Ayu and salmon

My wife stopped by her parents' house and came back with 10 ayu, small trout-like fish in the smelt family. I cleaned them yesterday. We'll eat them tonight since she also came back with about 750 g. of sashimi-grade salmon and that's not something I was going to leave in the fridge unnecessarily.

Our daughter LOVED watching me clean the fish, especially looking at each one before I slit it open and guessing if it was male or female. My wife wanted to make sure I understood (1) how to clean fish (I've cleaned THOUSANDS) and (2) that the egg sacs should stay in for cooking and eating. It reminded me that, when I first came to Japan, people continually asked me if I "could eat" fish. They seemed surprised when I told them that I had fish most days as a kid, though some of that was tuna in sandwiches.

The salmon was farmed in Chile. The ayu may have been directly from a farm (local), though they may also have been caught in one of the local rivers. I haven't gotten the details yet. Even though the ayu may have been caught in a river, they were probably farmed and then released for fishing. There are way too many fishermen for what I suspect to be the reproductive capabilities of our local rivers.