Life Is Tough If Your A Salmon

I have never thought about what it would be like to be a fish before I watched one night as the few salmon in the river tried to jump the falls in the river. Can you imagine, you trying to get back to the place of your birth to spawn but before you can do that you must travel miles and run a gauntlet just to get there. Your out in the ocean and you know it is time to go back. You ride the tides to the mouth of the Naknek River. Then fighting the current you swim upstream dodging the numerous commercial fishing nets set out to catch. As of today 2 plus million of your relatives have all ready lost their lives to the commercial nets. You make it past this, and swim up the Naknek, through Naknek Lake to reach Brooks River only to be met with a large group of sportsfishermen who would like nothing better than to catch you on thier hook and knock you on the head, and take you home for dinner. You gather with your buddies, waiting for the right moment to make your move. When enough of you has gathered together you move as one furious group causing the water to look as if it was boiling and you make your dash up river. Past the fishermen you go only to find out that to get to the next part of your journey you have to jump six feet over the falls. Not an easy task because before you get to the falls you have to go through the riffles, shallow, rocky waters where the less dominant bears are waiting for you. The bears run, you swim, and in a sudden splash you watch as a member of the group is taken in the teeth of the splashing bear. You swim on and make your jump, only you don't make it on the first try. You swim around gathering speed you jump, only to just hit the top of the falls and you fall back into the water. A third time you circle around and with a buddy or two you jump. You are barely over the falls. You wiggle your tail back and forth struggling not to let the current push you back over. As your struggling you see you comrades jump right into the open mouths of waiting bears. You have made the falls and are swimming into Lake Brooks where you pass till you get to the little stream you were born in. There you will mate and give life to the next generation of salmon. And what do you get for your award winning battle of survival? You get to die and and float back down the river where waiting bears, eagles, gulls and maybe a wolf will be waiting to feed on you. The circle of life, you got to love it.