Salmon life-cycle

[robbie]

Web site with a good, easy to read life story of the Salmon. While reading, click on blue coloured words to show relevant
pictures.

www.rcfmt.org/lifecyclesalmon.htm

[fruity]

They even know what a rawner is. But "Putty", I thought it was known as "Jam". Would have thought you would do too much damage by reducing it down to the consistency of putty.

[Speyducer]

I first came across salmon roe paste whilst fishing the R Leven, and some of the locals used it - smearing it on the lead weights as an attractant for their worm fishing. They certainly called it 'putty', but the again, the Leven runs into the Clyde, and in those far off days, the Clyde itself had so few salmon that it wasn't even worth fishing for them.

The link is from the Clyde Fisheries Management Trust, so the use of the term 'putty' is understandable.

In different parts of the country, it may be known locally by different names.

Mike

[fruity]

The ban on selling salmon is for rod caught fish.

[fruity]

No double standard at all, the law was written to ensure the chain of salmon farmers through to shops could trade in a legitimate product.

[Willie Gunn]

salmonshrimp said:

Yes fruity

But I did say Wild Salmon not farmed fish. Lidl are selling "Wild Salmon" it says so on the label and the website. In the store I'm almost sure the packaging says Wild Scottish Salmon.

There is/was the nets at Strathy, there a few more legal nets which could be selling the salmon, quite legally to Lidl to sell on.

[fruity]

Some reared salmon can be sold as wild salmon, "wild" means nothing...they still often look like Rainbow Trout.

[Speyducer]

fruity said:

Some reared salmon can be sold as wild salmon, "wild" means nothing...they still often look like Rainbow Trout.

When you say 'can be sold as' do you mean that it is permitted to sell farmed salmon but labelled as "wild" ??

I think that you will find, that whatever pontificating anyone does about the sale of "wild" salmon and how wrong it is, you should be aware that "wild" salmon is sold at about 6 to 10 times the price of farmed salmon. The same guff is pontificated about "organic" food, and "free range" eggs.

If the price differential is significant (and it is between farmed and wild salmon), then it doesn't take Einstein to work out that there will be fraud, deception, counterfeiting, all for the mighty £. Those who sell salmon are NOT interested in the product, just what that product will sell at, and the more profitable the better.

Try reading the following:

Counterfeit Salmon:

www.wildpacificsalmon.com/site/680079/page/521806

envirostats.info/2007/09/22/0422/

And you can bet your butt that if those sellers could get a licence to do it, they would sell alcohol, drugs, cigarettes and whatever to all of the schoolchildren.


Mike

[fruity]

It all depends on what you mean by "wild". You may argue that a fish from a rearing pen can't be wild, but there are fish farmers who argue that fish reared in large pens where the fish can shoal, where "fresh" water continuously moves through the pens in a natural environment, when they are fed on pellets made from natural sea produce etc etc ...that they are nearly as good as Ocean going fish and therefore can be classed as wild (certainly these don't generally look like fat Rainbows) ....they certainly are not reared in intensive pens. It is common knowledge that certain "wild" salmon are not "ocean going wild", nobody is lying they are just not telling the whole truth...no different to the rest of our food supply.

[Speyducer]

fruity said:

It all depends on what you mean by "wild". You may argue that a fish from a rearing pen can't be wild, but there are fish farmers who argue that fish reared in large pens where the fish can shoal, where "fresh" water continuously moves through the pens in a natural environment, when they are fed on pellets made from natural sea produce etc etc ...that they are nearly as good as Ocean going fish and therefore can be classed as wild (certainly these don't generally look like fat Rainbows) ....they certainly are not reared in intensive pens. It is common knowledge that certain "wild" salmon are not "ocean going wild", nobody is lying they are just not telling the whole truth...no different to the rest of our food supply.

“Falsehood is never so successful as when she baits her hook with truth, and no opinions so fatally mislead us, as those that are not wholly wrong; as no watches so effectually deceive the wearer as those that are sometimes right”.

Quote from C C Cotton

[fruity]

If you look at the descriptions of salmon in supermarkets it is actually quite funny looking at the lengths they go to in order to let people get the impression it is wild. While they may just state something like "fresh from the wilds of Scotland" or give info on salmon spawning in rivers/feeding at sea/returning...they then go on to say the Supermarket has used its influence to obtain the best quality salmon available at an acceptable price bla bla bla, but I have not seen any Supermarket claim to be selling Ocean going wild fish. John West were getting a bit of stick for putting Scottish farmed salmon in their 100% wild/cans.

[apacheshrimp]

How do kelts 'mend' themselves? Do they actually start eating while in the river? Or is it simply the rejuvenating 'shot in the arm' from breeding success, as hormones settle down till next year?

A

[Willie Gunn]

apacheshrimp said:

How do kelts 'mend' themselves? Do they actually start eating while in the river? Or is it simply the rejuvenating 'shot in the arm' from breeding success, as hormones settle down till next year?

A

I think it is just the hormone change that starts the "mending" process BUT kelts are certainly better takers than they were before the bred.
I remember one cold day on the Naver in January, it was well below freezing when we started and the line was freezing in the rings. I caught a couple of kelts on a Willie Gunn and slow sinker. When the line stopped freezing in the rings I gave the Collie dog a go, much shaking of the gillies head and mutters of "it works well in the summer" but I landed of a dozen in the next hour, they were heading and tailing and chasing it across the pool. The gillie insisted on netting everyone holding the fish in the net in the freezing water, I just wanted to dump line when they were close enough to identify.

[hornet]

Malcolm,

How long will a kelt stay in the river for before deciding to return back to the sea. Is there a triggering point which makes them run back.

Cheers

Hornet

[Willie Gunn]

Not sure about a triggering point, temperature, length of day.

[conwyrod]

Sea trout kelts seem to return to sea fairly quickly.

I suppose all kelts need to wait until their silver sea coat has returned. I've caught a few kelts in march on welsh rivers, all had silver coats.

[Speyducer]

hornet said:

Malcolm,

How long will a kelt stay in the river for before deciding to return back to the sea. Is there a triggering point which makes them run back.

Cheers

Hornet

Salmon & seatrout post-spawning kelts may stay in the river from just a few days, to 4 months plus.

This would account for the fact that kelts may be caught well into April, even though spawning may be as early as November.

The process of return to silvery colouration starts quickly after spawning.

The 'triggering' to return to the sea ought to be hormonal, after the spawning, this will undoubtably change within the salmon quickly, and the return to the sea will depend on the strength of the fish after spawning, and the power & height of the river, and presumably, the distance they are up-river when they spawned.

Mike

[fenton]

Could their actual return into salt water also be governed by the abilities to osmoregulate?

[Speyducer]

The changes that occur for the necessary re-adaptation to the undiluted 'salt' of the open ocean do take time, and there has been work that I have read about seatrout that they may hang about in the estuarine waters for quite some time - up to a couple of months or more, before heading off into the blue yonder.

Mike

[ducktip1]

Hormone change in the fish start's it mending, and wanting to feed again, drawing the fish back to sea.
Ducktip1