Crayfish are orderlies of reservoirs. Orderlies of reservoirs What kind of fish is a river orderly
My friend, an avid hunter and fisherman, recalled an interesting incident. Once, with a gun and a fishing rod, he spent his vacation time on one of the tributaries of the Poronai.
Small quiet river. Nearby are old women, overgrown with willow and bushes. I had to stand in the thickets for a long time, but the ducks did not sit down, the fish did not peck. It began to get dark. He wanted to reel in his fishing rods, but then quite close to the lake a couple of teals plopped down.
Couldn't resist and fired. The birds turned over and froze on the water. Suddenly one teal, lying on its back, rushed through the water.
Running closer to the shore, the friend saw that he was being pulled by a hefty pike. Without hesitation, he grabbed a spinning rod, quickly put a small fish on the hook and threw the bait closer to the shot teal. The toothy robber immediately clung to the tasty prey...
After gutting the fish, the friend was amazed: he found a bee-pup in her belly. A ferocious cannibal predator has swallowed her brother! A hungry pike ruthlessly devours its young if the squints do not have time to quickly hide.
CATCHING FISH IN MUDDY WATER
In the pike family, ichthyologists distinguish five species. The common pike lives in the vast expanses of Eurasia. Maskinong, striped and red-finned - overseas predators. They are found only in the waters of eastern North America, where they have always been a common food of the Indians. And only the Amur pike is found in the basin of the river of the same name and here, on Sakhalin. About her - a special conversation.
Our compatriot, inhabiting quiet rivers, oxbow lakes and lakes, is somewhat inferior to her European sister - the common pike. The islander grows a maximum of over one meter with a weight of about a pood. It usually stays near the coast. Only during spawning it rises slightly up the river or enters the floodplain during floods.
Pike is an insidious and terrible predator. No wonder it is called a freshwater shark. She also has no tricks. When hunting, the pike uses this trick: it becomes stranded head downstream and muddies the water with its tail. The mud hides it from the fish. It remains only to open the toothy mouth and grab the prey.
Often she hunts from an ambush, hiding among the water thickets, where, as it were, she dissolves. Like a chameleon, it can change color depending on the color of the algae, and then, merging with the surrounding background, it becomes invisible. Letting the unsuspecting fish closer, the freshwater vulture quickly rushes at her.
Due to the fact that the dorsal and ventral fins of the pike are shifted towards the tail, it is able to make sharp throws. Surprisingly, the ferocious predator is capable of chasing fish even in the air, jumping high out of the water. Her jumps are amazing!
Possessing mobile eyes, the pike sees almost as well both above itself and from the side. With the help of the lateral line, she feels the approach to various objects - to the boat, to the shore.
... THAT THE CARP DOES NOT DOSE
In rivers and lakes, pikes catch both the wise minnow and the tiny minnow. In addition to fish, they absorb any other living creatures that they can catch. For them, everything that crawled into the mouth is useful.
Predators do not refuse frogs either. Larger freshwater sharks swallow ducklings and waders, devour water rats, as well as squirrels crossing the river.
Once, wrote the famous Russian zoologist of the 19th century Leonid Sabaneev, a pike grabbed a large and strong goose by the leg and did not open its mouth even when it pulled it ashore.
Pike can even swallow such fish, the length and weight of which are about half of their own. The victim is always captured from the head. Those teeth hold her mandible, which have different values. Other, smaller teeth are directed with sharp ends to the pharynx and can sink into the mucous membrane of the mouth. If the fish tries to escape, they rise from the mucous membrane and dig in like a thousand needles.
The pike feeds in the morning and evening, and almost always sleeps at noon and at night. She eats until, according to L. Sabaneev, she is stuffed up to her throat with fish. A hungry predator loses all caution and rushes at everything living and even inanimate - if only it shone. Robbers assimilate only the soft parts of the body of fish, spew bones and scales.
BY MAGIC
With the onset of cold weather, the pike goes to the nearest whirlpools, where it rests and hardly eats. There she winters.
Immediately after the ice melts near the banks of rivers and lakes, the spring zhor begins at the hungry pike. At this time, in shallow water, she spawns. There is enough oxygen here, which favorably affects the development of eggs.
During spawning, pike, having started mating games, splash noisily. Near one toothy beauty, from two to four gentlemen curl around, and larger matrons gather up to eight suitors.
