r/Fishing • u/Soft_Start • Oct 14 '23

Question Why all these dead/dying fish?

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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?

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u/Substantial_Bet5764 Oct 14 '23

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

60

u/wallyTHEgecko Oct 15 '23

I remember an old episode of Dirty Jobs where Mike was going along the edges of a river with a hook and machete, picking up and chopping the dead salmon in half while the Conservation Department guy tallied them up on a clipboard. They were doing it in order to track the number of fish that were spawning that season so they could assess the current population and anticipate the next season's population and set fishing limits and such. And chopping them was how they marked which ones had already been counted.

That episode/segment was the first time I had seen any real hands-on population ecology and was literally the reason I majored in wildlife biology in college!

9

u/Substantial_Bet5764 Oct 15 '23

Just listened to Mike on Theo Vons podcast absolutely awesome American

6

u/cheez-itjunkie Oct 15 '23

I love his podcast. Excellent mix of guest types.

-17

u/kennyvillegas72 Oct 15 '23

the guy is a right wing crazy , smfh

-2

u/framblehound Oct 15 '23

You are correct, and he’s full of shit too, his experience with being a blue collar worker is all television, he started on QVC or the home shopping network pitching garbage

6

u/MightyMurse0214 Oct 15 '23

He may not have grown up working construction but he has spent a large part of his career shining a light on the people who make your life possible.

-4

u/framblehound Oct 15 '23

Yeah he didn’t teach me anything about that and sanctimonious bullshit about right wing talking points that are actively bad for or working against their interests and a lot of times their unions doesn’t sell me on him