Salmon

What is it about watching salmon and steelhead? Love it. Is this just a built-in predatory interest?

I'd like to think it's more than that, some sort of deeper connection. Many native cultures have special beliefs reserved for salmon, maybe they had something figured out that we don't yet. I don't feel the same watching the fish in my friend's coy pond or someone's fish tank. Might be a matter of seeing a wild fish in a wild setting.

Recently, I spent a fair amount of time on my hands and knees just watching a steelhead alevin while fishing a river in B.C. An alevin is a baby fish with a yolk sack still attached to its belly. It will feed off this yolk sack until it's grown enough to get nutrition feeding on its own. Science lesson in the summer? Scary.

I enjoyed watching the little fella much more than any T.V. show I've seen lately. Why?

Here's a video I took in Alaska last week of pink salmon on their way upstream to spawn. See if you can spot the lone chum salmon.