The two most important landlocked populations of the Atlantic salmon are the Sebago salmon, found from New Hampshire to New Brunswick, and the ouananiche, of Lac Saint-Jean, Canada. Salmon found in the North Pacific Ocean spawn only once, dying after depositing and fertilizing their eggs. The best-known and most valuable species is the chinook salmon, which is also known as the king salmon, Columbia River salmon, quinnat, chowichee, and takou. The sockeye, red, or blueblack salmon is another valuable species, as is the coho, or silver salmon, which has light pink flesh. Other salmon in the Pacific basin are commonly known as the pink, or humpbacked salmon, and the chum, or dog salmon.
Anglers fish for salmon with rod and reel, often using flies as bait.
Commercial fishing for salmon is done on a much larger scale, employing traps and pound nets to catch the fish on the way to their spawning grounds. Salmon canning is one of the major industries of the American Pacific coast. As a result, hatchery-raised salmon consume most of the food wild salmon need to live. At the same time, this aggressive feeding makes hatchery salmon more vulnerable to predators because they stay near the surface. The annual harvest of wild and farm-raised salmon in the United States averages about 478,000 metric tons, of which about 60 percent is canned.