…probably the millions of rotting pink salmon in the coastal rivers. I was out on Saturday fishing for non-existent steelhead amidst a horde of dead and dying pinks. Even worse than the rotting humpies slowly rolling in the shallows were the dead but still swimming zombie slimers moving around in the river, pinto patterned with fungus and rot but still energetic enough to roll and splash a bit. All that death…
…creating life. The thing is, the Puget Sound coastal rivers would be a lot more dead without the death of the pink and other pacific salmon. The steep gradients and perennial winter spate combined with low alkalinity equal a sterile river environment. The dying salmon carcasses provide much needed organic matter to feed microorganisms and everything else on up the food chain. What’s really frightening is that the pinks are the only thing left in any numbers. The wild Chinook and Coho are pretty much gone. With the good stuff fished out, the target became the lowly Chums. Now even the Chums are scarce, decimated for their roe, being shipped to the far east. It’s only a matter of time for the pinks to become the next target and our coastal rivers and their anadromous fisheries even in their current sorry state will be a thing of the past.
While getting fired up for fall steelhead on the Columbia tributaries, I can’t help but feel the pull to get in one or two last days of trout fishing. Seemingly over a few days, we went from high Summer to Fall. Even the trees haven’t caught up - many of the aspens, willows and other bankside trees going straight from green to brown, altogether skipping the colorful transition that guides us through the season of change. A few early storms have the rivers on the rise and cold nights are lowering water temperatures signaling sleepy time for the coastal cutthroats. It’s hard to pass up the few last sunny days of easy trout fishing for the steelheading work of Winter.
A taste of days to come…
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