Salmon runs stronger than expected on many rivers despite drought

http://www.insidebayarea.com/breaking-news/ci_29282093/salmon-runs-stronger-than-expected-many-rivers-despite

Interesting read, thanks Howard

Interesting article-

Here is one I read the other day, looks like conflicting information.

https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2015/12/17/1461190/-Numbers-of-salmon-counted-at-Central-Valley-fish-hatcheries-are-below-last-year

Both good articles.  I don't think they're contradictory - one talks about numbers being higher than averages, and the other talks about numbers falling short of what was predicted.   The lateness of the runs fits with what we've seen up here on the north coast, and I've observed lots of jacks/jills on the Eel.  We have good indicators for abundance, and hopefully with a good rainfall winter we'll get some good production out of the spawners that are present.

Here's some action from the past several days.

Great footage, Eric! Thanks for sharing.

Awesome footage!  I am so glad to see spawning success!

Eric, once again your photos out do all the rest.

I enjoyed that video Eric, thanks. Is that stream normally higher this time of year?

Kool video and pics eric...great to see the salmon doing there thing, naturally.  Awesome

Is that stream normally higher this time of year?

Yes, Mike.  That creek is a main tributary of the South Fork of the Eel.  The South Fork didn't have enough water for fish passage until some time in November, and that trib didn't have enough water until early December.  With the recent rains that trib would be unrecognizable, as it's achieved about 30 times the flow you see in the pic.  The video shows action in a trib of the trib.  The salmon will spawn wherever there's enough water, so many of them spawned in the main stem back in November.  Then when there was enough water more fish moved up and spawned in the bigger tribs.  Then when there was enough on top of that, more fish moved up and spawned in the smallest tribs...etc.  It's a precarious balance, as many of the redds are washed out down lower in the system when big water hits, so we're dependent on there being enough fish to keep on coming and spawning higher up in the system.  No one really knows how viable a salmon redd is down low in the system when 100's of times more water is flowing over it, but they'd certainly have a better chance in a clean flowing river like the Smith where less silt is washed down the stream after major rains.  The very best years for salmon will have lots of rain but not as many big flushing flows from major storms - those flows can scour the riverbed and disrupt many different aspects of river life and systems - on the other hand, many aspects of river life depend on those high flows too...  Precarious balance.