2006 Chum Run

While the Gig Harbor and Kitsap Peninsula area only have a couple of rivers of any size, there are dozens of small streams. Most of these streams have at least some sort of a salmon run, with the most common and abundant species being chum salmon. 2006 seemed to be an especially productive year for chum salmon and I thought that I would share some pictures and videos from the spawning run. Sorry but the video quality is fairly poor.

My Home Creek

Within a five minute walk from my house there is a small stream that is home to coastal cutthroat, chum and coho salmon. Since I greatly enjoy fishing, I have fished this stream a few times during the summer and have found it full of small aggressive cutthroat. However due to the amount of vegetation and small size it is hardly worth the time to fish when five minutes of driving can put me at the salt water with much larger fish available. Instead it is great place to go for a walk and to relax. Each fall I visit this creek a lot more frequently because it always gets at least some sort of run of chum salmon which are always fun just watch as they go about spawning. All of the fish that return to this creek are native which makes a very special place being only about 20 minutes from the city of Tacoma. The return of salmon that I witnessed during the 2006 season was the largest that I have seen in the last five years and also held the only coho that I have seen since I have been watching this creek.
However even though this population is currently healthy there are a number of issues that are keeping the salmon populations depressed to some extent. Some of these things included netting near the mouth of the creek, which is especially limiting for the coho, and habitat destruction. Development in the area has made it so that during the slightest rain storm this creek turns into a torrent, which has lead to egg mortality due to siltation and scouring. Another problem for the coho in particular is the presence of a nearly impassible culvert near in the middle of the creek, which makes reaching the upstream spawning habitat more difficult.