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 I love salmon. Norwegian, or Nova, smoked, with cream cheese on a
bagel, pan fried, steamed, poached, grilled, or baked. Chinook, pink, chum, sockeye, coho, and Atlantic. I've fished for salmon in Alaska next to fat brown bears that loved them, too. But I had never caught an Atlantic salmon, the greatest fighter and leaper of all our gamefish, and arguably the most delicious. As a fly-fisherman who sometimes dreams about rising fish, I knew I would have to cast to them. This Past summer, a dream was realized as fished the great Flowers River in northern Labrador.
As I walked the banks of the Black Stone River last week, I lamented the loss of one of our state's greatest natural resources. Since it is now basically impossible to catch an Atlantic salmon In Massachusetts, I have tried at least to see a few of them each year in our state as they migrate up the Connecticut River. Once, the Blackstone River's pristine, undimmed waters lured hundreds of thousands of them to Worcester County each May to spawn. And the Connecticut River may have held the greatest populations of Atlantic salmon in the world. They were once unbelievably abundant local food source, the franks and beans/macaroni and cheese of colonists and indentures servants. The latter reputedly stimulated ahead of time s\certain pre-conditions to signing their contract, including a limited number of meals of salmon. Salmon were so abundant, they were used by farmers as a source of nitrogen fertilizer . Today, maybe a hundred return in their spring migration up the Connecticut River, viewable through the glassed-in fish ladder at the Holyoke Dam during the shad run in May. What a tragic loss.
The ocean-grown, river-breeding anadromous Atlantic salmon is a silver-sided, white-bellied rocket when it first returns to the river of its birth. Every river has a distinctive aquatic aroma, and each salmon will find its river by means of its keen olfactory senses, savoring the essence of its home waters, as particularly discriminating and selective as a connoisseur of fine cognac. It will ascend only its natal stream. Upon entry, it will cease feeding entirely, focusing only on the rituals of mating. After spawning, it will gradually blacken, losing much of its girth and strength. Unlike all other species of Pacific salmon, Atlantic's do not die after spawning. They return to sea, grow even bigger, and return at least once more to spawn again in their home river. |
The fact that any of them succeed in returning even once is amazing. The odds of their survival in the ocean are slim, considering the gauntlet of predators they must elude. Commercial fishermen, seals, other fish and marine mammals. Every day is struggle for survival.
Their original range was from Greenland, Iceland, Scandinavia, Scotland, and Russia, south as far as Delaware. Eastern Canada and parts of New England have land-locked forms that the Indians called Ouananiche. They never go to sea. Attempts were made to stock them wherever possible because they tasted and fought almost as well as the Atlantic's.
In the 1860's, plantings of them in suitable cold, clean waters took place in New Hampshire for example, and presently about 13 lakes there now have them. Just after ice-out, salmon fishermen troll for them on big water like Lake Winnepesaukee. In Massachusetts, Quabbin and Wachusett Reservoirs and Comet Pond are annually stocked with salmon. They need cold, deep, well-oxygenated water. During the summer, if you want to catch them, you may have to go 40 to 70 feet below the surface, where the temperature is in the fifties, their comfort zone.
Landlocks will enter streams in the early fall, looking for shallow, gravelly bottom with swift current. They'll spawn into November. Females alone build a nest, beating out a section of gravel with their tail. A nearby male, now hormonally altered, and processing a distinctive hooked jaw or kype, guards the female, driving other males away. Spawning males also develop red blotches on their sides.
When she's ready, the male will trigger her willingness to mate by bumping into her with his snout and shaking his body next to hers. Eggs and sperm are deposited simultaneously, above the nest, as both parents stay parallel to each to each other, facing upstream. Sometimes small, sneaky males will dart in quickly at this moment, releasing sperm, and getting to fertilize some eggs while the dominant male is distracted.
