For salmon on the Kola Peninsula.
Most of us know salmon from the supermarket supermarket shelves, where there are faceless silvery gutted carcasses or prepared for cooking steaks with pink meat lying on the ice. But all this is artificially divorced, often genetically modified and fed in cages by antibiotics fish. Wild salmon so rarely goes on sale, that it is almost impossible to meet it. After all, in almost all countries in whose waters this fish is found, salmon belongs to protected species, and the quotas for its catch are very small.
The range of its natural habitat includes the northern part of the Atlantic to the western part of the Arctic Ocean. All its time of life, the salmon spends in salt water, feeding on small schooling marine fish (sprat, herring, herring, etc.). But spawning of this fish takes place in the fresh water of the rivers flowing into the Atlantic and Arctic Ocean.
It is during salmon spawning in the rivers that it is possible to fish with sports equipment (spinning and fly fishing). Catching salmon is one of the most prestigious types of recreational fishing, although it is expensive to catch salmon. And the road itself is usually far away, and licenses for its catch are not scarce, and all the best areas of spawning rivers, where sport fishing is allowed, have long been rented and fishing camps and bases have been built on them. Just because the fish there is not a half. Only for customers! A tour to such a camp for 7 days costs from 5 to 8,000 US dollars.
Salmon spawns in the upper reaches of the northern rivers, and the best for catching are the areas nearest to the mouth (before flowing into the ocean). The higher along the rivers, the smaller the bases and camps. And here you can already come to catch salmon (pre-acquiring licenses for its catch) relatively budgetary (2-3 times cheaper than in the "brand" camp). Only the road will take much longer, and you will be deprived of the usual comfort of a high-class base and camp, living in an ordinary tent on the river bank and cooking food at the stake.
I happened several years ago to be on a similar trip with friends who have already gone to catch salmon for the first time on the Kola Peninsula. Flight to Murmansk, from there 8 hours on UAZ on forest roads to the zaimka in the wilds of the taiga, and from the capture of another 2 hours "on the armor" (caterpillar military transporter, slightly altered for the transport of 8 people). That trip cost 1,5 thousand dollars per person. The license was bought by a local angler who took part in this group trip.
Why do not they put commercial camps far from the mouth of the rivers of the rivers? Everything is very simple. As soon as the salmon enters the fresh water, spawning metamorphosis begins to take place with it. From the bright silvery fish, it gradually becomes more and more dark, bright spots of color begin to appear on the skin. The males have a change in the geometry of the jaw apparatus, which turns into an intimidating beak ...
wow too good i like this fish hhm nice fantastic