This Incredible Fish

"A steelhead always knows where he is going, but a man seldom does."
-Steve Raymond, The Year of the Trout

This buck steelhead was hatched somewhere very near where this picture was taken. For three years he stayed here, avoiding hungry trout, dolly varden, kingfishers, mergansers, floods, and freeze-ups. Sometime during his third summer, he made his way out of the safety of his little pool toward the ocean. He passed through white water, log jams, and spawning salmon all the way to the big water where the danger was escalating. Now he had to learn how to dodge gulls, puffins, salmon, sharks, whales, porpoises, gill nets, cormorants, cod, industrial sludge, and everything else bigger than he. Somewhere along his journey, he tangled with either a shark or a net. The scars on his side and belly are proof of that. For two years, he grew more and more powerful until he was strong and big enough to start the dangerous part of his life. Steel-backed and chrome-sided, he found his way back through the gill nets and purse seines to the mouth of the Situk River after thousands of fish miles through the Gulf of Alaska and beyond. On a certain day in late April, the incoming tide washed him into fresh water for the first time since he was four inches long. His body stopped needing food. He fought white water and log jams for miles, stopping only to rest during the brightest part of the day in slow, deep drifts. This is where he started seeing hooks. They swung in and out of his reach as he contemplated each and every one. The closer he came to his natal drift, the more his body began to change. His teeth grew sharper. His sides and his cheeks turned red. His back turned green. His spots became darker and more defined. His beak hooked. The red on his body incited riots among the bucks. They tore into each other with life or death violence. The hens waited patiently for for the males to finish their contests. When he overcame his rival, he settled with a hen and rubbed her sides with his powerful tail until she began to deposit the first of her thousands of eggs. Then Scott drifted a red leech pattern with a colorful yarn egg and this steelhead had finally had enough. He darted forward and smashed Scott's fly and the dance began. Out of the water three, four, five times, this steelhead had been through too much to give up now. He shook and pulled and ran and ran until his energy waned and he slowly made his way to hand. Gently, Scott lifted him out of the water. I took this picture. We looked at him for a few short seconds, and released him back to his hen--she wouldn't allow another mate to take his place.

By now, he has fertilized her eggs and he is completely spent. If he can make it back downstream, past the spring brown bears and the log jams, he will reenter the Gulf of Alaska to find food. He will become chrome-bright and grow strong for his next trip up the Situk.

He'll never bite at another hook again.