The female will subsequently move slightly upstream, excavate another nest, helping cover over previously laid eggs. She will lay more eggs for up to a week or so, until she's empty. She lays primarily at night, though she will stay at her nest all day. The area within which she makes her nests is called a redd, and may be 3 feet wide and 3 to 20 feet long. The eggs won't hatch out until the following spring, usually in March or April, when the water temperature is close to 40 degrees. |
When the young alevins hatch out, they stay buried and protected in the gravel for about 6 weeks. Their only nourishment comes from their big yolk sac, which they slowly absorb. When the sac is empty the struggle for survival begins, and they need to go out looking for food. Most of them will be eaten by predators. The little salmon are now called parr. They will remain in the stream for 2-3 years before returning the the lakes that their parents came from. Fisherman need to be careful not to confuse them with trout. The parr will have 7 to 12 blotches or or bars along their sides, with red spots between the bars. They have a distinctive line of teeth down the center of the roof of their mouth, too. You'll notice, if you catch one, how there's no prominent spotting on their tail as you would find on a rainbow trout. You'll also notice how the comers of their mouth extends just behind the eye, unlike a brown trout, whose mouth extends obviously father back. And the adipose fin, that little one just ahead of the tail, has no little one just ahead of the tail, has no red, as might a brown trout's. Their anal fin will have rays numbering fewer than a dozen. Know these identification features and immediately release any parr you catch. They are the future salmon.
A landlock might only be about 14 inches long by the end of the second year in a lake of about 18 inches long at the end of its third year in the lake. By their sixth year, they're generally around 20 inches. Two and three pounders are average fish caught by sports fishermen, though 10 pounders are possible. Males mature at three while females mature at four. The freshwater record in New Hampshire is over 18 pounds. Sea going fish in Norway and Russia have been caught four times that size.
Salmon in lakes love smelt, perch, and insects. Smelt seen to be essential to their thriving, and fishermen would do well to use flies and lures that imitate smelt.
What killed the Atlantic Salmon runs in new England? It's yet another tale of unregulated man altering the environment for profit. As early as 1798, dams constructed at Turner's Falls on the Connecticut River ended the greatest salmon in new England. In 1847, another huge dam was built in the Lawrence of the Merrimack River. The Atlantic salmon was one of the casualties of the Industrial Revolution. A trade-off for profits and textiles and shoes. You don't get something for nothing. This multi-million dollar, perennially renewable resource of gourmet food and sportfishing was traded for cheap water power, and sewage disposal. |
Sadly, today, I get all my salmon from either Alaska or from pen-rasied fish in the North Atlantic. By July, Alaska salmon and pen-rasied Atlantics glut the market, and prices sometimes going below $4.00 a pound. Then it's time to poach, steam, bake, pan fry, or grill. With lox selling for $20.00 a pound, you might want to try making your own gravelox. Here's a treasured recipe got from one of Auburn's finest gourmet chefs, oenophile Dr. Larry Reich.
You need two big fresh salmon fillets, with the scaled skin left on. In addition, you'll need a large clump of dill, a clump of fennel, a quarter-cup of sugar, and two tablespoons of crushed white pepper corns.
Place a fillet skin-side down in a container just larger than the fish. Evenly spread on the chopped dill, fennel , along with a homogenous mixture of salt, sugar, and crushed pepper. Place the second fillet on the top, skin side up, like two slices of bread in a sandwich. Cover the fillets with foil and place a weight on it, preferably bricks on top of a board that's just smaller than the container. The object is to distribute the weight evenly.
Place the container in the refrigerator for 3 days. The flavor becomes more intense the longer it sits. Every 12 hours, turn the fillets over, always keeping the skins facing outwards. Each time, spread some of the brine between the fillets.
Finally, after the curing period, remove the fish from the brine and scrape off the seasonings. Slice the fillet, skin down, at the an angle, using a long, thin fillet knife to cut pieces as wafer-thin as possible. Any residual bones should be removed before slicing. Serve chilled. Maybe with a late harvest Auslese. Nothing finer.
I had dreamed for many years about fly-fishing for wild, sea run Atlantic salmon. For an angler nothing else compares. I would never kill one of course, considering their rarity and vulnerability. If you're a serious fly fisherman, you must take a pilgrimage for them once before you die. My first encounter with Salmon salary, the leaper, was at Flowers River Lodge last July. Let me take you there next week.
Atlantic salmon |