The expectant mother rubs against bushes, stumps and other objects. At this time, caviar is spawned. She is followed by several males at once, obeying the pike command, they fertilize a significant part of the litter.
One fish, depending on the size, produces from 17 to 215 thousand large eggs “on the mountain”, which quickly stick to the vegetation. Beads stuck to the legs and feathers of birds can be carried over long distances.
After a couple of days, the eggs, having lost their stickiness, crumble and lie at the bottom. Their development ranges from eight days to a crescent. Having finished with the contents of the yolk sac, the larvae switch to "pasture" food: they eat cyclops and daphnia, and soon they swing at larger inhabitants of reservoirs. At this time, they grow and develop rapidly. Males become sexually mature in the fourth, less often in the third year of life, females in the fifth.
RIVER ORDER
How many years does a pike live? L. Sabaneev in his book "Life and catching freshwater fish" gives such a curious example.
German Emperor Frederick II Barbarossa in 1230 allegedly personally caught a pike and, putting a ring on it, released it into Lake Beckingen near the Rhine. The ringed pike was caught after 267 years. Its length was about six meters, and it weighed almost one and a half centners. From old age, the mighty fish turned completely white. The portrait of the centenarian is still preserved in the Lautern castle, and the skeleton and ring are in the cathedral in Mannheim.
One German naturalist became interested in the legendary pike. He sensibly reasoned that not a single living being is capable of living for two and a half centuries. And, of course, revealed a lot of stretches.
The most compelling argument debunking the version of the Beckingen centenarian is that common pike, according to leading ichthyologists, lives a little over 20 years. True, there is information about the capture of a 33-year-old pike, but this is an exception. That is, beautiful stories about long-lived pikes - just fairy tales.
The freshwater shark is a natural regulator of the fish population. Throughout its life, the pike eats small things of little value, destroys the sick and the weak, allowing the rest of the scaly tribe to grow faster. For example, in the oxbow lakes of Poronai and Tym, where there is pike, crucian carp is always large, kilogram. And where it does not exist, it is small, degenerates. The destruction of a river orderly in a reservoir threatens to disturb the biological balance.
BY THE WAY
In Rus', pike was referred to as “black”, that is, third-rate fish, since it requires either complex culinary processing or techniques aimed at softening meat in order to drown out a specific smell. In addition, it is skinny, contains no more than three percent fat. In general, pike meat is not for everybody. Nevertheless, fresh pike cutlets, which I was once treated to, are simply delicious.
Orderlies of reservoirs
“Although cancer is neither fish nor meat, it is better than both. The proverb “On lack of fish and cancer is fish” is unfair this time,” - this is what S.T. said almost a century and a half ago. Aksakov, author of the famous book Notes on Fishing. And now many anglers, in addition to fishing, engaged in the extraction of crayfish, so to speak, part-time. Many of them consider crayfish to be river shrimp, the taste of crab substitutes. Delicacy!
Cancer is an invertebrate, arthropod, but, like a fish, it breathes with gills. Reaches 200 - 300 grams of weight. Crayfish have poor eyesight, but hearing and smell are very well developed. They smell the smell from afar, and when they hear the noise, they hide in holes and sit in them, menacingly putting out their claws for defense. These eight-legged live in rivers, lakes, ponds with clear water, in small streams.
They catch crayfish quite primitively. From a thick wire, a circle is made with the diameter of an average barrel. A nylon mesh is attached to it, resembling a large landing net with a small moat. Tackle for catching crayfish is ready. A piece of stale meat, liver, fish (you can use a singed bird, a frog or barley shell meat) is fixed in it and lowered to the bottom not far from the crustacean holes, which they like to arrange under steep banks, in washed-out tree roots, under vine and broom bushes, in sunken snags, under stones. Some anglers set up several of these traps, and in order not to lose them, buoys are attached to each on a long line: a piece of foam, a large cork, a dry piece of wood. Rachevni are periodically raised from the bottom and crayfish are selected, which will not be slow to pounce on the bait. Catching is especially prey in the evening and at night, when crayfish come out of their holes to feed. It should be remembered that the catch should not exceed 30 pieces per person per day.
