Fish in a Barrell
We went to Youngs River Falls on Friday for my wife's photo assignment. Now that I am no longer a tourist here I normally don't visit this sort of spot very often. We once rode our horses from our house to the falls by riding on logging roads over the hills east of the Lewis and Clark Valley.
On this trip we were surprised to see lots of salmon trying to jump up the falls. These falls are probably 40 feet high and there is no way for a salmon to ever ascend to the stream above. The pool below the falls was teaming with fish and where there are fish there are people fishing them.
Back when I used to fish there was a thing known as a dead line which was usually a cable stretched above a river which was the line where you were not allowed to fish. It usually was by a fish ladder where fish congregated in mass. Though there is no fish ladder at these falls it seemed a bit unsportsmanlike-like to be fishing in this spot. The fish could go no farther and they couldn't retreat back down the river. It seemed most fish were being foul-hooked and from where I was I couldn't tell if they were releasing those fish or not. It just didn't seem fair. Itg was like fishing in a hatchery.
posted by The Guy Who Writes This at 6:08 AM
4 Comments:
I'll bet you could just wade in and grab one out of the water. Where's the sport in that? If you were fishing to feed your family, it would be one thing. That was just people being jerks.
Apparently since fish and game doesn't consider them native so it's open season on Y R falls salmon. Hopefully those fishing were trying for the egg raiding jack salmon not spawning mature fish. Looks like you got some great pics.
Darev, that's a cold dark rocky pool. I wouldn't wade it even in the summer.
Anon, they weren't jacks, they were big and bright. I saw that they had retrieved the roe from one of their fish. Also I heard that in the old regulations it used to be illegal to fish upstream from the bridge to the falls. Pretty sad that this goes on.
It is sad. There is a lot of spawning that takes place between the bridge and the pool below the falls. A pair of salmon defies the odds, gets by the terns & herons makes it to the ocean doges predators and fisherman for 4 years runs gauntlet back to the spawning beds only to be snagged, does not seem cricket even if it is legal.Just because fish and game in their wisdom does not deem them "native", why not let them at least spawn unmolested? These fish have proved themselves and were born to be wild. I don't get it.
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