Russians it is Krasnaya Ryba, which means red-fish. This species is the neatest and most symmetrical of the salmon. Its usual weight at four years is about seven pounds, varying from six to ten pounds. The flesh is deep-red, firmer, drier and less palatable than that of the Quinnat. The flesh is more compact than that of any other salmon, hence in canning it is boiled longer. In the sea the red salmon is clear sky-blue above, silvery below, without spots. After entering the river, for the purpose of spawning, the color soon changes to crimson, at first bright, but soon blotched with darker and blood-red, the head becoming bright olive green in sharp contrast with the red. The jaws in the male become extravagantly produced and hooked.
This species runs chiefly in July, and often goes for a very long distance. In the Yukon, it ascends to 'Forty Mile,' a distance of over 1,800 miles from the sea. In the Columbia, it ranges as far as the lakes of the Sawtooth range in Idaho. It always spawns in small streams which run into the head of a lake. It never runs in any stream which does not have as a tributary a lake with available spawning grounds in the streams at its head. The red salmon often enters small streams, even those a few feet across, and sometimes in great numbers. The determining factor is always the presence of a suitable lake with spawning beds above it. The lake may be a few rods from the sea as at Boca de Quadra, or it may be many hundreds of miles as in the case of the Columbia, but the lake is always present in every stream in which red salmon run.
In certain large lakes at a distance from the sea, in Idaho, there is a dwarf form of the red salmon, exactly similar to the sea form, but rarely exceeding half a pound in weight. These are probably landlocked in these lakes as both sexes are freely represented among them. At the sea, the dwarf fish running are almost all males. In the spawning season of the Quinnat salmon, many young males but one or two years of age enter the river with the larger fish, spawning precociously, and all dying. Perhaps these dwarf red salmon are simply precocious individuals spawning and dying before their time. No females were seen among these by us at Astoria. In streams of Cook Inlet, there is a late run of very small red salmon, locally known as 'Arctic salmon.' These are doubtless young fish running prematurely. They are not confined to Cook Inlet, but many were seen by us at Karluk. Of a large number examined, all but two were found to be males. The small red-fish running in Necker Bay on Baranof Island are of the same nature. With them are some full grown red salmon. Why this particular stream is attractive to precociously spawning fish is a matter for investigation.
