I caught my first Coho Salmon today and it sure was fun. When cleaning it I noticed it had eggs inside. I thought salmon spawned in the fall. What is happening?

It depends, but sometimes you can catch 'Springer' salmon that develop loose eggs in the Spring.  I'm not sure if they deposit them during this time, but for some reason they can develop eggs.  If they're big enough, I'd scrape off the eggs and tie them into spawn sacs.  Congrats.  Salmon are definitely fun to catch.

9 hours ago, UPSmallie said:

It depends, but sometimes you can catch 'Springer' salmon that develop loose eggs in the Spring.  I'm not sure if they deposit them during this time, but for some reason they can develop eggs.  If they're big enough, I'd scrape off the eggs and tie them into spawn sacs.  Congrats.  Salmon are definitely fun to catch.

they were small eggs so unfortunately I couldn't use them. Thanks for the info. I was pretty happy about catching it.

Spawn is in 6 months. Eggs are starting to develop

9 hours ago, slonezp said:

Spawn is in 6 months. Eggs are starting to develop

Thanks! I'm very new to the Salmon fishing game so there's a lot i don't know.

1 hour ago, Largemouth21 said:

Thanks! I'm very new to the Salmon fishing game so there's a lot i don't know.

It's not just salmon. Ive cleaned fish in the fall that spawn in the spring that had eggs begining to develop. 

Were the eggs loose?  Or in a slab of skein?

4 hours ago, slonezp said:

It's not just salmon. Ive cleaned fish in the fall that spawn in the spring that had eggs begining to develop. 

 

 

Same here. Egg development starts about 6 months before spawn in many species.  

On 4/11/2017 at 1:07 PM, Dwight Hottle said:

 

 

Same here. Egg development starts about 6 months before spawn in many species.  

Yeah. I caught a few perch last fall (around October) that had some eggs

On 4/11/2017 at 9:57 AM, J Francho said:

Were the eggs loose?  Or in a slab of skein?

skein, they were very small eggs

That's normal.  Same with perch with eggs.  Small portions of cured skein can be good bait.

On 4/12/2017 at 0:58 PM, J Francho said:

That's normal.  Same with perch with eggs.  Small portions of cured skein can be good bait.

 

X2- some of the guides out here will cure it for steelhead fishing. Makes nice "dime size" pieces