Little salmonids

I went on a favorite bike ride this morning, the loop around Willits Valley. Great ride, and along the way there are different little creeks that the road goes over. One of them is Outlet Creek, which I believe is destined to be Eel River water downstream. Many of these little creeks are barely running, but they have tree cover to keep the little pools shady and cool. In the pools are little fish! Pity any insect unlucky enough to fall in! They were very actively feeding.
I grew up next to Scott Creek, so seeing little salmon and steelies in a creek pool took me back. I felt fortunate, 45 years later, to still have some around to see.
I could have sworn I saw a spotted little King. Would they be about now? They were about the length of a finger.
I'm going back with my camera.

Juan, hope to see some pictures of the fishy nursery. Maybe next time you go to Clear Lake at night and turn on your headlamp you can get a mouthful of the insects and feed them to the fishes.  . Looking forward to the pics.

Juan, hope to see some pictures of the fishy nursery. Maybe next time you go to Clear Lake at night and turn on your headlamp you can get a mouthful of the insects and feed them to the fishes.  . Looking forward to the pics.

Sounds like the voice of experience there,

Juan,
Most likely steelhead, but could be coho, almost certainly not Chinook, they wouldn't be that high in the system this time of year.

wow, really cool juan, hope you can get some good pics, cameron

Joe, with regards to the little Kings not being so far up the system this time of year, do you mean they should already have traveled further down towards the ocean?
I'm going on another ride today and hope to get some decent pics.

Juan,

Juvenile kings outmigrate (smolt) around here in about 90 days after they emerge from the redds (around feb-march).  They don't spend a lot of time in the river.  Coho and steelhead, on the other hand, spend at least 12-18 months in the the creek.......steelhead sometimes much longer.

Joe's right that you may have seen kings, but more likely coho or steelhead.  Standing on a creek bank, it's pretty hard to tell the difference between them - especially coho and kings.

With the state of coho right now, I'd be much more stoked if they were coho.  Outlet Creek has been blinking on and off for coho presence in the last 15 years.

Dave

I'd say it could've been a Chinook.  I've been diving Deer Creek (Tehama County) the past couple months, and we've been seeing finger-sized Chinook in there up to last week.

This time I didn't see anything with large spots. The pics don't really show much to go on either. The white fish was with a bunch of others not all of them white, but the same size, about 8/9". They weren't feeding and holding in another part of the pool. I don't think they were salmonid.
The last pic is a creek right in town. In the middle are two fish, one in the sun, one just to the left in the shade. They acted very much like little trout. The pic before that one doesn't show fish, it just looked nice to me.

Juan,

the fish in the top pic weren't 8-9 inches, were they?  They look much smaller.  Hard to tell, from the pics.  To back up your idea that they may be kings, I just got an email from a friend running traps on Redwood Creek up in humboldt.  Somewhat unusually, he's been trapping king smolts right now.  So you may be right.

Steelhead are more well distributed over there, so that's what I'd guess.  I could ID them if I were there.

At 8-9 inches, that would more likely be a resident steelhead....or a pikeminnow.

Dave, the fish in the first pic were pinkie sized. They were the active feeders, jumping on little pebbles I tossed to them.

Joe, with regards to the little Kings not being so far up the system this time of year, do you mean they should already have traveled further down towards the ocean?
I'm going on another ride today and hope to get some decent pics.

Yep.  With the water year we had this last spring it would be extremely odd to have Chinook in Outlet Creek, I'd put some money on steelhead, but to back DaveW up, I wouldn't mind losing some cash to someone who guesses coho.

I'd say it could've been a Chinook.  I've been diving Deer Creek (Tehama County) the past couple months, and we've been seeing finger-sized Chinook in there up to last week.

Deer Creek and Outlet Creek are worlds apart, as in how they function as differently sized/water regulated creeks.

I'd say it could've been a Chinook.  I've been diving Deer Creek (Tehama County) the past couple months, and we've been seeing finger-sized Chinook in there up to last week.

Deer Creek and Outlet Creek are worlds apart, as in how they function as differently sized/water regulated creeks.

True, they're both completely different animals.  I'm just sayin that anything's possible.

Maybe someone should put on a snorkel and mask and poke their head in Outlet Creek to see what these fish are.