United States or Puerto Rico ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Little blue-backs of every size down to six inches are also found in the Upper Columbia in the fall, with their organs of generation fully developed. Nineteen twentieths of these young fish are males, and some of them have the hooked jaws and red color of the old males. The average weight of the quinnat in the Columbia in the spring is twenty-two pounds; in the Sacramento about sixteen.
The quinnat takes the hook freely in Monterey bay, both near the shore and at a distance of six or eight miles out. We have reason to believe that these two species do not necessarily seek great depths, but probably remain not very far from the mouth of the rivers in which they were spawned.
The economic value of the spring running salmon is far greater than that of the other species, because they can be captured in numbers when at their best, while the others are usually taken only after deterioration. The habits of the salmon in the ocean are not easily studied. Quinnat and silver salmon of every size are taken with the seine at almost any season in Puget Sound.
The manner of spawning is probably similar for all the species, but we have no data for any except the quinnat.
The males of all the species in the fall are usually known as dog salmon, or fall salmon. e. Of these species, the blue-back predominates in Frazer's River, the silver salmon in Puget Sound, the quinnat in the Columbia and the Sacramento, and the silver salmon in most of the small streams along the coast.
Of these species, the quinnat and blue-back salmon habitually "run" in the spring, the others in the fall. The usual order of running in the rivers is as follows: nerka, chouicha, kisutch, gorbuscha, keta.
The silver salmon, with the same breeding habits as the dog salmon, is more valuable, as it is found in Puget Sound for a considerable time before the fall rains cause the fall runs, and it may be taken in large numbers with seines before the season for entering the rivers. The quinnat salmon, from its great size and abundance, is more valuable than all other fishes on our Pacific coast together.
By the last of August only straggling blue-backs can be found in the lower course of any stream, but both in the Columbia and the Sacramento the quinnat runs in considerable numbers till October at least. In the Sacramento the run is greatest in the fall, and more run in the summer than in spring. In the Sacramento and the smaller rivers southward, there is a winter run, beginning in December.
"The quinnat and blue back or the spring and the sockeye, as they are generally known, take the long journeys, but the silver or coho, and the humpback and dog salmon keep to the small streams near the sea. The young fry cannot live in salt water and the instinct of the salmon is to swim up-stream as far as possible, no matter what obstacle is in the way.
In the case of the quinnat and the blue-back, their "instinct" leads them to ascend these fresh waters, and in a majority of cases these waters will be those in which the fishes in question were originally spawned.