Salmon in Alaska

Great books:
from Amazon.com

Fishing Alaska's
Kenai Peninsula:
A Complete
Angler's Guide

Flyfishing Alaska

order rout and Salmon of North America from Amazon.comn

Trout and Salmon
of North America

There are seven species of Pacific salmon in Alaska:
King (chinook), Dog (chum),Silver (coho),Humpback (pink), Red(sockeye), sea-run cutthroat trout, and steelhead trout.

Each species of salmon has several runs, each returning to its river at a specific time of year. The different runs of salmon are specially adapted to the conditions in their home rivers.

alevin / smolt in the Kenai River, Alaska

Salmonides are anadromous, which means they hatch and live the first part of their lives in freshwater, then migrate to the ocean where they spend their adult lives. When they reach sexual maturity, they return to the freshwater streams of their birth to lay their eggs.

Sockeye, Russian Riverfalls / spaming, Russian Lake, Alaska

Salmonides can travel thousands of miles in the open ocean. Some species of Pacific salmon, like pink salmon, stay close to shore, while others travel as far as Russia and Japan. Chinook can venture as far as 2,500 miles and may stay at sea for four to seven years. As adult salmon make their way back to their home streams, they encounter many obstacles. If they avoid the fishermen and bears and are able to surmount the waterfalls, rapids, and the formidable dam, they will have a chance to spawn. A salmon stops eating when it enters freshwater on its journey home. Its body begins to disintegrate and consume itself. Upon arriving at the stream of its birth, a salmon is usually bruised and beaten, its skin and fins torn and tattered.

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