Night catching of crayfish by the fire is interesting, when you watch how crooked creatures slowly crawl out of the dark water column along the bottom to the shore into the light of the flame. Bright flashes of fire momentarily highlight small bulging eyes, long whiskers and huge, scissor-like claws. Crayfish are gently pulled out of the water with their hands. It must be done skillfully. Cancer can not only walk forward and back away, but also make sharp throws in the water and even swim (of course, only backwards). The crayfish rows with its tail, on which spade-shaped fins are fanned. Straightening his tail, he folds it under his belly with force and rather sharply, scoops water under him and, thus making fast strokes, swims no worse than a fish. Huge claws at such a moment drag behind him like shafts. Therefore, crayfish are always caught from the side of the tail, when, as if in thought, it slowly moves forward or even lies motionless at the bottom. If you try to get your hand or net in front, then it will instantly make a push and back very quickly bounce to the side. In the next second, the cancer can run away completely. You need to wear gloves on your hands: the muscles of his claws are very strong, he can grab his finger so that you squeal in pain or dance tap dance ...
Sometimes crayfish are collected with a lantern, wandering along the coast: at night they come out to small pure sandy places, to gaps under overhanging bushes. The only thing left is to drive them back into the net with a stick or a whip.
On a summer day, when the water is warm and clear, crayfish can be caught in a diving kit (mask, snorkel, fins), diving to the bottom in crayfish grounds and looking for them on the sand, in burrows on a muddy bottom or under the rhizomes of underwater plants. In addition to crayfish, you will see a fabulous underwater world. For those who have never dived, so as not to stay at the bottom of the crayfish to be eaten, I advise you to pre-train in a shallow place and work out your breathing.
No matter how funny it may seem, crayfish fall for the bait - sometimes catching a claw on a fishing line, sometimes the hook has to be removed from the mouth opening. In some reservoirs, crayfish abound in such numbers that they do not allow fishing, and cling to the hook. There are eccentrics who catch crayfish with a bait, having previously attached them with pieces of fresh fish. But this fishing is of little interest. The bite of the crayfish is very long: while it, like with a fork from a plate, puts a claw into the mouth of a worm, 2-3 minutes will pass, and this fishing is no different from prey in the crayfish. In addition, having fallen for the bait, the crayfish bites the fishing line with claws, like a fitter with electric wire cutters, and you won’t get enough hooks!
Cancer lives up to thirty years. It grows slowly and heavily, increasing its weight and size in constant pain. Several times a year, he sheds his calcareous-chitinous shell, overgrows with a new one, but after a while the clothes again become tight for him. I observed the process of molting of crayfish in an aquarium. First, the shell on the back burst - at the junction of the "cephalothorax-neck". First of all, the tail extended through this crevice, and then the crayfish, making sharp movements with the tail, as when swimming backwards, freed the cephalothorax, limbs and claws. Cancer floated away, leaving old clothes.
Everyone who is fond of catching crayfish must observe fishing ethics. Adolescent crayfish caught, and especially females that carry caviar or small crabs, are sent back to the pond. In general, catching crayfish during molting, mating and gestation is prohibited.
But when the cancer becomes sexually mature, then this unpleasant dressing procedure occurs only once a year. At these moments, the fish population is also not averse to eating rachatina. After molting (June, July), the crayfish is easily vulnerable, it is helpless and, if it does not hide in a hole that it digs in advance with its tail, or until it is covered with a hard shell, it becomes easy prey for fish. During this period, tench, ide, chub, perch are well taken for crustacean meat. A pair of crayfish will provide bait for the whole day of fishing. Crayfish meat (of course, raw) is peeled, put in cold water for 15 - 20 minutes so that it hardens, after which it is cut into small pieces.
I also had a chance to find out “where the crayfish hibernate”. Once, in the first ice, I sat over the hole and wielded a small lure, trying to lure the perches from under the sunken alder. But at the next ascent, instead of a striped robber, he pulled a goggle-eyed crayfish spanking his tail onto the ice. Of course, at that time I thought that he had turned red from the bottom with the irony of his fate. But next year late autumn, when the water is clear, like a spring stream, at the bottom of this whirlpool I saw gushing fountains of sand, and under the blackened boughs of a sunken alder - mustachioed crayfish. The thing is that crayfish cannot stand a musty environment, they quickly die from starvation, therefore, with the onset of severe cold, they accumulate near springs. Here they are waiting for the harsh winter!
