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As told to Mark Ricketts by Earl Hornswaggle
You young-uns donât remember what it was like when the salmon were bountiful. It was like a gosh-darn epidemic. They were whoppinâ big too. Way back when Bangor was the lumber capital, a 20-pound salmon was thought a mite scrid, too puny to mess with. A 90 pounda, that was a fair catch. Some even grew big as a child raised on fried dough and whoopie pies.
âThose days, salmon wunt just big, they were orneryâmean as schoolyard bullies. Sometimes theyâd gang up, turn over your boat, and for no good reason, slap you silly with their tails. Other times, theyâd poke their heads up from the water and spit right in your eye.
âThey were a cranky bunch all right, but they went flat-out crazy come spawninâ season. River darn-near boiled over from their wild canoodlinâ.
âThe churchgoers, Bible thumpers, and such, they were already fed up with the cathouses downtown. They for damned sure wunt gonna allow such carryinâ on, such as âspawninâ,â in the pure waters of the Penobscot. So, in an effort to lead them fish down the path to righteousness, they held revival meets down at riverâs edge.
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âWhen their joyful noise got too loud, saloonkeepers met the challenge by havinâ their fiddlers and piano bangers play even louder. Upriver, on that island of theirs, the Penobscot Indians took to dancinâ and chantinâ. And, just for the heck of it, local hunters shot off a few dozen rounds over the old bridge.
âAll the singinâ, chantinâ, prayinâ, gunfire, and general hoo-ha got the salmon so riled up, they turned âround and started in swimminâ back tâhome.
âAnd that there, chummy, is why the Maine salmon moved their procreatinâ party upstream. Might also explain why so many old-timers âround these parts are hard oâ hearinâ.
âGotta say though, truth be told, come spring, I do kinda miss all the ruckus.
