The Sockeye Salmon under the Oncorhynchus nerka family is very well known as the red or blue back salmon due its chromatic changing character based on the habitat where they are into. The male sockeye salmon has a bright red with a light color of green shade in the head whereas the females have green and yellow tints on them when they are on the freshwater. However, the chromatic change is entirely different when they “dive” into the saltwater. The sockeye salmons turn bluish-green on the upper part and with the silver luster on the lower portion with consonant, lustrous skin. So unlikely of the other Pacific salmons, due to its feeding behavior as they exclusively feed on a plankton (drifting organism that inhabits the water column of oceans, seas, and bodies of fresh water; they are considered the prominent form of food to most aquatic life), Sockeye Salmons are found as far as the Klamath River, California in the southland, and in the northern area in Hokkaido, Japan. They are also seen on areas like in the Canadian Arctic and Anadyr River in Siberia.

The sockeye salmon’s physical appearance differs from the Chinook, Coho and Pink salmon primarily because of its gill rakers that are naturally long and closely spaced. A sockeye can elongate to as long as 84 centimeters and can be as heavy up to almost kilos. Anadromous by nature, they live in the sea and enter the freshwater systems to spawn or lay eggs. As the salmons develop, by transporting from fresh water to the seas, little have been know about the traveling mechanism they possess, although the earth’s magnetic field have been seen as their means to allow them to safely transport from one body water to another. Although, seemingly different from other salmon types, the sockeye salmons are not at all different with their relatives as they too die weeks after they have spawned. In addition, the sockeye salmons prefer the freshwater system with lakes as their best hatching area as these were seen to have produced a great number of young sockeye salmons. When preparing to “co-produce” as they reach the spawning stage, sockeye salmons return to the place where they have been fertilized and hatched to mate with the male sockeyes. Male sockeyes are the ones that have spent one year in the oceans and they are commonly termed as the “jacks”

The sockeye salmon is at times preferred to be eaten fresh by aborigines due to its “yummy” flavor and taste but more often it is being commercialized in can due to its rich orange-red color that seemingly makes it look so fresh even when canned.

At present, due to its decreasing number in the world seas and due to massive destruction of their habitats, the sockeye salmon has been enlisted under the US Endangered Species Act as one of the endangered species in some areas in Idaho and Oregon most particularly in the River Snake and as a threatened specie in the Washington area most specifically in the Lake of Ozette. Fortunately, some areas like in the Columbia River has been noted to have not felt the down trend in the production of sockeye salmon due to its

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Joseph Brown is the author of a Fishing Blog where you can read articles including those about anglerfish and ice fishing.