Home › Volumes › Fishes › The Whitefish, Salmon and Trout
Common Atlantic Salmon — Part 2
Images coming soon.
At least half of the salmon's life is spent in the ocean. "He is ever bred in fresh rivers," said Isaac Walton, "and never grows big but in the sea." "He has, like some persons of honour and riches which have both their winter and summer houses, this fresh water for summer and the salt water for winter to spend his life in." Most of his tribe, however, are peculiarly fresh-water fishes, though several share his sea-dwelling habits, and others, like the brook trout, descend into salt water when not prevented by temperature barriers. All of the family run into very shoal water, and usually to the source of streams, for spawning purposes. "I am inclined to the view," writes Dr. Goode, "that the natural habitat of the salmon is in the fresh waters, the more so since there are so many instances-such as that of the Stormontfield Ponds in England-where it has been confined for years in lakes without apparent detriment." That the chinook salmon has been kept for years in fresh water ponds in France is another strong evidence of the correctness of this view. The Sebago salmon of the New England lakes, and the ouananiche of Canada never visit salt water, finding ample food and exercise in the fresh waters which they inhabit.
Salmon while in salt or brackish water feed on small shrimps, young crabs, and other crustaceans and their eggs. When in the rivers they are supposed to eat but little, though they will make voracious rushes at the angler's fly.
Dr. W. C. Kendall of the U. S. Fish Commission has made a special study of the Atlantic Salmon and the Sebago salmon, and furnishes us the following regarding their habits:
The assumption that salmon do not feed after entering fresh water is founded upon the fact that seldom is anything found in their stomachs when caught in traps or by hooks. In traps and weirs it is the habit of most fishes either to disgorge the food from fright or, if not immediately removed, to digest it. Most fishes, and salmon ought not to be an exception, take the hook presumably because they are hungry, and except in the case of some gluttonous species, not when gorged with food. It seems more reasonable to believe, and all the evidence is in support of it, that the fish do feed in the early runs, and that they enter the rivers for that purpose. It is hardly credible that salmon would leave regions of abundant food, at a time when there are no other physiological demands, fast for at least 6 months, reproduce, survive and return to another period of feasting. It is also hard to conceive that the fish takes the lure to gratify the angler or just for the fun of the thing.
The belief has become almost proverbial, and is perpetuated in fish literature, that the early summer salmon after entering the rivers remain there until the spawning function is performed. It is well known that in some of the smaller streams there are 2 distinct runs, spring and fall; the first, for some unrecognized purpose, the other for reproduction. In Denny's River, Maine, for example, according to a reliable observer of long residence in the region, the early migrations extend from May 15 to July 30 or thereabouts, and the other from October 1 until November. The first run does not remain in the river. What obtains in small streams ought to hold good in large ones.
The closely related landlocked salmon in Sebago Lake pursues the smelts up the tributary streams as they are on their way to the spawning grounds in the spring, and descends with the return of the smelts to the lake. The fish then bite the hook. In the fall there is another ascent of the streams for spawning purposes, and the fish will very seldom if ever take the hook at that time. The first run is evidently for the purpose of feeding upon the smelts, and, as the early spring run of Atlantic salmon is known to accompany the run of smelts and other species, it would seem to be for the same purpose. We believe the spring run of the Atlantic salmon is a quest for food, and that the fish return to salt water to again ascend the streams late in the fall for spawning purposes.
Though salmon enter the rivers in the spring when the temperature of the water is rising, their spawning takes place on a falling temperature, and usually not until the water has cooled down to about 50 degree Fahr. In America the more southern rivers are the first to be entered, and the most northern ones last, the range being from April and May in the Connecticut, to even as late as October in the Miramichi.