I must say, crayfish always love clean, oxygen-rich water. This is a neat, clean underwater animal. Crayfish eat the carcasses of dead fish, frogs and everything that rots and deteriorates, thereby maintaining sanitary cleanliness in reservoirs. But where the water is heavily polluted or poisoned, they are no longer able to do anything and flee or die to the last.
Boiled crayfish
Crayfish are very useful, because they give a rare set of vitamins and minerals. Live crayfish, thoroughly washed from mud and dirt, put in a pot, add aromatic roots, green dill or parsley, head onion, carrot. Pour in salted boiling water and cook for 15 minutes. When the crayfish turn red, like hot pieces of metal, remove the pot from the heat and take it out after 10 minutes.
There are few edible parts in crayfish - 15 - 20 percent of the total mass. The meat is chosen from claws, legs and a fleshy tail, which for some reason is called "cancer neck". But in fact, this is nothing more than a belly with wide fins at the end, under which the female carries eggs and brings out small ones, like ants, roar.
Why do crayfish turn red after cooking? It turns out that the black-green color of the cancer shell is formed by blue, green and red pigments. But when processed in boiling water, blue and green substances are completely destroyed, which is why crayfish in their “iron” armor seem to be red-hot.
crayfish salad
We take two or three dozen live crayfish, half a kilogram of green salad, a dozen eggs, five fresh cucumbers, mayonnaise and one tablespoon of sugar.
We cook crayfish and eggs together in one bowl. Then we clean both of them from the shell. We cut the eggs lengthwise into quarters, and leave the crayfish necks and claw meat whole. Green cucumbers and washed and dried green lettuce leaves are chopped with noodles. Dress salad and cucumbers with mayonnaise and mix well. We put quarters of hard-boiled eggs and crayfish meat on top, once again cover everything with mayonnaise mixed with a tablespoon of sugar. On top of the dish, you can decorate with crayfish necks, circles of boiled eggs, put green parsley leaves and whole celery on the side.
I assure you, you have not tried this yet!
Why are crayfish called orderlies of reservoirs?
For beer or cold, foamy kvass, there is nothing better than a couple of boiled crayfish. For many, it is not so much pleasant to cook or eat them as to catch them, because this is a gambling and exciting business. Everyone knows that crayfish are called orderlies of reservoirs, but few people know why. The fact is that if crayfish live in any reservoir, whether it be a river or a lake, then the water here can automatically be considered very clean. Crayfish can only live in the purest and well-oxygenated water. Many lakes have problems with the latter, because crayfish still prefer the running water of rivers.
So these living beings feed on rot and carrion. They love to cleanly gnaw the carcasses of dead fish, frogs and other inhabitants of the reservoir and its environs. Thus, they help keep the water clean and can rightfully be called the orderlies of the water area. Everyone saw that if a fish dies in an aquarium, it cannot be thrown away. It will begin to decompose, and the water will become cloudy. Soon all the inhabitants of the aquarium will rest. Approximately the same thing would happen in natural reservoirs, if there weren’t such scavengers there, who regularly clean up, maintain cleanliness and prevent the spread of rotting and contamination of water and its inhabitants.
Moreover, if, for example, a living being died due to some disease, then continuing to decompose in water, it will thereby infect the entire surrounding space, including all living beings that are nearby. But crayfish are able to digest literally everything, they have excellent immunity to decay processes and to many bacteria, therefore, eating even an infected fish carcass, crayfish absolutely do not harm themselves. In general, they lead a very active lifestyle, all the time examining the bottom of the reservoir in search of possible food. And thanks to this, they deservedly received the title of orderlies of reservoirs.
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Illarionov Illarion Ivanovich, student 9 - in class
MBOU Amga Secondary School No. 1
named after V.G.Korolenko with an in-depth study of individual subjects
Amginsky ulus with. Amga
Head: Sleptsova Nadezhda Yakovlevna, teacher of geography and ecology
PREDATORY FISHES COMMON PIKE AND BUBBIN RIVER - "ORDERS" OF FRESH WATER.
Common pike and river burbot belong to the class Bony fish.
