhunts87]

very cool about the teeth

[fishhuntadventure]

very cool about the teeth

Ya. The only way I can remember it though for whatever reason is "Brown Trout" is two words (two rows of teeth) and salmon is one word: one row of teeth. I have the worst time remembering this detail...