Salmon run

小树苗

Again it’s the annual salmon run this year starting in the middle of October, thousands of salmon will swim back to the lakes they are born in and lay their eggs there. But when people built dams, blocking the salmon to swam back, it causes the salmon could go nowhere except to stay in the river and lay their eggs until death. Because of the salmon are trapped, fishing lovers began bringing their fishing supplies to the rivers that have the dams which they can catch salmon in a higher percentage.

Well, why there’s salmon in Buffalo? Because the salmon cubs are originally born in the great lakes(I always have trouble remembering the names). After swimming back to the ocean and grew into adulthood, they began to swam back into their home lake during their mating season. When they are swimming back to their home lake through the rivers which some are blocked by the dam. Though most of the salmon will succeed back to their home and lay salmon eggs there, some of the unlucky salmons are blocked by the dam built by people and could only wander around in the river. But luckily, as I’ve read in an article, the American Government is taking effort to make the salmon successfully pass through the dam by building a tunnel that will suck the salmon to the other side of the river so that they can successfully swim back. (so if you want to see salmon jumping on the dam with great effort, you have to go to one of the rivers connecting on of the five great lakes).

A salmon migration map

Rivers connecting to on of the Great Lakes--Ontario

Last year in 2018, we went to Canada, waiting to see the exciting show of thousands of salmon swimming upstream. But unfortunately, due to improper place selection and some other factors, we are not successful to see salmon.

Not giving up, we planned for another trip the year after. The second time we went was too early, on September the 30th. Even though we didn’t see a lot of salmon, we did try some raw walnuts growing above the trees. This is my first experience trying fresh walnuts, and this is a really fascinating experience thought the walnuts taste like varnish. Finally, we’ve reached the dam, though there’s not a lot of salmon nor people, this doesn’t stop us from the desire to catch a salmon and smoke it. Since we are too early for the salmon run, most of the salmon haven’t come yet and there’s a big advantage of the percentage of the salmon being caught.

1st time visiting the Burt dam fishman park. As see, there's not really a lot of people fishing.

Yes, you’ve already guessed it, this is the third time we’ve gone to the same dam on October the 13th. This time a lot of salmon had come, so do with more people. There is a considerable amount of salmon and we actually saw a lot of people bringing 20-pound sockeye or chinook salmons home. We are thrilled to see this! Lots of salmon leaping out of the water, their scale resembles a rainbow color in the pink-orange-and red dawn. Looking at the salmons trying to jump through the dam nearly as high as the dragon gate, it really is a wonderful and cruel view!

2nd time visiting the park, there are more people now.

Eggs laid by salmons, mostly not fertilized.

Me holding a salmon caught by a fisherman. It was slimy and heavy!

The salmon run is certainly a precious scene from mother nature. Maybe we will go back again next week or next year, who knows?