Chum salmon fish is a migratory fish of the salmon family. In Russia, in terms of catch volumes, it is only slightly inferior to pink salmon. In 2009, more than 90, 000 tons of this fish were caught by industrial methods alone. Lives in the northern waters of the Pacific Ocean for 3 - 5 years, walking meat and fat, after which it enters rivers and rises to its birthplace, overcoming up to 2000 km, even jumping over rapids and waterfalls several meters high. Scientists have not yet figured out how this fish finds its birthplace. Some believe that she recalls the "smell of home." Others think they remember the taste of the water of the brook in which they hatched from eggs. Still others suggest that it is oriented in a magnetic field.
Chum salmon fish spawns late in the fall and it happens that eggs spawn under the ice of an already frozen river. He doesn’t eat anything in fresh water, but at first he consumes fat from the adipose fin — a skin of fat filled with fat near the tail, and then from the body itself. Before spawning, it is so thin that it is suitable only for fishmeal or canned food. If at the entrance to the river its fat content is from 9 to 11%, then after spawning - less than 0.2 - 0.5%. In addition, the meat in this vital stage in chum salmon becomes flabby. Therefore, it is tasty when caught in the sea or in the coastal parts of rivers at the beginning of the course.
Many representatives of the salmon family have two forms of existence: migratory and residential. For example, sockeye salmon fish forms both a passing form and a living one. Residential formed in isolated lakes and is called Kokani. Steelhead salmon has both passing and residential forms, as well as brook and lake trout.
Chum salmon fish is migratory, because it spends all its life in the sea, and in adulthood it “passes” into rivers for spawning. It belongs to the salmon species of the Pacific Ocean, dying after spawning. Why are they dying? There are several versions. First one. How could she, living in the sea and eating plankton, crustaceans, and small sea fish, feed worms, snails, crayfish, freshwater fish in the river? The second one. Sea fish, having traveled a long way without food, spawning, has no more strength. Therefore, giving offspring, completes the earthly existence. There are other versions, but they are still not proven.
Both the animals and animals, including bears: our brown bears, black Alaskan, and Kodiak giant grizzlies, and Japanese, know about the special properties of red caviar, which is provided by chum salmon and other salmonids, black and brown. Salmon go to spawn in the fall, when the bears for the winter make their supply of fat. Red fish is best for this. Therefore, the bears on the rivers scoop it up, walking in huge numbers.
With an abundance of fish, like real gourmets, they eat caviar and head, and throw the rest on the shore. At the beginning of the 20th century, the famous explorer of the Ussuri Territory V.K. Arsenyev and his equally famous guide Dersu Uzala escaped from starvation by a fish thrown by a bear. This is reported in different ways on the Internet. But V.K. Arsenyev himself wrote that they didn’t eat “bear’s leftovers”, but full-fledged parts of carcasses.
Bears do not just prefer caviar. They feel bestial instinct that it contains up to 20% of proteins and virtually no carbohydrates. And vitamins are difficult to count. Scientists have found that caviar and chum salmon contain: retinol, folic and ascorbic acid, thiamine, riboflavin, calciferol, as well as macro and micronutrients: potassium, magnesium, phosphorus, calcium, etc. Interestingly, thiamine is a protector against toxic the effects of alcohol and tobacco. If such a fish is regularly present on your menu, then expensive vitamins will not be needed. It contains the most complete composition of those substances that are necessary for the normal functioning of living organisms. And there are even more in the caviar.
Here it is, chum salmon fish!
Photo of a man with a catch: a chum salmon is caught in Alaska during a spawning course and weighs 15 kg.
The woman in the photo, silver chum salmon (marine form of chum salmon), caught there, in the coastal zone of the sea, weighs 13.5 kg.
Any kind of salmon caught in the river in Kamchatka, Chukotka, the Kola Peninsula, Lake Ladoga or Onega, is truly priceless. Well, you can buy fish, chilled or frozen, in the supermarket. The price of chum salmon ranges from 50 to 75 - 80 rubles / kg.
