Animals
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"Up a Creek."
A male arctic grayling swims upstream through the riffles of a small, western Montana spawing stream. Behind the lens. Male Arctic Grayling have large dorsal fins with irridescent blue spots and red trim, while the females' dorsal fins are about half as big and less colorful. I noticed that, as they swam upstream, they would sometimes come partially out of the water when moving through shallow riffles. So I hunkered down and watched and waited. Every now and then a fin would appear, but the eye of the fish would almost always be distorted by the waves. Trust me, an oblong fish eye looks really wierd. After several arm-cramping hours of following fish through the riffles with my lens, this male finally made the image come alive. He's holding his dorsal fin high, and his eye actually looks like an eye. That's more than I could ask for from a preoccupied fish.
