Scott Swanson
Of The New Era
It was the end of the line Wednesday morning for the big Chinook salmon swimming in the holding pen at the South Santiam Hatchery.
He’d left the hatchery several years before, as an approximately 8-inch smolt, to seek his fortune in the Pacific Ocean. Now he was back, five times longer and 50 times heavier than when he’d left.
His instinct had told him to return and now he,…