I have always wondered why salmon get such big teeth at spawning time. I saw a chum once with like 2 inch canines...he tried to bite me

That's why they call them "dogs"!!!

Ya, if he tried to bite you then you know why his teeth are big.. <img border="0" alt="[eat]" title="" src="graemlins/eat.gif" />

I believe its for fighting

I seen for the first time last saturday a friend of mine after unbuttoning a chum turn around and this fish sank his teeth in to my buddies waders. He was a bit quicker with the others after that

I am pretty sure the pronounced teeth are for spawning purposes.

Little red riding hood- "What big teeth you have grandma!"

"The better to eat you with!" Replied the big bad chum.

Couldn't help myself Watch out for those chum...

I thought it was so you could floss them easier :p

And to think I was looking for a serious answer! I should have known better. You all are toooo funny

But seriously what purpose would having big teeth be in the spawning phase? Biting other males?

NA NA NA my teeth are bigger than yours.

So they can get a grip.

Mostly just the males get large teeth during the spawning run. The purpose for this is to fight off others who are competing for nesting sites and/or territory.

When they are holding in pools in larger streams, the males will chase and bite eachother which I guess would be a territorial thing. A couple weeks ago on a small stream, I was obseving a somewhat fresh looking male(with teeth of course) and female chum sitting over a redd, and got to see how the teeth are really used. Behind the nest, there were proably 5 other chums (mostly male and moldy looking) sitting in the pool below. Every so often, one of them would swim up to the nest and try to nudge the other male away. This provoked a fight, in which the brighter dominant fish would bite the intruder and chase it back to the end of the pool. While I was wathing this I actually saw the domint fish bite one of the older ones so much it started floating belly up.

Usually If you look at a spawning chum you will notice they will have bite marks and battle scars around thir head. The only other functions for large teeth are to fray fishing line and to scare the guy handling them.

Thanks for the info waker, must have been cool to see the fish doing that.

Male salmon do use them when it comes to spawning battles, but they don't grow bigger as spawning time approaches.

My understanding is that the gums recede as spawning time approaches, and that the teeth that have been there all along are considerably more exposed, especially in male chum salmon.

Fish on...

Todd.