A Delicacy

Last week I found a large salmon carcass along the river. There have been a lot of chum salmon carcasses along the river in previous weeks (with mainly just bones remaining now), but I think this was a king salmon and the only one I've seen on the river so far. My impression is that their population is much smaller than dog or pink salmon in the area, which may be the reason I have not seen any before now. I also wonder though if they prefer to spawn further up river and so aren't as likely to be found dead down here.

I don't know what the cause of death was, but I have to wonder if it was one of the many fishermen I have seen along the river. I don't get the impression that the salmon are legal to keep, perhaps it became injured while being caught and released and died subsequently. I've only talked with a few of the fishermen I've seen down there, but all the ones I have talked to seemed unwilling or unable to say what they were fishing for. My impression was that they were pretty novice and were just out to fish without worrying much about what they might or might not catch.



The next morning the carcass was already picked pretty clean. I was a bit surprised since most of the salmon carcasses I see mostly just get pecked at (eyes and brains seem to be favorites). I guess this one tasted a bit better as it was a lot fresher than the spawned out salmon that otherwise had washed up.