Pink Salmon Photo Essay – from Fresh to Zombie

01.10.12

You’ve read about how much you’ll like fly fishing for pink salmon and about the cool and rare opportunity to catch pink salmon off a beach. Now you’ll get to view the miraculous transformation from fresh to “zombie” pink salmon – the term we give to a half dead salmon in the late season who may be missing eyes, missing parts of fins, laden with rotting flesh, or “D” all the above.

We are lucky. We spend the entire summer season in Alaska, allowing us to witness the complete transformation. You, however, may see only 1 week of this entire process during your fishing trip to Alaska, so we thought you might find it interesting to see the whole thing.

This fresh to death process is true for all 5 species of Pacific salmon in Alaska, we just featured pink salmon in this photo essay since they’ve been on our mind this month.

And by the way, the death of any Alaskan salmon is not without purpose or reason. Their rotting bodies not only support future generations of salmon, they fertilize the entire ecosystem – from invertebrates and plants, all the way to the top of the animal food chain.

Hold your mouse over an image for a short photo description. Or click on any image to enlarge.

Posted in Fishing