Large Amur predator. It is a desirable prey for lovers of active types of fishing. Very strong and cunning fish. Reaches sizes in length up to 2 m, and weighs about 40 kg. Yellow-cheeked outwardly, somewhat resembles large whitefish, but has nothing to do with them. The fish is quite strong, some compare it with large salmon. This increases interest in her as a “trophy”.
In autumn and winter it stays in the Amur channel, in summer it enters floodplain reservoirs for feeding. Its food consists mainly of pelagic fish – the wasp, chebak, smelt, but in the intestines there are also bottom fish – crucian carp, minnows. It switches to predatory feeding very early, when it reaches a length of a little more than 3 cm. Juveniles feed on fish fry. The yolk grows quickly.
Habitat
In Russia, yellow-cheeked is common in the middle and lower reaches of the Amur. There is information about the capture of this fish in the north-west of Sakhalin. The main place of residence is the channel hole of the river. He is there most of the time. In winter, it does not feed, so the main fishing for yellow-cheeked fish takes place in the warm season. A feature of the yellow-cheeked behavior is that for hunting it often goes to small areas of the reservoir, where it “fattens”.
Spawning
Males reach puberty at the 6-7th year of life with a length of about 60-70 cm and a weight of about 5 kg. It breeds in the riverbed, in a fast current, in the second half of June at a water temperature of 16-22 ° C. The eggs are transparent, pelagic, carried by the current, very large (the diameter of the egg with the shell reaches 6-7 mm), apparently, it is swept out in several portions. The fertility of females ranges from 230 thousand to 3,2 million eggs. The length of newly hatched prelarvae is 6,8 mm; the transition to the larval stage occurs at the age of 8-10 days with a length of about 9 mm. The larvae develop horny teeth that help capture mobile prey. Juveniles are distributed in the coastal zone of the bays of the adnexal system, where they intensively begin to feed on juveniles of other fish species. Has a fairly fast growth