Pike is one of the most carnivorous freshwater fish, a voracious predator. She has very sharp, inwardly curved teeth, from which the victim cannot escape. If a pike's teeth break for any reason, new ones will soon grow in their place. Pike with elongated bodies, shining eyes and razor-sharp teeth - lurk in coastal algae and hit the passing victim no less accurately than a harpoon.
Pike usually inhabits all rivers from the upper reaches to the delta, inclusive, and lakes with depths and with a favorable oxygen regime. Normal view. Pike are characterized by diurnal feeding migrations in its approaches to the shores. Hunts in the evening and morning hours, less often during the day. The main method of hunting is stalking followed by a quick throw. Caught prey is swallowed only from the head. Winters in deep places and remains active. The age limit in Yakutia is 16 years.
Burbot is a predatory fish that belongs to the Cod family and is their only freshwater representative. It has a specific appearance and it is impossible to confuse it with another fish. But outwardly it looks like the largest freshwater predator catfish.
Burbot is found in the basins of all rivers of Yakutia that flow into the northern seas. In habitats, common fish, lives in reservoirs with clear cold water with rocky or sandy soil, is considered one of the most cold-loving and sensitive to water quality freshwater fish. Leads a benthic and benthic lifestyle. A typical nocturnal predator, not waiting for the prey, but actively sneaking up on it. Developed hearing, smell and touch. From the beginning of autumn, an active period of his life begins. At the beginning of winter, burbot keeps close to the ice. During the winter, it lives in shallow parts of the river and moves along the banks. Activity is higher in late autumn, winter and in early spring. In summer it is not very active, it is known that in the hottest periods of summer it falls into a state close to stupor and keeps without feeding for weeks in the deepest, coldest sections of the river, usually climbing into pits, under stones. Underyearlings and yearlings during the flood period inhabit small bays. The age limit in Yakutia is 24 years.
Nutrition.
The pike larvae hatched from the eggs feed on small crustaceans. With a body length of about 2-3 cm, the pup begins to catch fish fry. At the age of one year, the pike massively eats juvenile fish. From the age of three, she becomes a typical predator. The composition of adult pike is very diverse and changes seasonally depending on the availability of prey. The basis of nutrition is the most numerous and less mobile fish: crucian carp, minnow, tugun, perch and young burbot. Large pikes sometimes catch mouse-like rodents, waterfowl chicks and waders.
Often in the diet there are invertebrate amphipods, crustaceans and caviar of other fish species - white salmon, whitefish, whitefish. Burbot fry at an early stage of development feed on zooplankton, as they grow, they move to benthic, invertebrates - copepods, rotifers, beetle larvae, dragonflies. From 3 to 4 years old, burbot feeds exclusively on fish. In addition to this food, there is also various carrion. Fish picks up almost all animals decomposing at the bottom. Therefore, the predator is often caught on extinct meat or dead fish, which he loves very much. He is a typical reservoir orderly.
We made two stuffed pike heads and one burbot caught on the Amga River to study the teeth, in connection with predation.
Instance - No. 1 was caught on September 19 on the Amga River in the Byyatsnaakh area near the village of Somorsun. Length 78 centimeters, weight - 5 kg.600 grams. Large teeth are located on the lower jaw: the first tooth is 1 cm in size, the second is slightly higher - 1.1 centimeters. Age - 10 years.
Instance - No. 2 was caught by spinning at the end of September on the Amga River in the Buluts area near the village of Pokrovka. Length 96 centimeters, weight - 8 kg. 400 grams. Age - 12 years old.
Instance No. 3 - burbot was caught this year in autumn, in October, on a hook in the Meekke area. Length about 60 centimeters, weight -2 kg 650 g. I determined approximately the age - 8 years.
Conclusion:
predatory fish- pikes and burbots, while hunting, maintain the number of their victims at a certain level, preventing them from greatly increasing the number. In this regard, these fish have a peculiar structure of teeth:
The pike on the lower jaw has wedge-shaped, very sharp teeth bent inward, from which the victim cannot escape. There are smaller and sharper teeth on the upper jaw, on the tongue and on the palate. If a pike's tooth breaks for any reason, an adjacent replacement tooth becomes its base in its place.
The burbot has bristle-like teeth located on the jaws and vomer; they are absent in the palate.
Studying the oral cavity of fish, I was convinced that pike and burbot, eating sick, weakened fish, are orderlies of fresh water bodies of our Republic.
