I've had the good fortune to engage in three types of salmon fishing, on both coasts and in the interior of this country.

Many years ago, my whole family - wife, three children and my father and mother - went fishing for three rainy days in a chartered fishing boat with a veteran Scandinavian captain, at the mouth of the Columbia River.

This was one stop on a sightseeing train trip (some people called it a migration) around the nation. We'd started from Corning, New York, visited New Mexico, the Grand Canyon and Disneyland and would continue to Seattle, Glacier Park and home. In Astoria, Mother's sister Barbara had arranged our charter.

Out of the many possible fishing techniques, this captain had chosen a method appropriate for a family. We still-fished, dangling dead sardines over the side. We each caught our limit of three fish every day. Daughter Margaret, about twelve, caught the largest, a twenty-eight pound salmon that she could barely lift for a picture. My Dad, who had been an expert fisherman all his life, was having the least luck one-day and was a little grumpy. The captain whispered to me, "I think Grandpa's mad at this ocean!" One time the captain handed me a scalding cup of coffee, just as I got a big strike! I poured the coffee into my shoe, burned my ankle, and lost the fish!

What did we do with all those salmon? My cousin baked a big one for a delicious dinner, and a small cannery canned a hundred cans of it for us, each with the legend "caught by ---."

I've spend two weeks, at different times, fly fishing in Nova Scotia streams. My son-in-law Ed Zak is a devoted fly fisherman and I went with him. We picked the wrong times, though. He caught one, and I snatched the fly out of the mouth of another. I learned too late that salmon are slower than trout.

The amazing success of the introduction of both Chinook and Coho salmon into the Great Lakes a few years ago has brought about a major new industry of sport fishing there. The simultaneous introduction of down riggers and electronic fish finders has made it easy for fisherman to locate fish and put the lures in front of their noses, although they don't necessarily bite. I've gone fishing several times with my sons and grandsons in Lake Ontario, which is near home. The downriggers really give the fish a chance to fight, because when the fish strikes, a clothespin releases the line from the lead weight. The salmon are noble and hard-fighting fish, but I still prefer some of the ocean speedsters!