May have to go fishing

[Jenise]

A salmon farm somewhere in Puget Sound that grows Atlantic salmon apparently got busted and all the fish got out. The poor little dears, raised on pellets and used to living in pens, have gone in search of new pens to inhabit. And there are none, but there are marinas. And my neighborhood has it's own private marina, so the salmon are here looking for someone to throw them pellets. They don't know how to live on smaller species. And there are no pellets, but pea gravel and rabbit food look about right so the salmon will jump into your boat if they think you've got some, and everyone in our neighborhood has been catching them. The authorities want them caught to prevent them from mating with wild species. Given their preferences I'm not sure how much mating they'll be doing, but anyway, it's an interesting development.

That is a strange one. I suppose they only know what they've been taught, poor dears.

--

Seems to be a summer for escaped fish. You must have read about the hagfish accident on Oregon's Highway 101, right?

Good grief!
Get out there, catch yourself some fishes, make a few loaves and crank up the cold smoker, the hot smoker and the grill. I reckon you'll be feeding the fleet sometime soon

[Jenise]

Seems to be a summer for escaped fish. You must have read about the hagfish accident on Oregon's Highway 101, right?

Nope, do tell!

[Jenise]

Good grief!
Get out there, catch yourself some fishes, make a few loaves and crank up the cold smoker, the hot smoker and the grill. I reckon you'll be feeding the fleet sometime soon

My neighbors have all been out there with rods but so far no one's caught any on a line. It's the boat jumpers that are doing well. I don't know why trolling up and down the jetty with a small net wouldn't work.

Seems to be a summer for escaped fish. You must have read about the hagfish accident on Oregon's Highway 101, right?

Nope, do tell!

Depoe, Oregon.

A truck carrying 7,500 lbs of domestically-farmed hagfish rumbles down the road.

-- Note: A hagfish is kinda like an eel. Various Asian countries fancy them and it's fairly cheap to raise them here, where nobody knows what they are! For the scientifically-inclined among us, they have skulls but no jaws, and are long and squiggly. In order to hang onto each other they actually do tie themselves in knots. To continue our tale: --

Rumble, rumble... skreeee! SKREEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!

The truck overturns, spilling a lot of the hagfish onto a Prius and the rest all over Highway 101.

It should be mentioned at this point that hagfish have a defensive weapon, granted them by Nature for just such emergencies as being attacked by predatory marine life or being unceremoniously dumped on a Prius.

They produce slime. Lots of it. Really fast.

And it's really awful stuff, both slick and sticky.

https://cnet1.cbsistatic.com/img/RlTEJTzA0N_iOzCNzWavmp8FNvI=/670x503/2017/07/14/a3135e6f-9a27-41e7-9d8e-41c6699f4d41/hagfish1.jpg

http://resize.tegna-media.com/remote/content.kgw.com/photo/2017/07/13/Eel%20truck%20crash%20_OP_2_CP__1499981213798_10038351_ver1.0.jpg?preset=wx-large

So, what of it, you may say. Well, what took but a moment to happen was not going to be cleaned up so easily. The highway patrol brought out fire hoses and worked most of the rest of the day to get the slime and eels off the road.

Of course, that only gave them that rarest of rural decor, Eels in a Ditch.

They had to bring in a bulldozer to bury the mess before the smell of decaying eels and slime became its own nuisance.

It made all the papers, even National Geographic reported it: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/07/hagfish-slime-oregon-highway/

I saw something about that hagfish incident earlier. They are disgusting creatures at their best. I can't imagine what that highway looked like after they decided to slime the place.

Jenise - You need to do your public duty and get those salmon out of the water!

I can't imagine what that highway looked like after they decided to slime the place.

You don't have to imagine it... the two links in the middle of the story go to pictures!

[Jenise]

Jeff--great story well told! I laughed my head off, and then groaned at the pictures. Btw, next time I'm offered eel in a sushi restaurant, this will affect my choice.

You're welcome.

Pumpkin and I have just returned - yesterday - from Japan. We ate plenty of yummy eel there, both saltwater and freshwater types.

And we ate barracuda.

And, a Kyoto favorite: daggertooth pike conger.