Salmon - Catch to Can

[Music] From the depths of the Pacific, the salmon swim in by the millions, led by some strange instinct to the freshwater streams that gave them birth. Once there, they never eat again. Time and birth and death are closing in now. Using only the energy stored in their bodies when they left the ocean, the salmon must ascend the streams that carried them so readily to sea when they were young. [Music] The ascent is never easy. Sometimes the obstacles seem too formidable. But formidable too is the drive of the salmon to fulfill its destiny. You are [Applause] glory. [Music] As the waters narrow, other obstacles stand waiting to take their toll of the silvery stream. [Music] Man too interrupts the journey, but only momentarily as his fish ways and ladders guide the fish onward and make possible an estimate of their numbers for conservation planning. [Music] Far upstream in a quiet pool, the journey ends. Its purpose fulfilled as the female scoops out a depression in the bottom to hold her eggs. [Music] By hundreds and by thousands, the tiny eggs pour forth. [Music] And the cloud-like sperm of the male envelops and fertilizes them. [Music] [Music] And finally, the cycle of time and birth and death completes itself as the parent salmon die. Their bodies modeled and battered and spent by the efforts of their journey. Through their death, life has given life. [Music] As the days pass, new life begins to stir in pool after pool across the vast salmon country, and billions of eggs slowly grow to maturity. [Music] Soon the waters everywhere are sparkling with fingerlings which in their own term will head out to sea. To increase their population still further, hatcheries of the Fish and Wildlife Service and of the various states gather millions of eggs each year, fertilize and care for them until they hatch and the young can fend for themselves, thus supplementing the supply of a nutritionally valuable fish. Proper fishing methods must parallel such efforts if conservation is to be achieved. One is persane fishing. The lookout spots the salmon and the small boat moves away carrying the purse sane behind it. Floats at the top and lead weights at the bottom form a wall of netting suspended in the water. Salmon are sociable fish and travel in schools. The long sane intercepts the school. The crew of the big boat throw leaded lines and drive plungers into the water to keep the salmon headed toward the net. Then the small boat circles back with the far end of the net in tow, thus enclosing the fish on all sides. And now lines that are threaded through rings in the bottom of the net are drawn in, closing up the bottom as strings close a lady's purse. I love you and [Music] Of the three major commercial fishing methods, trolling is the only one that makes no use of nets, depending instead on hooks and line. [Music] The hooks are baited for shinook or coho, the most likely of the five salmon species to strike a lure. Herring strips are frequently used for bait, but every troll fisherman has his own theory of what the salmon like. Plugs of every description appear each year, and often theories are discarded in mid-season as the fisherman try one lure and then another. A silver flasher is a frequent competitor for attention. [Music] Whatever the bait, an outrigger takes the line and the slow trolling begins. It ends with the strike and the line is drawn in by hand. A single fish instead of a net full, but well worth the troller's time when it goes to market. [Music] As the trollers trail their lures, other net fishermen exploit the salmon's return to the freshwater streams of their birth. Gil nets set to drift with existing currents intercept the fish as they head upstream. Their wide mesh permits the smaller ones to pass through, but in snares the gills of the larger fish, trapping them as the nets are drawn in. [Music] Alone in his boat, often for months at a time, the Gilnet fisherman leads a life of solitude. A solitude broken only by the visits of another skipper or the byboat crew who put out from shore to buy his fish and bring him mail and supplies. But solitude has its rewards, as one by one, the salmon come tumbling aboard, ready for the byboat and the trip to the canery. [Music] From the holes of the canery boats, the fish are pushed out on a conveyor belt, [Music] then lifted by elevator, starting them on their way to the canery. [Music] In the canery, machines called iron chinks, unique to the salmon industry, dress 60 to 70 fish a minute. [Music] can after can is filled with the fish. And then after salting and a careful final inspection, the cans are sealed as many as 250 of them a minute. Then the sealed cans pour into broad racks for cooking. [Music] Thus, modern techniques ensure a product that is appetizing and nutritious right from the can or in a variety of delightful dishes. A full color recipe booklet, Take a Can of Salmon, shows how to prepare these and many other dishes using canned salmon. For a real treat, send 15 cents to the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington 25 DC, and you will receive a copy.