The 2024-25 Salmon Report
It’s been a good spawning year in the Mattole! The salmon group surveyors, led by Nathan Queener, were in the river as soon as the rains allowed fish to swim upstream to spawn and continued until the end of January. Given the high to moderate river flows, fish were able to choose their spawning gravels as far upriver as the Whitethorn Valley headwaters. They were not confined to the mainstem of the mid-river (like in years where the rains cut off or are intermittent).
From Nathan:
Chinook returns seem to be above-average, and while there have been some truly impressive numbers of fish on individual surveys, the high flows from Mid-December through early January, prime spawning time, prevented us from surveying in many reaches and then when we were again able to survey in these larger reaches in January, all the redds had been obscured by sediment deposition, and most carcasses that remained were already in fairly advanced states of decay.
In general, Chinook had great flows for access way up into smaller and steeper water than we often observe them in.
The surprising and exciting news is the coho spawning – we saw the best adult returns since the winter of 2005-2006. All the coho have been in the uppermost reach of the mainstem Mattole. We’ve had 65 live coho observations (which might include some fish counted twice on different surveys). This is still a very impressive number that seems far beyond anything we’ve seen in many years. For context, during the 14-year period from the 2010-2011 season through last winter, we only saw 45 live adult coho in total. Last year, we surveyed 5 or 6 times over the winter season and did not see a single coho or redd.
Below are links to three videos taken on the mainstem Mattole River on December 24th, courtesy of Flora Brain. This coho abundance seems to be a regional phenomenon, as the Eel, the Mendocino Coast streams, the Russian, and Lagunitas Creek in Marin County are all having exceptionally abundant coho returns.
If you would like to know more information, have questions, or can add your observations to the community’s notice, please contact me or the Mattole Salmon Group.
Michael
