A Guide to the Study of Fishes, Volume 2 (of 2)Jordan, David Starr
History
A Guide to the Study of Fishes, Volume 2 (of 2)
Jordan, David Starr
Fishes; Fishes -- Bibliography; Zoology -- History
The quinnat and blue-back salmon, the "noble salmon," habitually "run"
in the spring, the others in the fall. The usual order of running in the
rivers is as follows: _tschawytscha_, _nerka_, _milktschitsch_,
_gorbuscha_, _keta_. Those which run first go farthest. In the Yukon the
quinnat runs as far as Caribou Crossing and Lake Bennett, 2250 miles.
The red salmon runs to "Forty-Mile," which is nearly 1800 miles. Both
ascend to the head of the Columbia, Fraser, Nass, Skeena, Stikeen, and
Taku rivers. The quinnat runs practically only in the streams of large
size, fed with melting snows; the red salmon only in streams which pass
through lakes. It spawns only in small streams at the head of a lake.
The other species spawn in almost any fresh water and only close to the
sea.
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 all sizes are taken with the seine at almost any
season in Puget Sound and among the islands of Alaska. This would
indicate that these species do not go far from the shore. The silver
salmon certainly does not. The quinnat pursues the schools of herring.
It takes the hook freely in Monterey Bay, both near the shore and at a
distance of six to 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 blue-back or red salmon certainly seeks deeper water, as it is
seldom or never taken with the seine along shore, and it is known to
enter the Strait of Fuca in July, just before the running season,
therefore coming in from the open sea. The great majority of the quinnat
salmon, and probably all the blue-back salmon, enter the rivers in the
spring. The run of the quinnat begins generally at the last of March; it
lasts, with various modifications and interruptions, until the actual
spawning season in November, the greatest run being in early June in
Alaska, in July in the Columbia. The run begins earliest in the
northernmost rivers, and in the longest streams, the time of running and
the proportionate amount in each of the subordinate runs varying with
each different river. In general the runs are slack in the summer and
increase with the first high water of autumn. 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 in the Sacramento the quinnat runs in
considerable numbers at least till October. 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 spring quinnat salmon ascends only those
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