Dramatic twist for two Imnaha River Chinook salmon last week. A real nail-biter of an episode in their already exciting migration saga. First, some quick backstory.

I go to work each morning by driving an empty 500 gallon water tank on a dually truck down to the Imnaha River. We gather the fish in the trap and sort, one by one, recording if they’re a boy or a girl, if they’re wild or from a hatchery.

Then measure to see how big and check for tags or tracking devices that are sometimes slipped under the skin.

Then it’s decision time. Some fish are sent up the river to go about their business of spawning. Kids, spawning is when two fish love each other very, very much and the mommy fish and daddy fish take out a mortgage on a nice patch of gravel in the water and make a family together.

I mean, it’s way more technical than that but this is a family-oriented publication, so we’ll leave it there for now.

So some salmon go on up the river while others go on a truck ride to the hatchery where their spawning will take place in somewhat more controlled circumstances.

We got the catch that day loaded up, I double-checked the oxygen tanks and aerator, then my passengers and I set out over the Wallowa Mountain Loop Road.

Negotiating the Loop Road is a whole new element of danger these hatchery-bound salmon now have to face in their modern-day migration cycle. For anybody not familiar with driving the curvy Loop Road during tourist season, I refer you to “Mad Max: Fury Road.”

It’s basically a documentary about driving the Loop Road. The popular thing this year for many Loop Road drivers is to stop along the shoulder and leave a door wide open, hanging out in the lane. Right smack in the path of oncoming vehicles on a road that’s already plenty narrow.

I don’t know if these people just don’t like having doors or want to test their insurance coverage or what. I do not get it.

Here’s a happy traffic update: many thanks to the asphalt angels who patched all those Loop Road potholes. Very nicely done.

Back to the migration, already in progress. So the fish and I negotiate all the doors on the Loop Road, climb Sheep Creek Hill, then my phone lights up as we roll back into cell phone range.

I safely pull over, leave my door closed and listen to a few messages from the hatchery. I learn that I must turn around and head right back to the river from whence we just came. There’s been a slight hiccup and two of the salmon I have on board need to be returned to the Imnaha.

Now. There are two ways to look at this. Science will tell you that evolution long ago discarded all human DNA that is tolerant of backtracking. Nobody likes to turn around. That’s just a fact.

But. I’ve studied fish behavior both for work reasons and also for fly fishing on my own time reasons, and these magnificent creatures drop back and push upstream as it suits them. Might be a shift in water temperature, flows dropping or spiking, whatever. In this case it was a spreadsheet.

I got excited, happily turned around and pointed the F350 tanker back to the Imnaha. These two salmon just got the golden ticket. They swam all this way to make babies and, sure, the hatchery is all about baby-making.

But, you know. Newlyweds checking into their honeymoon suite have certain expectations. Being diverted to an artificial insemination clinic is rarely on the list.

I felt like I was in a nature documentary, at a dramatic part where the music swells as a bear gets a salmon in its clutches and the British guy is like, “Oh, crikey, looks like the end of the line for this feesh …” then, miraculously, the salmon wiggles free.

Watching those big ol’ salmon get their bearings again in the clear water of the Imnaha, then point upstream and keep on keepin’ on to where they were bound was a joy and a pleasure to see.

I watched until I couldn’t see them anymore, then turned around and saw I’d left my door open.

Jon Rombach works for Nez Perce Tribe Fisheries and writes a column for the Chieftain.