Hucho taimen is a freshwater fish of the salmon family. Length up to 1.5 m, weight up to 60 kg. The head is flattened, the mouth is large and terminal. On the body dark spots rounded or c-shaped. Inhabits Siberian rivers, the basins of the Amur, Volga, Kama, Vyatka, Pechora, Lake Baikal and Lake Zaisan. 

Matures in the fifth to eighth year of life. Spawning in May-June. Lays from 8 to 28 thousand eggs in places with fast currents on sandy and stony-pebble soils. Predator. Its diet is based on fish, land mammals (muskrat, mice, squirrels) and waterfowl (ducks). Object of sport and recreational fishing.

During the day, the taimen stays at the bottom, hiding under sunken trees, and rarely comes to the surface, except to capture fallen midges. In summer it inhabits mountain rivers with cold water, but in winter it also comes out to the plain rivers of the Amur basin. In summer, the fish is caught by spinning on a variety of trollers, jig heads, artificial mice, in winter - on "mahalka" with winter trollers. 

Hucho taimen, like other salmon fish, is not bony; its meat is tender, fatty, pale pink in color.