Salmon ?return high up Sonoma Creek

Those plentiful November rains did more than relieve drought concerns for Sonoma residents: The high runoff down Sonoma Creek attracted the attention of Chinook salmon in San Pablo Bay, and lured some of them as far as the foothills of Sugarloaf to spawn – to an area where they haven't been seen for over 40 years.

On Nov. 25, Adobe Canyon resident Ian Morrison saw about a dozen of the big salmon fussing about in the gravelly shallows near his home, a mile north of Highway 12, and videotaped them as they spawned. “I've lived here since 1972 and have never seen salmon in the creek-steelhead often, but salmon never,” he said.

He forwarded his video the Sonoma Ecology Center and it garnered tens of thousands of views in just a couple days, a number that is now approaching 100,000.

The Adobe Canyon gravel bed was one of the furthest spawning sites up Sonoma Creek in recent memory, according to Richard Dale of the Sonoma Ecology Center. “We normally see them in the mainsteam anywhere from the Highway 121 Bridge up into Glen Ellen. More frequently we've been seeing them between Glen Ellen and Kenwood, in the area where Morton's Warm Springs is.”

Chinook salmon are sometimes called King salmon, the largest salmon of the Pacific coast. They are frequently well over two feet long and weigh between 10 to 20 pounds, but can get quite a bit bigger in the Northwest coastal waters. Once they come upriver to spawn that's it, they die: Once is apparently enough for salmon.

Another similar fish that might be mistaken for a Chinook is the steelhead, a close cousin but not what we think of when we think of salmon: steelhead are rainbow trout that go to sea, but unlike salmon they don't die upon spawning but return to the ocean for another year, or several. Steelhead are smaller and leaner, and visit Sonoma Creek later in the season, usually appearing locally from January into April when stream flows are highest.

We know what you're thinking: Mmm, salmon! Sorry, Charlie: Chinook salmon are a threatened species and therefore fishing is not permitted in Sonoma Creek anywhere above the Highway 121 bridge, just west of Highway 12 at Schellville.

So what brought the salmon so far up this year, almost 25 miles from the bay? “There seems to be a big correlation between when we get a decent rainfall and what might be called an attraction flow, a lot of fresh water coming down the stream so they would know they could get up and find a place to spawn,” said Dale.

Indeed years of heavy rainfall are known to produce more abundant salmon in local streams. Early in the 2000s three successive years of heavy rain made for notable salmon runs throughout the Valley. “There was an amazing year where they came right into Nathanson Creek at the Second Street bridge,” said Dale. “People called it Fanny Bridge, because there were so many people leaning over watching the salmon.”

While Dale speculated the salmon could be “hatchery strays that didn't imprint on a natal stream” – there's a Chinook hatchery at Casa Grande High School in Petaluma – there's significant historical evidence of a wild Chinook run in Sonoma Valley, according to historian Arthur Dawson.

As well as an excerpt from Fr. Jose Altimira's journals from 1823, in which the Indians of Sonoma Creek “assured us there were plenty [of fish], especially salmon,” Dawson points to linguistic evidence that the Tcho-ko-yem Miwok of the Valley called salmon by a different name (kah sih) than the generic word for fish (lo tah). “Taken as a whole, converging lines of evidence all point to the conclusion that Sonoma Creek supported, and may still support, one or more native salmon runs,” wrote Dawson in a 2002 report for the Sonoma Ecology Center.

“I've spent a lot of researching and thinking about salmon here, and some time actually observing them,” Dawson told the Index-Tribune this week. “In fact about two or three weeks ago I saw three just below the Glen Ellen bridge. That was the first time I'd seen any in several years.”

Dawson's research also quotes Bill Basileu, a well-known Valley sportsman and former El Verano barber, that “salmon would go all the way to the falls there at Golden Bear Lodge. Steelhead always do-that was a spot where they congregated.” Golden Bear Lodge is long gone, but it stood far up Sonoma Creek in the foothills of Sugarloaf – about a mile and a half north of Hwy 12, even farther up than where Ian Morrison saw his spawning salmon last month.

Another factor for the salmon's successful upstream run might be the habitat restoration projects of the SEC, which help make Sonoma, Fryer and Nathanson creeks more hospitable for fish and animals.

One of the goals of creek restoration is to make the habitat more “natural” – with occasional pools and fallen logs so the fish can hide in the shadows. In fact, it creates a habitat much like that created in nature by beavers – another Sonoma Valley native species making a small but significant comeback of late, with a thriving pond in Maxwell Fields Regional Park.

It's almost as if there's a natural world returning to our towns and neighborhoods, one that survives despite our indifference or outright disrespect – as if it belongs here, right here in the Sonoma Valley.

Contact the writer at christian.kallen@sonomanews.com.