Aquarists at work - A Fascination for Fish: Adventures of an Underwater Pioneer - page 208

aquarium world that we help one another whenever we can. No records
were kept, but the Steinhart sta¤ knew that we would repay them in
the future when they needed a favor.
Although I had experience collecting most of the animals on the
species list, there was one fish I had neither collected nor kept in an
aquarium. The king, or Chinook, salmon ( Oncorhynchus tshawytscha )
is a key commercial and sport fish in Monterey Bay, and it was im-
portant that we have some nice large ones on exhibit.
I had seen very few large salmon in other aquariums and I worried
about how the fish would react to capture and quarantine in our twenty-
foot-diameter holding tank. I suspected they might be flighty and pos-
sibly jumpers; it turned out that, at first at least, they were, and we in-
stalled jump screens to prevent their escape.
Reading everything we could on salmon fishing and talking to salmon
fishermen convinced us that the best collecting method for our pur-
poses was slow-speed trolling. The wire line on each heavy rod and reel
would troll four leaders with barbless hooks and plastic squids, known
locally as “hoochies,” as lures.
Not quite sure what we were doing, we ventured out into Monterey
Bay. We fumbled around with the gear for a while until we got the
hang of it, and we were delighted when we actually caught some salmon.
Practice makes perfect, and we got better at it over time. I knew that
salmon have fine scales and that a net would knock them o¤, break-
ing the skin's protective mucus layer and leading to infection. To pro-
tect their delicate skin, we never touched the fish with a net. Instead,
we would lift the fish with the strong leader straight from the sea into
the holding tank on the boat.
Upon returning to the harbor, the boat was winched up onto its trailer,
towed to the aquarium, and backed down right next to the holding
tanks. The salmon were then moved one at a time in smooth, strong
plastic bags from the boat to quarantine.
Powerful but delicate fish require careful handling. For several weeks
the salmon would startle anytime they saw someone approach. To get
them to feed, we'd sneak up to the side of the tank and toss anchovies
or herring in without them seeing us. I always wondered if their pro-
nounced startle behavior from seeing a movement above the water had