Sockeye salmon is a fish that represents the salmon family, to the genus of salmonid living exclusively in the Pacific. This is a very valuable commercial fish species, which is also the object of Amateur and professional fishing.
Fish sockeye salmon has the appearance similar to the appearance of chum salmon. Therefore, they are very often confused. In the first photo you can see what it looks like sockeye, but in the second photo – chum. However, they are very similar to each other?
Sockeye salmon differ from chum salmon by the number of Gill rakers located on the Gill arch. If their chum may not be less than 18 and more than 28, the sockeye salmon they are always more than three dozen. Moreover, adult individuals of this species of fish smaller compared to keta. The maximum length of the fish’s body – not less than 80 inches, and the maximum recorded weight was 7 kilos and 700 grams (average weight ranges from 1.5 to 3.5 pounds). Chum salmon have the same body length can be up to 1 meter and a weight of 17 kilograms or more.
Sockeye salmon is the genus of Pacific salmon: this fish species resides exclusively in the reservoirs belonging to the basin of the Pacific ocean. On the territory of Russia sockeye salmon found in rivers on the Kamchatka Peninsula and on Sakhalin island. A large number of sockeye in the Kamchatka river, its tributaries, and in streams that flow into Bay Lake. Within the American continent this species of fish found in the waters of the Alaskan Peninsula, and also in rivers up to California. In the waters of Asia it is found from the Anadyr river to the island of Hokkaido.
The checkpoint is called also krasnytsia, or red. There are also residential lake form, called kokanee: it is self-reproducing fish. There are also dwarf dwelling form of sockeye salmon, which is found in the lakes of Kamchatka, North America and Japan. At sea it is not slipping, and it spawns simultaneously with the krasnytsya, it is a dwarf species share spawning grounds. Sockeye moves from a passing shape in the living subject, if the lake is enough food for permanent residence in its waters.
Sockeye salmon during the spawning season is changing its usual appearance, acquiring the so-called marriage outfit, a photo of which you can review below. In this form of the sockeye cannot be confused with anyone: the body color becomes bright red. According to one version, this is associated with dietary habits. She’s using food very greasy crustaceans–calanid. In their composition contains a red pigment which colorizes the body of sockeye salmon.
Mature age individuals are generally in 5 or 6 years. During spawning sockeye salmon in shoals up the rivers to the place where she was born. The path to the native places is very difficult to account for the sockeye to crawl over sharp stones on the shoals. These are predators: birds, bears and other animals. They were waiting for the fish in convenient locations and, catching her out of the stocks, immediately eat, as in the photo.
In river sockeye salmon begins in may, the spawning period lasts from 2 to 3 months. Individuals are split into pairs, and then they are looking for a place that is ideal for the construction of the nest: the nest is built has a rounded or oval shape with a recess to 15-30 cm. Only at a depth of eggs is secure as they like to eat birds, bears and other representatives of fish fauna.
Females lay large bright–red eggs in amount 3000-4000 eggs. Then the male pours her milk, and the female buries the nest with sand. Spawned, individuals die and the larvae begin to hatch after 7-8 months after spawning. It is late winter. The fry live in the lake for several years, feeding on zooplankton and benthos.
The sockeye meat is painted in bright red color. It is very prized for its taste and high nutritional value. Sockeye salmon – object fishery. The world’s annual catch is equal to about 150-170 thousand tons and the catch in Russia is 15-30 thousand tons.
