While we still don’t know for sure why the salmon are skimpy this year, the fact that the American River water temperature is three degrees out of their preferred range is certainly a strong clue, and goes back to our contention that to provide optimal conditions for the salmon, we need to have access to cold water at the proper flow speed, both conditions requiring more water in the American River when needed, which calls for the Auburn Dam.
Chinook salmon shortfall puzzles anglers, experts
The numbers of fish returning are far below expectations
By Matt Weiser - mweiser@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PDT Thursday, November 1, 2007
For fishermen and biologists, fall has become a season for fretting in California.
For the second year in a row, spawning fall-run chinook salmon are not returning to the Central Valley's rivers in the numbers that anglers and experts anticipated, touching off what may be a record year for nail-biting and hand-wringing.
"Horrible. Slowest year in their lifetime. Never seen salmon fishing this bad," said Ron Howe, summing up the feelings of many salmon fishermen this fall. He has pursued the mighty chinook, also known as king salmon, in the American River for 17 years.
"Everybody's saying the same exact things. This is just unbelievable that the fishing's so poor," he said.
Hard numbers on the American River are difficult to come by until the run is over at the end of the year, said Terry West, manager of the state fish hatchery at Nimbus Dam. That's because there is no way to count natural spawners in the river…
A combination of plumbing problems in the Central Valley may also be hurting the run this year. State and federal water managers had to slash water exports from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta early this summer to protect the Delta smelt, a threatened fingerling.
This put water deliveries to cities and farms behind schedule, forcing water officials to ramp up reservoir releases for most of the summer.
This, combined with a drought year, left many of the state's reservoirs with below-normal storage, including Folsom Reservoir, which feeds the American River.
A question lingers as to whether the water left behind the dam is still cold enough to trigger the salmon run. The fish need water at 60 degrees or colder to start migrating. This week, those flows are leaving Nimbus Dam at around 63 degrees, said West.
