Good Salmon news

There is something about these fish and their Pacific cousins. I am not sure why or how they grip us the way they do. For me it's part awe and a good bit of envy of their life style, rambling about the rivers and the oceans of the world. Somehow I also feel unworthy of them, that such a magnificent creatures fate should lie in the hands of we who are so selfish and ignorant. Perhaps one of the saddest stories never told took place up on Cobbosse Stream last year. There was a big bright female salmon below the dam. Time after time she blasted through the foam only to fall back down on the concrete ramp below the dam. After she had beaten herself about half to death and her head and body were scratched and scraped from the concrete she headed back downstream. She found a suitable spot and began the process of beating rocks out of the way to build her red. In the spring of the following season the water was abnormaly low.In order to maintain high water levels for largemouth bass spawning in an upstream lake the stream was shut down to a trickle and her brood died in the dry gravel of Cobbesse Stream. My brother has a great picture of this fish leaping at the dam on his website http://www.gwi.net/~fks/ksalmon.html click on the fish.