A little Marvin Gaye please...

Fishing is always better in the rain right? Some brave souls from Milt's class tested that theory with a trip up river this afternoon. Tim and I acted as school bus...I mean school boat drivers. First field trip I've been on with a boat. It was about 45 degrees and raining pretty hard. But we managed 5 or 6 miles up river to a good sized slough that was holding 30-40 spawning silver salmon. We caught 6 silvers ranging from red to rotting red, almost dead fish. Why you ask??

Milt has a big fish tank in his room with a compressor rigged up to keep the whole thing pretty cold. The last 4 years they have caught spawning silvers and harvested their eggs to grow in this tank. We got 2 male and 4 female salmon for today's love fest. We only used 2 males and 1 female for the harvest, but they will all be dissected on Monday by the class. If you think they go to waste after that, shame, shame. We had requests to catch more dead dying salmon for drying racks. When I got permission to publish the picture of the kids, a parent said to give her anymore salmon we catch. I can't imagine what those salmon taste like, but to each their own. hahaha

I am going to have Milt let me know when different stages of the eggs occur. I'll try to keep you all updated to the health of the fish. Last thought, if you were wondering, the surviors are released back in the river in the spring, no worse for the ware. Milt has this all ok'd with the Alaska Fish and Game and the kids just love watching the progress. Pretty cool class project.

Enjoy this little video. Put some slow music on...turn the light down low and watch the fertilization.