The Flyfish Journal - The Flyfish Journal 13.4

THE MIGRATION OF SMOLTS

Words: Cameron K. Scott 2022-06-24 09:50:24

Artwork: Colin Clancy

Split and spliced, billions of smolts reared

in hatcheries are pushed into palaces

of piscivores, lost to turbines, behind dams

where smallmouth and walleye feast,

spillways where pikeminnow slurp them stunned.

ii.

Some smolts ascend as sigils,

smudges of dark matter,

a dampening song.

iii.

Once a smolt has left the river, it passes through

the claws of crabs and beaks of birds,

gradually adapts to saltwater

until it becomes post-smolt. However

held in freshwater, a smolt will readapt

their physiology to stay in the river where they

were born

if they are unable to reach the sea.

iv.

Dip-net, one fish.

Reef-net, scoop fish.

Longline, hook fish.

Drift-net. Set-net.

Wedge, tangle, gill-fish.

Trawl-fish:

Bow picker, stern picker,

seine entire schools.

Imperial. Metric. Nominal. Real. Industrial. Colonized.

Licensed, tagged, shipped, caught, canned, reported.

Filleted, frozen, grilled, poached, baked, fried, flecked.

Gingered, teriyakied, glazed, blackened.

Lemon’d, thyme’d, peppered, salted, served.

vi.

Lost among the hungers of the world, what fish

will feed all hunger, what hunger is vaster than ours?

vii.

From headwater streams smolts descend,

swim on currents near surface, carry out to sea.

Silvering beneath sun, pulled onward by moon,

leap through atmosphere, travel among stars.

Seasons shift, years pass, they return leviathans.

Do better, they say, for we have traversed the ocean

and no other rivers lead home.