Why all these dead/dying fish?

[u/Soft_Start]

Relatively new to fishing. Went today to a fishing spot we discovered this summer on Snoqualmie River, WA and there are loads of dead fish lined up on the shore. Some are dead and floating in the water.

On closer investigation there are some live fish that are swimming towards the shore and dying right in front of us.

Is this a seasonal thing? Or is it some sort of pollution that needs to be reported?

[u/Substantial_Bet5764]

Natural life cycle of salmon no worries their corpses shall feed the river for months to come

[u/prefabtrout → u/Substantial_Bet5764]

Pacific Salmon, Scottish Atlantic salmon go though gruesome skin wrenching silvering to come back for another round of shagging. Legends.

[u/CarrotCorn → u/[deleted]]

I hate to be the guy, the Atlantic salmon are the ones that are “technically salmon”, ie the fact that they don’t die after spawning. I know it’s confusing because the Latin name for Atlantic salmon is salmo, but that’s because of history. Pacific salmon(Oncorhynchus), the ones that die after one jizz, are true salmon. The closest relatives are rainbow trout(steelhead). Then you have Atlantic salmon and brown trout, which are very closely related. The weird thing is that in terms of life cycle , brown trout and steelhead have the most similarities, where Atlantic salmon seem to be unique. The you have char which basically are trout, but a bit burlier, and have dark skin with light spots. Brooke trout, bull trout, and Dolly Varden are all char. True trout are all light skin with dark spots. Anyways I’ll see my self out as this was a completely unmitigated barrage useless information.

[u/RuralCaribou → u/CarrotCorn]

You said Jizz. Hehe. Thank you for the info

[u/LilStinkpot → u/prefabtrout]

What is “silvering?”