Forgot about the Fish

Before I tell you any more about the rapids and the rest of the river trip, I forgot to tell you about the fish we found.  The day we walked through the caldera during the strong wind and the blowing ash,  in the middle of the caldera, where all you could see was dirt, no plants, no bushes and no flowers were around, the producer and I found a fish.  It wasn't very big, about five inches long.  It was dead of course but in perfect shape.  It was bright blue with a tan underbelly.  We called for my boss who is a fish expert.

He thought we were playing some kind of prank on him but it was truely a fish.  When he saw it he got very excited.  This man is 6 feet 5 inches tall and he was jumping around like a little school boy.  The fish we had found in the middle of the caldera had not been documented in the river or the lake.  It is however, found in the bay at the rivers end at the Pacific Ocean.  It is highly unlikely that the fish was carried by a bird from the ocean 23 miles away to the middle of the caldera.  so we theorized that it must now be in the lake.  This means that our fish biologist would be returning to do new surveys of Surprise Lake.

The day we hiked to the top of the mountain the rest of team started up a large grassy path but it looked kind of steep to me and I decided that I wanted to follow the stream we had seen the night before.  Eventually everyone followed me.  As we climbed we found the brook that rolled down the mountain.  The camera man and the director were so excited that they immediately stopped to film.  While they were setting up the shots my boss walked over a small hill to where another stream was flowing down the mountainside.  In a small pool he found another fish surprise.

In the small pool he found a Dolly Varden.  The only way it could get up the stream as high as it was was to swim.  To manage that it had to jump and manuever some very tough falls and climbs.  But sure enough he had found a good size fish.  As the rest of us gathered around to see the fish another fish darted out from under a rock.  Again my boss went nuts.  Fish excite the man.  The camera man thought that this would be a great thing to film.  Only thing was the fish was camera shy.

The two fish were under a set of rocks along the bank of the stream.  The camera man wanted my boss to get the fish to swim out so that they could be caught on film.  After a few minutes of thought my boss said he thought he could do this.  He thought he could toss something in the water that the would make the fish come out and investigate.  He tossed a small seed from a nearby plant and the fish came out.  Since this worked the camera man set up his equipment, when he was ready my boss tossed in another plant seed.  No fish.  He tossed a small pebble but no fish.  He grabbed a piece of grass and wiggled it in the water but still no fish.  Then it was decided that the cameraman would film my boss scaring the fish with his hand and then he would edit my bosses hand out of the picture.   After about thirteen takes they decided that they had got the shot.  We loaded up the equipment and returned on our journey.  As exciting as it was to see the fish, I am pretty sure it won't make the movie but who is to know.  The good thing is that the fish finds would mean a return trip to Aniakchak and I am all for it.