For better or worse

So, June has come to an end, meaning that about a third of the salmon season has now passed. We have spent a lot of time by the rivers, and like so many others, being overwhelmed by frustration and hopelessness but also convinced that there are glimpses of hope out there.

We’ve been having genuine talks with a lot of fishers, we’ve done deep interviews with the likes of Thomas Johansson, at the Baltic Salmon Fund, Glenn Douglas, longtime salmon authority at Sportfiskarna and Gustav Hellström, scientist at SLU; and it’s a complex situation that emerges, with a lot of different stakeholders and alternative perspectives on the salmon situation — and as always, there is no easy solution to a complex problem.

We’ve been standing on the bridge in Jockfall, like numerous years before, staring at the Kalixälven without spotting anything but the occasional leaper. It’s about the same story in Bräntbergsfallet, Råneälven (which closed for salmon fishing all together due to weak runs). In Fällfors, Byskeälven, we got there on the right evening and saw a good deal of fish battling the current. No doubt, it was encouraging to see them run in numbers again, if just for a brief moment.

And not to mention, Lars caught and released his first of the year (1/7) in Lainio, after some needed rain showers.
— It feels like in the old days, before the success story, he said. If you got one decent fish a year you were pretty content. Of course, there’s a charm in all that as well but when you know what a strong run looks like, you don’t ever wanna go back to those days — and frankly, we shouldn’t need to.

Yes, salmon management could be better, climate could not be changing, and the Sea of Bothnia could be at a better state. It’s obvious, this isn’t a question about the Baltic salmon alone. One thing connects to the other and all of a sudden you have a chain of events in a downwards spiral.

And you can’t help but thinking, is this just a bump in the road or is it the beginning of the end.

It seems pretty clear; this whole situation calls for a more holistic approach to management and even a philosophical revaluation of how to care for nature in general and the Baltic salmon in particular.

Maybe there is something else out there, that shouldn’t be measured by economic growth targets?

Around many campfires, we’ve been talking in terms of a change in paradigm. What do you think would happen if decisionmakers didn’t see upon the Baltic salmon as food (after all Livsmedelsverket doesn’t recommend you to eat salmon more than once a year if you’re pregnant or a child, due high dioxin levels). What would happen if we primarily saw the salmon as something to empower river valleys up north for real and letting it drive a meaningful existence for locals as well as visitors?

Maybe all of us — all the people along the rivers, fishers and locals, environmentalists, visitors and just generally good human beings would unite for this change to happen.

Let’s turn things around, putting the adult salmon entering the rivers first in the chain of command. Converting the rivers from being smolt production units and give this magnificent fish a chance to enrich all our existence — on a social, cultural, ecological and individual level.

For that to happen, we probably need to give the Baltic salmon but foremost the unique lifestyle that it offers us all, a bigger voice. Because maybe decisions made by the politics aren’t wrong, they are just taken from a different perspective, where priorities don’t get made with the returning salmon and all the wonderful things that it brings, as top of mind?

And maybe we, all together and each and every one in their own way, need to make the effort to tell the world outside the salmon community, this other wonderful side of the story?

We have come to the conclusion, that salmon fishing is not about catching fish. Yes, that might sound like stating the obvious and one of the oldest clichés there is on the topic of sportfishing, but hear us out…

The salmon is the reason to get out there. It’s the reason to mess up your sleep, to barbecue an unhealthy number of sausages, to battle hordes of mosquitos, to fall asleep on that perfect rock, to struggle with the midnight sun straight in your eyes… Well, you know the drill. But it’s also the reason to feel free and alive and to get to hang out with the most amazing people who just want to do the exact same thing as you do. And all this somehow piles up to why, you get by those rough times in life, knowing all this awaits on the other side…

So in that sense, the salmon are giving so many of us a reason to love life dearly and shouldn’t that be worth more than a vacuum portion packed slice of meat (that you shouldn’t eat more than once a year anyway) or letting the Baltic sea be vacuum-cleaned for herring and sprat (the staple food for the salmon in the Baltic), and ship off as fodder for a dreadful open pen fish farming industry elsewhere — while totally messing up fragile ecological systems both here and there.

Of course, we think this is a no brainer.

Now, as a production company, we need to enter editing mode for some time but of course, we’ll still be out there as often as we can, for there is where we belong.

And to put it frankly, like so many of you,
we are nothing but salmon fishers — for better or worse until death do us part.