The distribution of juvenile Pacific salmon and associated fish species in Lake Sopochnoye, Iturup Island

Abstract

A single survey using a minnow seine net showed that juvenile chum and sockeye salmon are distributed extremely unevenly along the shoreline of Lake Sopochnoye, on Iturup Island. Young-of-the-year chum salmon aggregate mainly near the estuaries of the rivers that flow into the lake; young-of-the-year and 2-year-old sockeye salmon aggregate closer to the central part of the lake. The distribution of associated fish species is also very uneven, but none of them dominates within the zone of catches; the abundance of each of these species is comparable to that of the juvenile Pacific salmon.