| The lucky bargee of the day was Ruslan - nobody but him could cacth any fish this day. At one moment we found excited Ruslan coming to us with some fish in his hand. He caught an 'osman' - widespread fish of all rivers around Issyk-Kul Lake. The indigenous scaleless osman (Dyptichus dybowskii) appears in two forms: D. dybowskii in rivers and a subspecies D.d. lansdelli in the lake. The subspecies appears in a winter lake form and a summer migratory form which spawns in rivers. The winter form spawns from February to April and its fecundity is 13,000-14,500. The summer form is smaller, has a fecundity of 5,500-12,000, and spawns from April until September. Both forms are omnivorous. Until the 1970s, scaleless osman was common and the major component of capture fisheries. |
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