Chum salmon have the largest natural range of any Pacific salmon, and undergo the longest migrations within the genus Oncorhynchus, far up the Yukon River and deep into the Amur River basin in Asia.
In lesser numbers they migrate thousands of kilometres up the Mackenzie River.
Chum are found around the north Pacific, in the waters of Korea, Japan, and the Okhotsk and Bering seas (Kamchatka, Chukotka, Kuril Islands, Sakhalin, Khabarovsk Krai, Primorsky Krai), British Columbia in Canada, and from Alaska to California in the United States.
In the Arctic Ocean they are found in limited numbers from the Laptev Sea to the Beaufort Sea.
In North America chum salmon spawn from the Mackenzie River in the Arctic to as far south as Tillamook Bay, Oregon, although they were also reported in the San Lorenzo River near Santa Cruz, California in 1915 and the Sacramento River in northern California in the 1950s.
In fall 2017 a half dozen chum salmon were counted in Lagunitas Creek about 25 miles (40 km) north of San Francisco, California.

In the open ocean chum salmon stay fairly high on the water column, rarely diving below 50 meters.
 Their typical swimming depths are 13 meters from the surface during the day, and 5 meters during the night.
Chum salmon have the largest natural range of any Pacific salmon, and undergo the longest migrations within the genus Oncorhynchus, far up the Yukon River and deep into the Amur River basin in Asia. In lesser numbers they migrate thousands of kilometres up the Mackenzie River. Chum are found around the north Pacific, in the waters of Korea, Japan, and the Okhotsk and Bering seas (Kamchatka, Chukotka, Kuril Islands, Sakhalin, Khabarovsk Krai, Primorsky Krai), British Columbia in Canada, and from Alaska to California in the United States. In the Arctic Ocean they are found in limited numbers from the Laptev Sea to the Beaufort Sea. In North America chum salmon spawn from the Mackenzie River in the Arctic to as far south as Tillamook Bay, Oregon, although they were also reported in the San Lorenzo River near Santa Cruz, California in 1915 and the Sacramento River in northern California in the 1950s. In fall 2017 a half dozen chum salmon were counted in Lagunitas Creek about 25 miles (40 km) north of San Francisco, California.
In the open ocean chum salmon stay fairly high on the water column, rarely diving below 50 meters.  Their typical swimming depths are 13 meters from the surface during the day, and 5 meters during the night.
Chum salmon