Walleye in the Amur River

Is there walleye in the Amur River, Russian Far East?

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October 2011, Urmi River, Amur River drainage

Urmi is 458 km long river which is joining the Kur River of the similar size.  The result of this marriage is a mighty 90 km long river named Tunguska.  Tunguska River is floating into the Amur River from its left bank, on the opposite bank from Khabarovsk.

In October I was with my friend Sergey in the middle reaches of the Urmi River, upstream from the Kukan village.  After a 90 km long trip on a beaten dirt road from the city of Birobidzhan we are pumping up a 15' inflatable motor boat. 

In this area the Urmi is 20-60 meters wide stream, swift and clear.  The river has many log jams, so some of its channels are tricky to navigate even with a jet-boat. 

In the lower part of a tributary named Kosmun' there were lots of different graylings.  

"Lower Amur type" grayling is living in the middle reaches of the rivers; downstream from the lower limit of the habitats of this species in summer there will be no other Salmonids. 

 This is another species, so called "yellow-spotted grayling".  It is relative to the "Upper Amur type" grayling.  In the Lower Amur River this species is sympatric (living together) with the "Lower Amur type" grayling, but its habitats are different. The yellow-spotted grayling in summer is populating the swift upper reaches of the rivers on higher elevations.  This species is migrating down into the middle reaches of the streams only in the late fall. 

The next morning was morose and foggy.  A deep cyclone was coming, threatening with the rain by the next evening.  The fish was not feeding, so it was rather hard to catch anything bigger than grayling.  This is a sharp-nose species of lenok.  

A slightly bigger blunt-nose lenok was caught with a 5 cm long pink wobbler-fly, presented deep. 

A tiny cabin of a trapper at the bank of the Urmi River. 

 Below this rapid Sergey had found some lenok. 

 This small taimen was caught with a lure and released.  We are releasing taimen which is becoming rare in many areas of the Far East. 

A tiny, very skinny, immature taimen was caught below a shallow riffle.  It looks like taimen are more active before the coming cyclone than lenok.  I had observed the same behavior in the summer, on different rivers.     

Lotus are blossoming!

Regardless to the harsh winters Amur River have some aquatic tropical animals & plants.  One of them is lotus.  This magnificent "weed" can be found on some lakes near Khabarovsk.  The best time to see the blossoms is about August 1st. 

 The water in the lake is low due to hot weather.

 Pink blossoms are over 25 cm across. The species is Nelumbo komarovii Grossh., 1940 

 The flowers will not last for more than a week.

 

Water can not moisten the lotus leaves  - they are covered by "wax" layer.

 My wife at the lotus "field"

By November this lush vegetation will die, and the plants will sleep under ice till the next summer.

 These cones contain lotus seeds which can sleep, if necessary, for thousands of years.

Sukpai River near Khabarovsk (Russian Far East) - June 6 - 10, 2010

Sukpai River is 150 km long; it is clear & swift mountainous stream, tributary to Khor River.  Khor joins Ussuri River, which is delimiting China and Russia and flowing into the Amur River near Khabarovsk.   We were floating the lower 100 km of Sukpai; the trip was 4 days long. 

At the starting point: 3 fishermen from Khabarovsk, 2 rubber boats and inflatable kayak.  

Tough job - selecting a proper fly out of thousands...

In the river we catch mostly Amur grayling and lenok(2 species).   This time grayling was not biting on the surface, and we were aiming at lenok.  Most of the fishing was done on the move - we were casting big weighted flies close to river banks.

  

Andrey has hooked something.  Big fish is necessary to bring to the bank for landing.

 

This was good size sharp-nose lenok, ...

... which was caught with a heavy "String Sculpin".  This fly is very efficient on our rivers.   

 I have tried a black Wooly Bugger from a moving kayak and caught some smaller lenok and a good grayling.  All fish were biting close to the shallow banks, where they were waiting for some food.   

Salmonfly (Pteronarcys) in Sukpai can be over 6 cm long.  Local fish love these huge stoneflies, which can be found in the stream around the year.  Lots of local flies are imitations of these insects.  The wingless nymphs crawl on the bank and then hatch.  Probably, the fish were waiting for these larvae on their way to the dry land.   

WE have decided to keep one lenok for food.  Its stomach content was a stonefly larva and a sculpin.  Now I can select good imitations of these animals!

 Sharp-nose lenok has bitten a big sculpin imitation.   

Siberian taimen is getting rare in Sukpai due to excessive fishing.   I had managed to land one small fish.  We release all taimen we catch.