Types of Salmon: 5 Pacific Species and Atlantic Told Apart

Pacific salmon painted under water by Timothy Knepp: three silver fish over a gravel bottom — Illustration: Timothy Knepp, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (public domain)

There are six types of salmon a North American angler can meet: five Pacific salmon (chinook, coho, sockeye, pink and chum) and the Atlantic salmon. There are seven Pacific species in all; the other two, masu and amago, live only in Asia. Fresh from the sea or the lake, all of them look silver, and the gum line and the tail are what tell them apart.

Alaska teaches the five Pacific salmon on one hand. Thumb rhymes with chum. The pointer can poke an eye: sockeye. The middle finger is the biggest: king. The ring finger wears silver: coho. The pinky is pink.

Start here

Coho salmon: the white gum line, the fall runs from Alaska to Lake Ontario, and why the world record came from New York.
King salmon: the black gum line, California’s four runs, the 2026 Kenai closure and the 97 lb 4 oz record.
Steelhead: the sea-run rainbow trout that shares the salmon rivers and is often counted with them.
Water temperature for fishing: where salmon and trout feed, in one chart with 23 other species.

How do you tell the six apart?

Check the mouth first, then the tail. The marks below are the ones on the Alaska and Washington identification cards.

Salmon	Also called	Typical size	Gum line and tail	Spawning colors
Chinook	King, tyee, blackmouth	About 36 in, 30 lb (91 cm, 14 kg)	Black gums; spots on both halves of the tail	Olive brown to maroon
Coho	Silver	24–30 in, 8–12 lb (61–76 cm, 3.6–5.4 kg)	White gums; spots on the upper half only	Dark maroon, dark back
Sockeye	Red; kokanee when landlocked	18–31 in, 4–15 lb (46–79 cm, 1.8–6.8 kg)	White gums, almost no teeth; no tail spots	Bright red body, green head
Pink	Humpy, humpback	20–25 in, 3.5–5 lb (51–64 cm, 1.6–2.3 kg)	Black gums; large oval spots on both halves	Dark back, white belly; male grows a hump
Chum	Dog, keta, calico	24–34 in, 8–15 lb (61–86 cm, 3.6–6.8 kg)	White gums, big teeth; no spots, silver streaks	Calico bars down the sides
Atlantic	Landlocked salmon	28–30 in, 8–12 lb (71–76 cm, 3.6–5.4 kg)	No tail spots; deeply forked tail, slender wrist	Bronze to dark brown

Two salmon have black gums, chinook and pink, and they are the easiest pair to separate: a pink is small and its tail spots are large ovals. Two have no spots on the tail at all, sockeye and chum; the chum has real teeth and the sockeye almost none.

Chinook: the king

The king salmon is the largest salmon: a typical adult is about 3 ft long and 30 lb, and Alaska’s profile lists fish to 58 in (147 cm) and 126 lb (57 kg). Chinook mature anywhere from two to seven years old. They range from Monterey Bay to the Chukchi Sea and through the Great Lakes, where they took hold only after Michigan planted them in 1967.

Coho: the silver

The coho is the three-year salmon of small coastal streams, and the fish that opened the Great Lakes salmon fishery in 1966. It swims in all five Great Lakes today.

Sockeye: the red

Sockeye salmon have almost no teeth, the mark that separates a silver sockeye from a silver chum. A sockeye that never goes to sea is a kokanee, and it rarely passes 14 in (36 cm). Sea-run fish live about five years and run from northwest Alaska to Oregon.

Pink: the humpy

Pink salmon are the smallest and the most punctual. On the Pacific coast every one lives exactly two years, so the fish of odd years and even years in the same stream never meet. In the Great Lakes, where they mature at one to four years, pinks are a Lake Superior and St. Marys River fish.

Chum: the dog

Chum spawn at three to six years old and wear the loudest spawning pattern of the family, the calico bars. Spawning males grow canine-like teeth.

Atlantic: the salmon that can spawn again

The only salmon native to the Atlantic, and the only one of the six that can survive spawning and return to do it again. Fishing for sea-run Atlantic salmon is prohibited in the United States. The last wild runs are in Maine, and that population has been listed as endangered since 2000.

What anglers catch is the landlocked form. Maine has it in more than 300 lakes, and Michigan stocks Atlantic salmon in Lake Huron, the St. Marys River and Torch Lake.

And the steelhead?

A steelhead is a rainbow trout that goes to sea. It belongs to the same genus as the Pacific salmon, runs the same rivers and is counted with them as a Pacific salmonid by NOAA, but unlike them it does not have to die after spawning. The salmon’s other close relatives, rainbow, brown, brook and lake trout, are on the trout hub.

Which salmon are protected?

On the Pacific coast, protection goes by population, not by species. NOAA lists nine chinook populations, four coho, two sockeye and two chum as endangered or threatened, and no pink salmon at all. On many West Coast waters that means a wild fish, with its small adipose fin intact, goes back. Check the rules for the river and the season before you keep any salmon.

How big is the record for each?

Salmon	World record (IGFA)	Angler, year, water
Chinook	97 lb 4 oz (44.11 kg)	Les Anderson, 1985, Kenai River, Alaska
Atlantic	79 lb 2 oz (35.89 kg)	Henrik Henriksen, 1928, Tana River, Norway
Chum	35 lb (15.87 kg)	Todd Johansson, 1995, Edye Pass, British Columbia
Coho	33 lb 4 oz (15.08 kg)	Jerry Lifton, 1989, Salmon River, New York
Sockeye	15 lb 3 oz (6.88 kg)	Stan Roach, 1987, Kenai River, Alaska
Pink	14 lb 13 oz (6.74 kg)	Alexander Minerich, 2001, Monroe, Washington

Two of the six came from one Alaskan river, the Kenai, two years apart. Every other species guide is on the fish species page.

All articles

Coho Salmon: How to Tell a Silver From a King, Size, Runs and Records
Coho salmon: the white gum line that separates a silver from a king, how big they get, when they run from Alaska to the Great Lakes, and the record.
King Salmon (Chinook): Black Gums, Size, Runs and the 97-Pound Record
King salmon, or chinook: the black gums that mark a king, how big they get from Alaska to the Great Lakes, when each run starts, and the 97 lb 4 oz record.
Kokanee Salmon: The Landlocked Sockeye, Season by Season
Kokanee salmon are sockeye that never reach the sea. How to tell one, the 50 °F depth they hold at each season, how to troll for them, and the record.
Pink Salmon: Odd-Year Runs, How to Tell a Humpy, Size and Records
Pink salmon live two years, so Puget Sound gets humpies only in odd years. When they run, how to tell one from a king, how to catch it and the record.
Sockeye Salmon: How to Tell a Red, Where They Run, and the Record
Sockeye salmon: a 4–15 lb red salmon that needs a lake. Tell it from a chum, find the runs from Bristol Bay to Lake Washington, hook one, and the record.

Types of Salmon: The Five Pacific Species and the Atlantic, Told Apart