Irony and greatness often go hand in hand and Monday was no exception on San Geronimo and Lagunitas Creeks. Sunday provided a beautiful set of 5 fish at Castro Pools that made for exciting tours (with small numbers :) of course) and made it obvious how well the naturalists and guides communicate. Monday, with great confidence, no less, I was scouting for a morning tour and the 5 fish....GONE!....sad face. I thought, this is OK, there are bound to be some of our Coho friends somewhere, right? Not right. I ran this group of amazing women all over searching for fish with no luck but having the most wonderful time. We check one last time at Castro on our way out and run into not only several friends but a line of cars belonging to a camera crew following one of our renowned valley scientist friends. They had been searching too! There are so many now interested in looking for the Coho now that the numbers are dwindling for the season; a bit like what happens once a species is extinct I dare to note, everyone becomes interested. The beauty of this story is that the crew found their fish at no other location but SPAWN headquarters provided by our own Andy Harris. Hip Hip Hurray for Andy! I love beautiful endings, don't you?

Suspense on the creek

January 5 brought rain, but enough to bring in more fish? Right out of the  Leo Cronin parking lot, a fresh red male says YES!

But it's frustrating to see him nuzzling up to the very spawned out female who's been guarding her redd since Christmas Eve -- there are no eggs there!

Told there's a spawning pair upstream, I rush to see another new male nuzzling up to another maybe spawned out female. Her tail does not show the weeks of wear of female number 1, but it's white and lacy. Maybe she still has eggs; I hope so. 

She certainly has a lot of energy, turning and digging again and again. This isn't dispositive -- females keep tidying the redd until they die. Indeed, the word "redd" comes from the Scottish word that means "to clear an area or keep tidy." So think of an obsessively clean housekeeper sweeping, sweeping, sweeping, when you see a coho female clear the silt from her eggs for the hundredth time. 

If the two new males are cozying up to females who may be out of eggs, what do we need? New females! Set up the chant! Fe-males! Fe-males!

There's still hope; it's only one day after the rain...

And just before I leave, there she is, rolling and digging at the parking lot redd. Her tail is perfect, intact; she's fresh and ready to go!!! 

Within fifteen minutes, two adult males and a jack are thrashing around her. Back in business! 

Barring predation, look for spawning activity at this redd for the next few days.

New year, new fish?

First viewing of the new year yields one carcass -- a spawned out female (near the intersection of the Shafter Grade trail), one mighty tired fierce warrior female at the first redd above the parking lot (she whom we have been watching since Christmas Eve, now unchallenged and still defending), and one mystery fish Jeff thought might be a steelhead because she was so silvery. Dramatic female common merganser and belted kingfisher are patrolling, kinglets flashing, mushrooms burgeoning.
The dam is still spilling and the rain is starting to fall. Will more water bring another wave of coho? Fingers crossed!

Sitting to tighten my wading boots on the bank of Arroyo I was thinking maybe the water is too murky. Then low and behold I look up with a sigh and there is the first fish I have seen on Arroyo. I good size male Coho with some storm damage I suspect. The water was indeed too murky for photo ops but the day progressed with more excitement. Next I found a female further upstream than the male and then in between the potential future couple a pair over a redd. It was a great day and I encourage everyone to get out there and see the fish.

Girl on girl action

Holy day on the creek -- first water over the dam! As Kent Lake began spilling last night,  Lagunitas Creek above Shafter rose above the controlled flow of the Marin Municipal Water District to became a natural waterway in its own right. Can the fish feel the difference? Does the stream feel wilder?
Yesterday's tumult has subsided, but the female competition continues.  We saw two savage contenders tussling and biting and rolling. They were very well matched, each with the same level of wear on her tail, and neither seemed willing to cede.
One redd upstream, the dominant female we saw chasing yesterday was still at it, racing off her redd over and over to repel another female who had had the temerity (or misfortune) to deposit eggs nearby.
Each female had a seriously worn tail, meaning she'd already deposited eggs. Thus each was committed to her territory: this was no introductory, establishing-territory sort of skirmishing, but a fight no one can win. So it goes on, and on, and on.
Females live from three to 24 days after they deposit eggs. I suspect that females locked in continual battle don't last as long as those who get to dally peacefully on their redds,  languidly swishing.
Saw one fresh female above the eyeletted boulders, with a well-worn jack just behind. As we left, some very tattered males seemed headed upstream. Go, boys, go!!!!

Rough and tumble makes great viewing

I leave for three days in the Sierra, and the fish pour into the watershed! Maybe I should leave more often. Al and Megan and Terence counted 27 coho on the Shafter stretch of Lagunitas creek on Christmas Eve.
Today was my first day back, and the viewing was glorious. Redds everywhere, starting right at the parking lot. This is the first time in several years we've seen this kind of action so close to the confluence of Lagunitas and San Geronimo creeks.
The press of new fish on limited good spawning habitat created a  fabulous bunfight 20 feet up the trail. Everyone wanted the same spot, since gravel is at a premium. So no fewer than eight fish duked it out, females fighting females for the best real estate and males fighting males to be the one who gets to fertilize the female.
We see males jostling all the time, but this kind of concerted fighting between females occurs less often. In this case, both females had worn tails, so both had started digging and may have felt too committed to their redds to be driven off. And the population is dense right now. So the fighting went on for hours, and showed no sign of resolution.
 Imagine two women building their dream nurseries too close for comfort. Every ten minutes, the stronger erupts in fury  to chase the other away. "Get out!!! This is MY nursery!" Then imagine men pushing each other to be the first in line for sex. "Move it buddy; I was here first. Who cares? I'm bigger and redder - beat it, bud!" Behind them both, the ubiquitous jack (this one a large one), an ever hopeful teenage male, inexperience but ready to try.
Put it all in scale(s) and you've got today's show.

Coho, merganser and otters --- oh my!

I was wrong -- hooray! Big whoosh of fish up after this last round of rains. Leo Cronin was teeming with spawners.
Okay, okay, maybe not teeming. Nothing like the old days when the fish were thick in the stream. But we saw least 10 through the still very muddy water, so it's fair to say there were more, maybe even many more. At least one was a white-tailed female, which suggests she'd already spawned on the creek, and just been hidden from view the last few times we looked. Others looked fresh as could be, no white on their tails at all. One fresh female started a redd just downstream of the eyeletted boulders.
While we admired six fish in the big pool above the culvert, someone yelled, "Otter, otter!" Yikes! A handsome pair slipped into the water just above the riffle, right on the gravel where a coho pair was trying to spawn. The otters swooshed into the stream and roared upstream leaving nothing but bubbles (and some shook-up fish).
At the same time, a big bird with a rusty head and dramatic black and white wings and body zoomed down the creek.
I'd never seen one in flight before, so the black and white was new, but the punky red head suggested (and an iPhone confirmed) a Common Merganser.
Like the otters, the mergansers are native, natural predators: mergansers have spatulate bills and have been known to stick them right into the redds to suck up coho eggs like a salmon milkshake. Uh oh!
Viewers reported seeing four otters at the big logjam just upstream of the eyeletted boulders; others saw six (!). Viewings were reported in the spillway pool under the dam and downstream towards the Inkwells.
And someone said he saw a "huge fish," three feet long. Could it have been a chinook? We do see them in the watershed -- in fact, in our best year (2005/2006), MMWD counted 125, believe it or not. But I don't know if any were seen at Shafter....
It's also time to start boning up on steelhead identification. This is the time they start coming up, and they like to move in roiling, coffee-colored water. Sound like anything you've seen lately?