Fishermen's fish pelengas

Fish pelengas refers to the cephalic, quite valuable commercial fish. Other names - belengas, pelingas or pilengas - are also correct. Variation of pronunciation depends on the places of catch.

An adult (at the age of six) can reach half a meter in length, but its weight is relatively small - about a kilogram. More adult fish, reaching, for example, a decade old, can weigh up to 2.5 - 2.8 kg (although similar specimens are rare). Both the head and the torpedo-like elongated body are covered with large scales.

Fish pelengas - schooly, semi-passable: in the fall it enters the accessible rivers and waits in the winter, digging into muddy pits, and early in the spring again returns to the familiar environment (at sea). For example, when entering the Suifun River in October, the fish rises up to Ussuriysk itself (which is more than a hundred kilometers from the place where the river flows into the sea) and remains for the winter on the entire stretch. In the spring, the direction bearing starts to the Pera Velikogo Gulf and "walks" through the shallow coves and lagoons, while eating detritus. By the autumn, the meat of the bearing becomes especially fat. The native land is the Sea of Japan (the highest prevalence is recorded on the territory of South Korea - in the estuary of the Amur River).

The pelengas fish multiplies in May-June, opting for coastal spawning shallows. Malkov can be found even in practically fresh waters in the mouths of streams and rivers. In autumn the fish again leaves for wintering.

Pelengas is the most eurybiontic species of cephalic: equally well tolerates high summer temperatures and low winter temperatures, and also reacts calmly to significant salinity fluctuations.

It feeds mainly on organic remains and polychaetes (polychaete worms), which they collect on the bottom. For spawning, it chooses predominantly coastal zones (May-June). The meat is moderately fatty, fairly dense, but not rigid and not dry, almost white, with a barely noticeable pink tinge.

Fish pelengas, photo:

Fishing for this fish is an endless topic of discussion at the fishing forums. There is really something to discuss here. For successful fishing, we need our own tactics and decent experience, since the pelagus fish is capable of giving quite decent resistance when spinning on a spinning rod or fishing rod.

The appearance of this fish in the Black Sea is the result of an experiment of forty years ago. Then the staff of the Odessa Research Institute quite successfully carried out acclimatization of the direction bearing in two seas - in the Black and Azov seas.

The reluctance to be satisfied with the mullet was understandable: the direction bearing is much larger, able to reproduce along the coast (which facilitates fishing), is resistant to temperature fluctuations, unpretentious with respect to food. Another goal was to improve the climate of the seas - the bearing was to become a kind of cleaner that would collect the organic remains accumulating at the bottom. A few years after the experiment (early 90's), the pelengas fish became a "commercial species".

Today, according to data provided by ichthyologists, the direction bearing began to spread in the waters of the Mediterranean.

Fish pelengas - the real queen of the Black Sea dishes. It is suitable for preparing a lot of first courses, and for roasting, baking, and stuffing.