(Sacramento) The American River continues to see one of the worst steelhead runs since Folsom Dam was built and blocked upstream migration to the native run of steelhead.
Nimbus Fish Hatchery staff have trapped a total of 79 adult steelhead to date, in contrast with 465 adults by the same time last year, reported Gary Novak, hatchery manager.
“The fish are slowly trickling in,” he said. “We have 8 fish in the trap this morning. We spawned six pairs of steelhead on Monday, February 2.”
The hatchery has taken about 145,000 eggs so far, well below their goal of 1 million eggs needed to produce 430,000 steelhead yearlings.
In a banner year, the hatchery would have already trapped thousands of fish by this time.
Novak noted that he has requested the Bureau of Reclamation to release pulse flows from Nimbus Dam to prod more steelhead to move up the river, but he hasn’t heard back from the federal agency yet.
Releases to the lower American below Nimbus Dam continue to be 900 cfs, low for this time of year.
Hopefully, the storms now hitting northern California should proud some more steelhead to move upriver, but it looks bleak for this year's steelhead run.