[Note: This entry can also be viewed as part of Quarterly Update 5.]
blackmouth salmon n Also blackmouth [In ref to the dark mouth and the black gumline of the lower jaw] WA, AK
= chinook salmon n, esp the immature fish.
1887 Cambridge City Tribune (IN) 8 Sept 1/5 AK, In August the Garbosha (humpbacked) begins to run and lasts about five weeks, during which time the Kischutch, or black-mouth, have their season. [DARE Ed: The identification with quisutsch n is erroneous.] 1906 Western Field 9.799 nwWA, I think we’d better take advantage of this good weather and go aboard the sloop for a few days and haul for ‘blackmouth’ salmon near the Quilcene wharf. 1929 Forest & Stream 12.902 nwWA, Anglers of international reputation declare there is found nowhere in the world a bigger or harder fighting game-food fish than the Blackmouth. 1948 Amer. Midland Naturalist 39.286 wWA, Our personal observations in late fall at Point Defiance indicate that visits of killer schools to the fishing grounds have only a local and temporary effect on the feeding of “blackmouth” salmon (immature Oncorhynchus tschawytscha). 1972 Sparano Outdoors Encycl. 352, Chinook Salmon. . . Common Names: . . blackmouth (immature stage). 1998 Walla Walla Union–Bulletin (WA) 4 May 2/2, Hunkered in skiffs in the wind and rain, layered in Polypro and a muffler of mist and fog, winter blackmouth fishermen are as much a signature of Puget Sound as the rain. 2015 in 2016 DARE File—Internet WA, Locating baitfish concentrations is, in fact, a big key to catching winter Blackmouth. These are the hungry teenagers of the salmon world.