Salmon, the Fish of Northern Seas, Farmed in the Gradac River in Valjevo

Only a kilometer from the center of Valjevo, the salmon, a fish characteristic of northern rivers and seas, is farmed. It is considered very nutritional, its flesh is tasty, and the fact that it belongs to the family of salmonids connects it with one of the cleanest and most beautiful rivers – the Gradac.

For decades now, Tiosav Ninovic has been farming trout in his fish pond, and a year ago he also started farming salmon.

– I got the progeny from a man from Studenica, who produced it by crossing the salmon with the trout. I also took 10,000 pieces of progeny of the river trout from him and, now, I got one kind of fish in one pond, and the other type in the other pond. In the autumn, we fished out the first ones, in order to taste the flesh. The flesh is very good, tastier and juicier than the trout and it has the characteristic red color – Ninovic says.

The difference between the wild salmon, which live in their natural habitat, and those farmed by Ninovic is not big, because they are trying to secure as natural as possible conditions for the fish.

– We try not to fatten them. The primary condition is clean water, which we have. It is well known how clean the Gradac is – he says.

The fish has a thin, long body, with silvery scales. The minimum weight of those that are fished out is 1.3 to 1.5 kg, but they can weigh up to 2.5 kg.