Salmon epic leaps to life
In telling the story of the salmon from its viewpoint, he has introduced the reader to the various aspects of salmon biology in a narrative form. His description of a large spring salmon making its way back from the sea, being caught and released and eventually surmounting the last big falls finally to arrive at his place of birth almost humanises the fish. The description of spawning is as informative as I have read.
No biology lessons are required before reading this book, Dick just tells the salmon’s story and describes it in detail. For example, he describes the reason for the change in colour of a salmon smolt on entering the sea and why male salmon go red before spawning and how the carotenoids picked up from feeding on crustaceans at sea are taken up by the hen fish’s eggs. Any salmon anglers will find it compulsive reading and will pick up on many aspects of salmon biology. He explains how the guanine crystals in the skin of a salmon smolt are laid down in rows parallel to the light shining down from the surface and thereby act as mirrors that reflect the surrounding blue of the sea and so conceal the smolt from predators approaching from the side. The greenish brown back of the parr is replaced in the smolt by blue so that the fish also appears sea blue to predators looking from above.
