Jack the Young Canoeman: An Eastern Boy's Voyage in a Chinook Canoe

by George Bird Grinnell

"I expect the Indians do," said Fannin, "but I don't, for I never have had occasion to live in the country along the shore here. I'm something like you, a mountain hunter. But we ought to be able to catch some salmon, and to do it right here. You know that in a few days or weeks now all the rivers along the coast will be full of salmon, running up toward the heads of the stream to spawn. At the present time they are gathering in the salt water, each fish pushing toward the mouth of the river, in which it was hatched, and down which it made its way toward the sea. They say that all salmon go back to the streams in which they were bred to spawn. Now, when they are in salt water, and before they reach the mouths of the rivers, the salmon will bite, and a great many of them are caught by trolling, either with bait or with a spoon. Haven't you some fishing tackle there that you could throw overboard now, and let the bait follow the canoe? If we could get a few fish it would help out mightily with our eating."

"Why, yes," said Jack; "of course there's some fishing tackle. Let's get it out and try them."

Hugh bent down; and after fumbling in the provision box for a few moments, brought out a package which he passed over to Fannin, saying to him: "You know more about these things than either of us, and you'd better pick out the lines and baits that are to be used."

The long, strong line, with a lure of metal and feathers attached to it, was soon overboard, and dragging in the long sinuous wake that stretched out behind the canoe. Jack held it in one hand as he wielded the paddle. All the power that they had was needed to push the boat along; and if one man should sit and fish in idleness it would not have been fair to the others.

Jack sat hopefully, expecting each moment to feel a tug on the line, but none came. "Tell me, Mr. Fannin," he asked, "don't salmon bite after they get into the fresh water? You said that when in salt water they were caught in numbers. Does that mean that they do not take the bait in fresh water?"

"Yes," replied Fannin, "that's just what it means. When they get into the fresh water they seem to lose all interest in the food question, and will not take the bait or rise to a fly. Some friends of mine, who are great fishermen, have tried bait,—spoons, flies, and grasshoppers,—but no attention was paid to any of these things. There's a story, you know, about some British commissioner, sent out years ago, when England and the United States were quarrelling over the question of who owned Oregon and Washington, and they say that this commissioner was a great salmon angler. They say that he was here during the salmon run, and fished the streams faithfully for them, without even getting a rise, though he could see millions of them. The story goes that he was so disgusted with the way the salmon acted that he went back to England and reported that the great territory in dispute was not worth quarrelling about, and not worth holding by Great Britain, because the salmon in the stream would not rise to a fly."

"That's sure comical," said Hugh; "but after all there's a good deal of human nature in it. We're all likely to look at things from our little narrow point of view and to think only of matters as they interest us."

Before very long Jack found the holding of the trolling line something of a nuisance, and at Fannin's suggestion passed it over to Jimmie, the steersman, who tied it about one of his arms and kept up the work of paddling. That there was salmon about now was very evident, for great silvery fish were frequently seen jumping out of the water, or floundering about on the surface, throwing shining drops about them in showers.

"Why do these fish jump in that way, Mr. Fannin?" asked Jack. "It's common enough to see fish jump out of the water and then fall back, but these, when they strike the water, act almost like a fish thrown on the shore, and flopping there."

"The Indians say," replied Fannin, "and I guess very likely it's true, that this flopping around by the salmon is done for the purpose of ridding themselves of certain parasites that are attached to their bodies. I've often seen these parasites. They are flat, oval crustaceans, and a good deal like the common sow bugs—those little flattish, purple, many-legged bugs that we find under the bark of dead trees or sometimes under stones, back in the East. Almost all salmon caught in salt water have some of these things stuck to them, sometimes only one and sometimes a dozen. They will be found chiefly about the fins, and especially on those of the back. They cling closely to the skin, and some force is needed to dislodge them; but as soon as the fish get in the fresh water they die and drop off."