salmon tale

It was a cool morning and the eggs were just starting to hatch. 7,000 salmon would be born that day. Most would die before even reaching the ocean and only two would ever make it back home. This story will follow one salmon jimmy on his quest for the open ocean.Jimmy had always been less popular than all the other salmon, his brother Charles on the other hand was the most popular fish around and was the fastest swimmer anyone knew. This didn't bother jimmy much, after all he did have thousands of other brothers and sisters. They had been swimming for months, no one really knew where they were going but they all knew that they had to keep going. Jimmy had a fascination with the land and land animal. This fascination probably is what led to his friendship with rocky the raccoon. Rocky, like jimmy was an underdog, he had always been unable to catch bigger fish so he had always gone for smaller ones. This is how he met jimmy. One day rocky had been looking for crawfish when he had seen a group of young salmon. it was a little early for salmon to be in that part of the river but rocky welcomed the chance to eat something other than crawfish and garbage. Just as rocky was about to get into the water an especially small salmon swam right up to the shore. Normally rocky would have snatched up the young fish but he was struck by this salmon’s odd behavior. Jimmy, oblivious to the fact that raccoons ate fish stuck his head out of the water and said “hi I'm jimmy who are you”. Needless to say rocky was shocked, not only was he surprised that the fish had approached him but he didn't even know fish could talk. “Um I'm rocky”.“Hi are you a bear?” asked jimmy.“No I'm a raccoon. What, haven't you ever seen a raccoon before?” asked rocky. Jimmy shook his head. Rocky was aghast, he had never met another animal that didn't know what a raccoon was. Jimmy and rocky went on to become best friends. They both were teased for this friendship but they were the only ones who understood each other so they stayed friends despite being teased. As it turned out there were many advantages to having a raccoon as a best friend. For instance whenever jimmy wanted another fish to “disappear” all he had to do was ask and the problem would be solved and rocky would get a meal.
One time Jimmie and the other fish were swimming along towards there unknown goal and they came across a huge gray barrier. Jimmie thought that they had hit a dead end. Jimmie saw Charles and some of the other larger salmon going over to the side of the river were the shore met the barrier. At first Jimmie didn’t see what Charles was looking at, but as he got closer he noticed that there was a series of water falls going up to the other side of the barrier. He looked around on the shore for rocky, he saw him not to far away eating some food. Jimmie stuck his head out of the water. “What is that thing rocky?” he asked.
“It’s a dam and a fish ladder. You have to climb up it to get to the other side of the dam” Replied rocky.
“what, I have to climb that thing?”. Asked Jimmie exasperated. He knew that there was no way that he could climb that thing himself.
“I can’t do it.” Said Jimmie.

“yeah you can, just give it a try.” Said rocky
“ok I’ll give it a try.” Said Jimmie. He turned around to see that most of the other Parr had already begun their ascent to the other side of the fish ladder. Jimmie took one look back at rocky and knew what he had to do he charged as fast as he could at the first fall, he leapt out of the water struggling with all his might. He made it past the first one. He started to charge for the next one but realized he didn’t have very much room, he started to panic but he knew he had to do it so he went on Jimmie struggled but he made it to the other side.

It was a while after Jimmie had gotten past the dam, he was already in the Smolt stage of his life. Him and the rest of the salmon who had made it past the dam could tell that they were getting closer. There were hardly any others left, between fisherman and other natural predators they had been picked off one by one. Jimmie began to wonder where they were going; he figured that it must be someplace pretty special for them to have come so far. It was two days later that he realized just how amazing it was. They had come around a bend in the river and all of a sudden the water started getting kind of murky and it tasted different he went over to the shore to ask rocky what was going on.
“ What’s with the water?” Jimmie asked.
“ Its getting saltier because your near the ocean.” Said rocky looking kind of sad.
“ Oh” said Jimmie. He remembered rocky saying something about it.
“What’s wrong he asked now noticing that rocky was looking sad.
“ Don’t you realize that I’ll never be able to see you again.” Said rocky
“What do you mean?”
“If you go out to sea than we won’t be able to hang out.”
“Oh I never realized, well I guess that I’ll have to stay here” said Jimmie knowing that it wasn’t an option.
“You know you can’t do that.”
“Yay, I know.”
“well you had better get going” said rocky
“yay, ok bye.” They took one last glance at each other and Jimmie left for the great blue expanse that would be his temporary home.