What's In a Name?
Chinook salmon: taken from the Chinook Native Americans that were using then as a main food source when they were discovered  

Oncorhynchus (on-co-wren´-cuss) means "hooked snout" in Greek
tshawytscha (shaw´-wits-kah) an old Russian name for this species

How Big Do They Get?
How Long Do They Live?
The size of chinook salmon that anglers catch depends on the time of the year they catch them. Chinook caught in the summer commonly range from 450-650 mm (18-26 in) long and weigh about 1.8 kg (4 lbs.). In the fall, most of the chinook caught are 700-900 mm (28-36 in) and weigh about 4.5-5.4 kg (10-12 lbs). Minnesota's state record for Chinook salmon is 15.1 kg (33 lbs. 4 oz). There are two fish that hold the title. One was caught in the Popular River in Cook County and the other was caught in Lake Superior in St. Louis County. one was 110 cm (44 in) long. Chinook salmon commonly live for 3-5 years. One very unusual fish was aged at 9 years old.

What Eats Them?
Eggs and newly hatched alevins often are eaten by sculpins and probably other small fishes. Young chinooks undoubtedly are eaten by larger salmon and lake trout. Large chinook have very little to fear in the way of predators, except for humans.

How Do They Reproduce?
In Minnesota, most of the chinook salmon that return to the North Shore to spawn are 3-5 years old. Typically they move near shore in mid-September and wait for October rains before they run up the streams. Actual spawning usually occurs in October and sometimes into early November. Just before the spawning season the appearance of the males changes. Their jaws become hook shaped, their bellies turn a darker shade, and their bodies turn a rusty color.As with other salmon, females excavate (scoop out) nests in the gravel bottoms. Each female pairs up with a large dominant male and sometimes a couple of lesser males. They lay side by side, the female lays her eggs, and the males then fertilize them. The female covers the eggs with the gravel she removed for the nest. This is repeated a few more times until the female has deposited all of her eggs. A single female typically lays 2,000-4,000 eggs, depending on her size. The adults die shortly after spawning.

The eggs hatch in the spring and the alevins (free-swimming embryos) spend 2-3 more weeks in the gravel before they swim up and begin to feed. In the west coast streams chinooks remain in the stream for 1 to 2 years before they migrate to the ocean. In North Shore streams, most young chinook migrate to the lake with in a few weeks after swimming up. Chinook reproduction in North Shore streams is extremely low at present.

Conservation and Management
Chinook salmon are an important part of the Lake Superior sport fishery. However, the fall spawning runs began declining in the mid-1980s. By the late 1990s the runs were so small that Department of Natural Resources could not get enough eggs to maintain their rearing program. The Department of Natural Resources is now using eggs from Lake Huron to try to rebuild the fall spawning run. For the past several years though, offshore summer fishing has been awesome!