Santa Cruz Harbor salmon proposal

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_11040090

It seems they could dump the 'extra' salmon in the san Lorenzo river.  At least that way the few that can might spawn on return.  OF course I am probably missing some critical point, like salmon smolts would mess with steelhead or something like that.

Bingo!
Due to the federally threatened status of South Cen Coast Steelhead, there is no more inter-basin planting. Same reason why they wouldn't put these homeless salmon in any of our local watersheds (or hatchery rainbows, etc).
In days of yore (pre-1996), it was legal to raise steelhead from one basin (like, say the San Lorenzo) and transplant them into another local system, like say Uvas Creek (a tributary of the Pajaro River). My school participated in this program and it was fantastic.
I am in favor of maintaining genetic biodiversity, but not in the face of a river's demise. We need to face it, the steelhead remaining in our local rivers have little to no genetic variance compared to years-past. AKA the fish in the San Lorenzo are essentially the same as the fish in the Carmel River [so they might as well allow the San Lorenzo hatchery fish to be planted in the Carmel, etc]. Heck, unitl 1996 they used Carmel River fish as broodstock for the San Lorenzo hatchery program, due to their abnormally large size and superior genes.

Hey! It's almost steelhead season. It opens Dec 1st. Who's ready? 

I'm ready, Freddie!!

Also the salmon in the harbor are kings.  We do have a small returning population of silvers that come up the SL, and perhaps (shhhhh) even the larger streams in SC county.   absolutely verboten to mess with them, of course.

The harbor kings, though are a different matter.  it wold be pretty fun if we could fish for them, maybe 3- mile circle out from the harbor mouth? 

I see the little dock rats casting for them every year.  Catching them too, then hiding the fish in the rocks wheer tey come back after dark to P/U. 

it's a riot!

if a warden catches them casting, they say they are fishing for smelt, ha ha.

Little kastmasters or small spoons



allen

I forgot to say that this w/b awesome if they make it happen. Shoot, wish they would've made it happen this October! I'd be out there in my kayak for sure.

For some reason, I was under the impression they released silvers in SC, too. Which would obviously cause some problems for anglers (and increased proceeds for the DFG). They release some silvers into the harbor in Monterey and they return to the wharf area in late fall and swim in circles until: a) somebody snags it, or b) a sealion mauls it.

I've got good pics of a huge (12-15lb) silver that I observed in the San Lo last December. It was a beautiful fish. Maybe there is hope for those coho afterall?

Based on the size and spacing of the marks on that fishes back plus its color I would say that the fish in the pic is a Chinook not a coho....bluefin????

Yeah, to tell the truth, I don't really know for certain it was a coho. The guy I was fishing with said he was sure, having caught a lot of salmon. The timing was just really weird because it was like opening day Dec 1 or 2, and the thing was way upriver already. But I suppose that w/b normal time to see a chinook, too. I actually posted it here back in Dec asking what it was.

From those pics, it looks like a Chinook (king) salmon.  We have seen Chinook in the Russian (actually tributaries) until February.