The salmon spawn is on

After my previous fishing trip, I had planned to get out on the water as soon as possible to catch the first major wave of spawners entering the river, but life or more specifically, COVID had other plans and made sure that fishing was not in the cards for the foreseeable future. Luckily, by the time early September rolled around and the salmon spawn really got going, I was back up and running, and Dyllon and I were able to pull away for an afternoon of fishing.

A beautiful day to be on the river

Compared to our last outing, we lucked out on the weather this time and had a bluebird afternoon with the river all to ourselves, and better yet, the salmon were starting to spawn in earnest. I started out in a small side channel of the river, where a female Chinook was actively digging a redd, surrounded by five satellite males. However, after a couple of casts failed to produce any signs of trout and one of the males went after my bead rig, I decided to move on to a riffle just upstream, where Dyllon had already hooked one trout. It didn't take long for me to hook into a decent fish as well. After a short fight with plenty of jumping and several good runs, I brought a beautiful leopard-spotted native Coastal Rainbow to hand.

A beautiful, heavily spotted native Rainbow

After I released that fish, we continued to work the side channel for another 30 minutes, hooking into several other fish but only managing to land a couple of smaller trout. After covering that piece of water, we headed further upstream, but the fishing proved to be slower than usual. However, after a couple of bends, we found an area where the salmon were really packed in and started getting into some trout again.

Salmon on their redds

While we did hook into a few decent fish, we did manage to land any, but I did get one particularly interesting looking Rainbow that was dime bright and had a spotting pattern more typically of a steelhead. 

A surprisingly bright Rainbow

Several years back, it was fish similar to this one that sparked a research project was part of affectionately called the "Biggie Smalls Project," (bigger than typical stream resident Rainbows but smaller than typical steelhead) which was focused on investigating whether these mid-size (14" to 20") Rainbows were using marine waters for part of their life. For that project, we looked at the micro-chemistry of non-lethally extracted pectoral fin rays to see whether any of our sampled fish had been in marine water. What we found was that most of the Rainbows in this size class appeared to be lifelong freshwater inhabitants, with all of the fish that were definitely anadromous either being Coastal Cutthroat or Cutthroat-Rainbow hybrids. We also found that the Rainbows were able to reach their larger sizes due to marine-derived food from Pacific Salmon and other species (lamprey). However, we weren't able to fully rule out that the fish weren't doing short-term migrations between watersheds, as a recent study by Munsch et al. showed is happening, we did find some evidence of this as well, with tagged fish turning of in distant watersheds and fish from a nearby conservation hatchery end up in our watershed. Whether or not this fish was just a bright individual, a late smolt, or a marine wanderer is something I will have to scratch my head about, but it was a fun encounter.

At this point, we had covered quite a bit of water, and the sun was starting to get low in the sky, so it was time to pull ourselves away from the river, although I certainly had plans in place to return soon.

Time to hit the road

And about a week after Dyllon and I hit the river, I did indeed return, and this time was to share this fishery with a couple of my Trout Unlimited colleagues Rob and Alexei. It is always amazing what a difference a week makes during the salmon spawning season, as by this point the Chinook were starting to tail off and the Chum, while still dense and actively spawning were starting to show much more wear than they had on my previous outing.

We started off on the same section of water where Dyllon and I had started our day and as neither Alexei or Rob had fished this river before I walked them through the tactics I use and put them on some of my favorite water. While the did have several hookups, this fishing proved to be a little slower than usual.

Alexei working a good stretch of water

Before we headed upstream to try some more promising water, I decided to give one of the more challenging pieces of water where you have to get just the right cast to get your gear to drift over a bucket with thick vegetation over it. After a couple of tries, I got that drift, and right before I thought it was a dud and I was going to have to pull my gear out, my indicator shot under, and I hooked into a nice fish. While the Rainbows typically immediately shoot out of the water, this fish stayed down and deep, but wasn't afraid to take a run into the next pool downstream. However, I had a solid hookset, and after a couple of minutes, I brought a gorgeous, thick upper teens Coastal Cutthroat to the net.

My first fish of the day, a beautiful, bright native Cutthroat

Admiring my Cutthroat before release

After releasing the Cutthroat, we continued upstream to a hole where Dyllon and I had hooked a few fish the week before. I had Rob and Alexei work this spot as I really wanted to see that get into some fish and it didn't take long before Rob hooked a decent Rainbow, that despite not being on of the big ones we were looking for put up a nice fight before coming to the net.

A heavily spotted native Rainbow

After netting and releasing that first fish, I decided to play around photographing some of the salmon with an underwater housing that I got for my phone. While my phone's camera isn't the best, I was pretty happy with how the shot below turned out.

  

Chum Salmon on the spawning grounds

Releasing a Rainbow

After the fishing slowed down at this hole, we headed upstream to try one last piece of water. I had Alexei and Rob work a riffle that has been one of the best producers in my experience, while I tried a shallow riffle just upstream that has been hit or miss at best, and where I hadn't previously had any luck as flows as low as we had on this outing. However, there is a first for everything, and after a couple casts behind a late pair of spawning Chinook at the head of the riffle where the water was only about 8" to 12" deep, my indicator shot under, and I hooked into an absolutely massive Rainbow. When the fish rolled, it was so thick, I was half surprised that I hadn't seen its back sticking out of the water. After that, the fish started to run, and unfortunately, as this had been a particularly long cast, I don't think I had the best hook set, and as the fish made a head shake, my rig came fly back at me. If I had to guess I would place this fish somewhere between 23" and 25". Fish this size are a rarity in the river and I my experience typically only get one or two shots at these big Rainbows, which made losing this one hurt all the more.

After collecting myself and getting my head back in the game I decided to put another cast in where I had hooked the big Rainbow on the off chance that he might come back, after all I did once catch the same 18" Rainbow on back to back casts in a nearby watershed. As luck would have it, my indicator drift a few feet past where the big one had been hold and immediate shot under again. Upon hooking into this fish, while it was good sized, it was clear a different and smaller Rainbow but still put up a great fight before I managed to bring it to the net.

A solid Rainbow

Just after I returned downstream, Rob hooked into a decent fish, but after I got an eye on it, it was clear that it wasn't a trout, but I was having a hard time determining what species of salmon it was. After a few minutes of tug of war, we finally netted the fish which left me scratching my head regarding what it was. The color of the fish was a gold hue that I typically see on spawning Chinook in the region, and it also had the large, irregular spots typical of a Chinook. However, there were also some significant Chum traits, such as the purple bar along the side. While I wish I would have grabbed a fin clip so we could verify it, but after looking at the picture and sharing it with several experts in the fisheries field, I can only conclude that Rob managed to catch a Chum x Chinook Salmon hybrid or Chumook if you will. 

What appears to be the first Chum x Chinook hybrid I have ever seen

This fish being a hybrid also makes sense from a fish return perspective, as largely due to poor hatchery practices, the Chinook in this system return unusually early, and in my last blog post, we indicated that we had encountered our first spawning Chinook on August 18th.  On top of that, this specific river has an early spawning Chum Salmon population, which has significant overlap with Chinook spawning in both time and space. In fact, in the run just upstream, Chinook and Chum were spawning within just a few feet of each other.

After releasing the Chumook, Rob and Alexei picked up a few more Rainbows, but we had pretty much covered the water at this point, and it was time to call it a day.

The circle of life