Talking about the Kamchatka Peninsula, we can not say about the Pacific salmon. Kamchatka — the Kingdom of Salmon! Nowhere else in Russia can find so many types of this valuable fish. Chum salmon, Chinook salmon, SIMA, and nerka, coho salmon, rainbow trout… only to see salmon Kamchatka, the Peninsula is certainly worth to get.
Kamchatka the day faded. Over close green ridges of the mountain ranges looming pale purple haze predvechere. A slight mist came from the hollows, and now his baby beard reached below, to the river Fast. The ripples on the water from first flow and downstream of the breeze wrinkled the mirror of the river.
Stand on the shore and repeatedly throw spinning spinning the spinner. Each time the spoon came up empty, and I again and again repeated already passed, with all the fluff throwing metal “Khitrovka” in the flow. The fish did not want “to be deceived”! And some just trolling I don’t cling to the leash, and multi-colored crankbaits, and “overseas” in the form of egg-mold, impregnated with a special scent. Sometimes, hoping for success, I went far into the water on the rocky bottom of the river as possible to my “bog”, but all in vain.
But those fish were there, I saw her, heard! Jumping the Arctic char and chum salmon were merely a challenge to me, although I knew that overcoming the shoals of salmon does not to my clever decoy. The time of spawning! And for Pacific salmon is a special time, it’s time the edge of life. After the end of the spawning season will follow the death of the fish. So ordered nature…
On the river Plotnikova, divided into many branches, standing in the warmth of the sun warmed rocky-sandy shore, I long watched the game over frisky flocks of juvenile salmon. It will take time and, as adults, they will go to work up strength in the deep ocean, then to return to the river that gave them life and will forever remain where their forefathers.
Affects the force with which spawning salmon overcome the rapid flow rivers full of rapids. On the river Plotnikova, standing in a stream with a fishing rod, I watched as energetically towards their goal jambs char, chum salmon, pink salmon. The clarity of the water allowed you to see everything that happens on the bottom two feet from the surface. I even felt how strong fish are all on my legs, trying to bypass encountered in the barrier. Sometimes, stopping the salmon under the pressure of the water dumped back, but soon again rushed forward to the cherished goal.
Particularly impressive color chum salmon were clad in red-and-green camouflage, it was unmistakable with flocks char or sockeye, which is still sabaramati. Fanged jaws and a hooked nose did chum some awesome and unusual.
The salmon spawn in Kamchatka rivers is a unique phenomenon. Having seen it once, will remember for a lifetime! In one of the streams at the source of the Ozernaya river, showed me a Creek full of sockeye salmon tightly. July, the beginning of mass spawning of this salmon. In some places the Creek from entered to sockeye bottom could not be seen at all. A continuous carpet of red fish spin, then the next already lost his spawning colors of dead sockeye.
Red spots, with green heads of sockeye salmon to beat each other, sometimes pushing out from the General stream losing power fish, sometimes jumping over each other, breaking the water into fine spray, hurrying to take a place on the spawning grounds. Those who still have the strength to move, tried to pass some distance up the stream, and those who have power ran out, flopped over on his side and barely working gills, frozen. Stream sockeye, clogging the streams, so dense from infested fish that stood in his way seem to be necessarily struck down.
In the definition of the spawning salmon, there is such a thing as “Runed door. This is the time of peak spawning when the salmon firmly “score” streams, creeks flowing into the river. Did the number of salmon on the spawning grounds begins to reach of thousands of individuals.
It should be noted that it is not from the same sockeye salmon acquires a festive look. It comes from the marine waters in the usual outfit, a silver, and because her name is “silver”. On the river bridge the Lake with a fish counting fence was clearly visible, as are shoals of silvery sockeye salmon in Kuril lake. Gently go. It is necessary only to move, to step from foot to foot, or to pull the plug, as once the whole fish flock out of the way. At this time, the males are indistinguishable from females. And only later time to spawn, they get a special Burgundy color. The heads of the sockeye green. The males begins to grow, the upper jaw and like a terrible toothy beak. These irreversible programmed change in the appearance of sockeye salmon will remain with her for the rest of her days.
Nothing can prevent salmon complete circle of life. On the Kamchatka rivers no dams, barrages and they are all spawning. Even the bear claws are not afraid of the salmon. The probability to pass the bear “diner” for salmon “first” time is very slim. Bears grazing in shallow water and know the time of spawning, always on the alert. I had a chance to see on the river Plotnikova salmon with fresh scars from the bear’s claws. A deep, jagged wound, slightly dark pinkish film. It is seen that the wound is serious, and relatively long. But somehow managed to Dodge the big fish from the bear and away from the bear’s teeth. Salmon on stony Kamchatka rivers are easy prey for animals.
But not at once come into fresh water salmon in a hurry to spawn. Settles in the joints, as if deciding what way to choose which stream to go to some shallow water, warmed by the sun, to pester.
The circle of life salmon is determined by nature. Two years the young fish spends in fresh water, and then, for the whole two to four years, goes to sea to work up the strength for a decisive thrust towards a “finish line” of life. If the spawning salmon waiting for the bears, in the sea of enemies have much more. Besides whales and seals, and salmon during this period, still gets into the trawls of fishing vessels.
Determined the nature and timing of spawning salmon each. Sometimes spawning several mixes on the timing, but the bulk of the spawning fish comes at the right time.
In nature to the procreation of the fittest allowed. This is observed in the fish. Knocking on rocky spawning nest, the female salmon takes off in it ripe eggs. Now it is for males. Not everyone will admit it to his treasure! Only large, strong male served his purpose. Then the clutch caviar closes pebbles. The male goes in search of another nest, but the female remains near the final resting. After a while it dies to become food for small organisms, which then feeds the fry. After spawning and the males die.
It would seem that the brutal nature of the salmon, letting go of him a life full of anxieties and dangers, condemning him to death after spawning. But at the same time, because of its ultimate outcome in the circle of life, the salmon releases to a new generation, produced them to light. Death begetting life…
