CONFLUENCE Words: Cameron K. Scott Artwork: Colin Clancy THE MIGRATION OF SMOLTS v. 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. i. 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. 038 THE FLYFISH JOURNAL
The Flyfish Journal The Flyfish Journal 13.4: Page 38
