Several years ago, Adele Freeland and I went out in the rain looking for salmon coming up West Hylebos Creek to spawn. We didn't see any angle in the lower creek and Adele didn't see any fish in the fish ladder behind the blueberry farm. I was standing at the top of the fish ladder, directly opposite the viewing platform at Brooklake, staring into the pool formed between the first and second levels, when I heard an enormous number of flopping and flapping coming from my right.
I turned only in sentence to see a huge salmon lose his conflict with the flow and get swept backwards into the pool I had been busy staring into. I watched him remain for a few seconds, then he appeared to produce an effort to describe himself up for another attack on the top of the fish ladder, when he was inadvertently swept over the falls between the top pool and next pool down. That poor salmon was so worn out that he was really being swept off with the stream and all of his hard-fought efforts were for nothing. Sometimes we find so bad for these beautiful fish. They fight their way over, under, around, and through incredible obstacles in their effort to reach their spawning grounds. Adele and I searched each and every pond and were unable to recognize this valiant warrior again. He probably found himself a nice, deep, quiet pool to stay up in for a while. You can rest assured that he'll make another attempt.
Yesterday, while I was walking West Hylebos Park gathering info for my latest blogs. Adele Freeland was on the contrary slope of Brooklake looking for salmon again. The foremost affair I saw when I open my email was a substance from Adele saying, "THEY'RE BACK!' Oh, my gosh, I was so mad that it was all I could do to sit still. Adele said the salmon were very alive and the fact that I couldn't get out to wait for them was only about killing me.
Mary Longhurst and I made a spark to Brooklake this afternoon to bring our work at finding salmon.
The temperature got up to 63 degs F. It was so warm out that we didn't even want to wear jackets! The sky was shining blue and the h2o in Brooklake was exactly like a mirror. It was an absolutely glorious day to be out looking for fish!
There were a lot of ducks on Brooklake today, including mallards...
and gadwalls.
I took this picture from my favorite viewing location. Right now you get to climb down the hill, slough through calf-deep muck, and try to avoid knee-deep, water filled holes, in rank to get near enough to the butt of West Hylebos Creek to see this. Several days ago, an obscure person sawed down this beautiful all tree which fell across the creek. Intially, we distressed about whether this tree would block salmon access to the fish ladder leading into Brooklake, but a force came on and shifted the corner to one position of the creek. Salmon love this spot. They wish to fall out just below the butt of the corner and will usually spent quite a long time there before moving on.
Here's another salmon hanging out very nigh to the same spot. I saw five different salmon in this country today. Once the salmon leave this area, they keep up the brook to a nice deep pool that's at the seat of the fish ladder.
Once they forget that pool they get to start swimming uphill. The water at this end of the fish ladder can be very shallow and that scares the fish. They don't wish it when more than half of their bodies are exposed. Sometimes, I can stand there and observe them try and go to capture this situation complete and over and over again. From my vantage point, I can see both the pool they're going and the pool they're trying to reach, but the angle cannot. When almost half of their bodies are exposed, they often panic, turn back, and swim back into the lower pool, where they mill around for a while, trying to make up enough courage for another attempt. Often, they're just inches from reach the adjacent pool when they hold up and work around. Adele and I have found ourselves rooting for the salmon as difficult as you'd root for your favorite team at a football game. Our groans when the fish turn around are precisely as cheap and earnest as your groans when the ball misses the goal.
Once they pop up the fish ladder, they have to leap over a serial of waterfalls. Each waterfall has a pond at it's foundation in which the fish rest between each attempt. It can bring a really long time and a great many attempts to run from one pool to the future and oft the angle will rule themselves being swept back into a previous pool while they're trying to describe themselves up for an attack on the adjacent pool.
This is the last waterfall at the top of the fish ladder, the precise same waterfall I'd watched the salmon be swept back over several years ago. If you're standing on the viewing platform at Brooklake and look over the rail on the right-hand side, facing the lake, you'll be looking straight into the water at the top of the fish ladder. Once the fish make it ended this last waterfall, they hold to determine whether to follow the urine to the left, which leads further into the green and dwindles away, or watch the urine to the right, which narrows down into a very slender, shallow notch leading into Brooklake. The salmon really don't wish the theme of liquid through that notch. It's very low and they accept to reveal too much of their bodies in place to get through it. As a result, the fish mill around in the water at the top of the fish ladder, checking things out in one direction, then the next, repeatedly. After each search, they incline to float back to the very rim of the falls and hover there, back to the falls, as if they're smelling or taste the h2o in place to get the correct direction. Once they resolve to prepare a run for the notch, a whole lot of splashing will occur as the fish try to twist their bodies over the shallow patch and done the notch, back into surface water. We saw two salmon milling about in this country today and Mary watched one of them finally make a successful trip through the notch.It's not uncommon to see the salmon jump clear up out of the lake, as if in joy at the fact that they're finally home.
On that happy note, I'm going to provide you with one final salmon photo. Yes, once more, the salmon are swimming up West Hylebos Creek to breed in our park and proceeds to Brooklake, leaving their redds behind in the devil to have birth to the next generation of West Hylebos salmon. The rubies are dancing in the brook again! It's a sentence for celebration!
Teri Lenfest
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