I went to Eagle Creek today which is near the Bonneville dam in the Gorge intending to hike up a drainage there. Instead I found the creek full of spawning salmon so I spent about two hours walking around on the banks taking pictures. The salmon are amazing. They’ve made the trip all the way back from the oceans to this small creek. Somehow they got past the Bonneville dam. Either by fish ladder or by barge. Most of them are missing a fin, indicating that they are hatchery fish. There is a large hatchery in the mouth of Eagle Creek, which is probably why they’ve returned to this creek.

I followed the line of thousands of fish probably a mile up the creek, until both I and the fish were stopped by a dam. There was no way for them to get over the dam so they were in a fish traffic jam in a pool below the spillway. Thousands of salmon, jumping, swimming, spawning and dying. Corpses littered the banks. It’s an amazing sight to see. I just wish I could be witnessing it as a natural occurance.

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A resting salmon.

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Closer shot.

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The pool below the dam full of fish.

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A better shot of the fish traffic jam.

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A side pool littered with corpses.

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Trying to get up stream.

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Fighting over the ladies.

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Tails up.

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Moving up stream.

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Wriggling in the rocks.

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Tail swat.

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More fighting.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 7th, 2007 at 8:14 pm and is filed under Outside. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.