Confession

Some of my posts have made disparaging references to salmon snaggers. Each fall, when Michigan's rivers fill up with Chinook salmon on their spawning run, they draw hordes of fishermen, many of whom don't really care whether they can get the salmon to bite or not. In fact, many resolutely affirm that salmon won't bite when they're on the spawning run. They toss out treble hooks with a small piece of orange yarn tied around the shank (to preserve a threadbare illusion of using a lure) and lots of lead crimped on the line above. Some of more audacious ones will cast an enormous treble hook with a lead ingot cast around it--this is known as a "tippy spider." A few will tie on an actual fly or lure, and in truth, those can serve the purpose just fine.

They will toss whatever rig they use into a pod of salmon on the spawning beds, and give the rod a good jerk when they feel the hook hit something, or just when they think it's close to a fish. If the hook doesn't pull out of the fish's belly, back, or tail, the lucky angler is in for one heck of a battle. Snagged salmon jump way more than mouth-hooked ones, and they run downriver with all the force of a cow falling from an airplane.

When the fish gets close and the fisherman gets a glimpse of the hook embedded in the bellow or below the gill plate, he may shout "It threw the hook and rolled in the line," and he may actually believe it. Many don't even make the pretense of a legal catch. I remember a guy on Muskegon River fishing with a rod like a broom handle, loaded with what must have been at least 50 lb. test line. As soon as he had a solid hookup, he simply threw the rod over his shoulder like a rifle and walked to shore to get a better footing before he yanked in the fish.

It's illegal to keep foul hooked fish, though where there isn't visible and agressive enforcement of the rules, a lot of snagged fish end up on stringers, sometimes with a post-netting hook hole made in the mouth in the event that a conservation officer wanders by and questions how the fish was obtained.

Snagging is an ugly business, and a pathetic one, when you consider that salmon will indeed bite after coming in the rivers (although they bite best before they actually make it up on the spawning beds). It's a travesty of fishing, requiring no skill, no stealth, and no understanding of the river or the quarry, aside from where the gravel beds are and when the salmon reach them. It relies on brute force instead of artful persuasion--if there ever was a type of fishing that called for military grade hardware, snagging is it.

Having said all that, though, I have a confession to make. I used to snag. Not accidentally in the course of honest fishing--everyone fishing for salmon will foul hook one eventually, and I certainly have. No, I ventured out with snagging as my prime intention. I jumped in the cesspool by my own volition.

This was back in the 70s, when snagging was actually legal on a few rivers. My dad used to take me north in mid-october for a short fishing getaway, and on one of those, we took an afternoon off from walleye fishing at Lake Cadillac to watch the salmon running at Tippy Dam on the Manistee river. We saw them, covering the bottom of the river like quivering black logs. And we saw people tossing out bare treble hooks with heavy sinkers attatched, and hauling in salmon almost as fast as they could cast. I think my father was kind of disgusted by the spectacle, but my 11 year old eyes fixed on the heavily bent rods and the enormous fish thrashing in landing nets. That, by God, was fishing, I thought, not sitting in a boat on a windy lake waiting for bites that were few and far between, and usually from fish too small to keep.

Over the next year, I badgered by dad to take me up to Tippy to snag salmon on our next fall trip. His explanation that snagging wasn't really fishing went right over my head. Eventually he relented, and we made two trips to Tippy to pit our stamina against fish in their death throes. Incredibly, we caught none. Aside from a few suspicious bumps, we never even connected with a salmon. Looking back, I'd say that was a blessing, as our attention soon turned to real fishing for fall steelhead.

From my experience, I can understand the impulse to snag. All those big fish in plain sight give quite a temptation. There is too the rationalization that "they're going to die anyway," which left a well-worn neural pathway in my own brain. I outgrew the desire eventually, mostly, I think, because I started to enjoy more success and satisfaction with legit fishing; by some accounts, more and more people are shunning the practice. But if you go to a salmon river this time of year, you won't have to look hard to see people who aren't.

Snagging was probably legal for about a decade but it may take several to fade altogether. In the culture as in the ecology of the outdoors, the damage done in a short time may take generations to repair.
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I'm off to New England tomorrow morning. Reports next week when I return.