Salmon in Winter

The mattole river ran a few hundred feet from our house in Thorn. There was a small fall of water just across from our home. In the summer it was great for swimming but in the winter it could be a raging and dangerous waterway. Fortunately, it never flooded the land because nature had provided a deep riverbed that safely carried the 100 or so inches of rain that poured down upon us in winter. The river was a solid mud color at in the middle of a storm, but cleared after a few days of dry weather. Standing at the falls, our family could often see dozens of salmon jumping up through the frothy water. They were big fish with hooked noses. Most of them had lost their natural color and had become a deep pink. The pink salmon were not good to eat because they were starting to die as they neared the end of their long journey from the sea. We never knew exactly where they left their eggs, but it couldn't have been very far upstream. The reddish fish that climbed the falls had nearly completed their journey back to the place of their birth. However, once in a while a silver colored fish would scramble up the river who was full of life and its flesh was good to eat. Although it was not legal to catch these delicious salmon, many a Thorn resident stood ready with his or her gaff hook and landed a fish for their often hungry family.

Copyright 2008 Sharon Porter Moxley