Tag Archives: Gorst Creek

Rains bring chum salmon back to their home streams

Salmon appear to be on the move in several local streams, thanks to the recent rains and increased streamflows. Wetter conditions no doubt triggered some of the migratory fish to head back to their spawning grounds.

A pair of chum salmon make it up Dickerson Creek, a tributary of Chico Creek. // Video: Jack Stanfill

It is still a little early in the season for coho and chum salmon to be fully involved in spawning activity, and there is plenty of time for people to get out and observe their amazing migration.

Salmon-watching is often a hit-or-miss situation, although Chico Creek is usually the best bet. After hearing several reports of chum moving upstream, I went out this afternoon to look in several local streams. Unfortunately, I did not get there before the rains stopped. What I saw in Chico Creek and other streams was fish milling about in deep pools, seemingly in no hurry to move upstream. Additional rains and streamflows are likely to get the fish fired up to move in and upstream more quickly.

Jack Stanfill, who lives on Dickerson Creek, a tributary of Chico Creek, said at least two adult chum reached his property today. Several restoration projects along Dickerson Creek probably helped the fish get upstream earlier than we have seen in previous years.

Jon Oleyar, who monitors the salmon migration for the Suquamish Tribe, told me that chum don’t normally get into Dickerson Creek until two weeks after they get into the upper reaches of Chico Creek. “This might be one of the earliest times ever,” Jon said.

As for other streams, the tribal biologist said he has seen early chum in Curley and Blackjack creeks in South Kitsap.

Viewing suggestions for this weekend:

  • Chico Creek: Chico Salmon Park (Facebook) along with a location just above the culvert under Golf Club Hill Road off Chico Way. Also check out the bridge near the 19th Hole Tavern on Erland Point Road and the access at the end of Kittyhawk Drive.
  • Dickerson Creek: Salmon Haven overlook on Taylor Road, off Northlake Way.
  • Curley Creek: Bridge on Southworth Drive near the intersection with Banner Road.
  • Blackjack Creek: A new bridge at Etta Turner Park between Port Orchard Ford and Westbay Center on Bay Street.
  • Gorst Creek: Otto Jarstad Park on Belfair Valley Road, where a new beaver dam has created a sizable pool of water, The dam may be limiting the migration of coho and perhaps blocking most of the chum.

Note for salmon-watchers: This year’s Kitsap Salmon Tours will be held in two weeks, on Saturday, Nov. 4. This year, the popular event has been expanded to seven locations. For details, go to the Kitsap WSU Extension website.

It appears that the chum coming into streams on the Kitsap Peninsula this year are noticeably larger in size than normal, perhaps in the 10- to 10.5-pound range, Jon Oleyar told me. That exceeds the normal 8- to 10-pound size for chum, he said.

Orca Network reported today that some of our Southern Resident killer whales have been foraging this week off the Kitsap Peninsula as well as in other areas not easily identified because of the dark, stormy weather we have had. Let’s hope the orcas can find enough food to stick around awhile.

On Sunday, a small group of whales from L pod showed up in the San Juan Islands for the first time this year. Normally, these whales — L-54 and her offspring along with males L-84 and L-88 — would be seen numerous times during the summer, but this was a highly unusually year. They were seen this week with J pod, which hasn’t been around much either.

On Monday, reports of orcas near Kingston and Edmonds suggested that the whales had moved south. They were later spotted near Seattle and then again near Kingston on Tuesday, when they headed out of Puget Sound by evening.

It is often said that the orcas will go where the salmon are. They are known to prefer chinook when their favorite fish are available, but they will switch to chum after the chinook run is over. It will be interesting to how much time the whales spend in Central and South Puget Sound, where chum are more plentiful.

The total number of chum salmon predicted this year — including those harvested along the way — is expected to be lower than last year. Still, there is hope that the preseason forecast will be exceeded by the actual return. The total predicted for Central and South Puget Sound is 433,000 chum, with 85 percent returning to streams and 15 percent coming back to hatcheries.

Last year, the total predicted run was 526,000 chum, about 21 percent higher than this year. Typically, the number of chum returning in odd-numbered years is lower than in even-numbered years, other things being equal. That’s because odd-numbered years is when the vast majority of pink salmon spawn, resulting in increased competition and lower survival for the young chum. Smaller numbers of juveniles mean fewer adult chum that return four years later during another odd-numbered year, continuing the cycle.

Most of the difference between last year’s and this year’s chum run can be accounted for in the odd- versus even-numbered years, said Aaron Default of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

It is too early in the season to update the preseason forecast based on commercial and tribal fishing that has taken place so far, Aaron said. As usual, fishing seasons are likely to be adjusted up or down when more information becomes available. The main goal is to make sure that enough fish make it back to sustain and potentially increase the salmon population.

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Coho show off their jumping skills, but they can’t swim up a pipe

Prompted by stream biologist Jon Oleyar. my grandson, Kevin Jeffries, and I visited Gorst Creek today during a break in the heavy rains.

As I reported in Water Ways yesterday, Jon, who counts salmon for the Suquamish Tribe, had observed an unusual number of coho salmon swimming upstream in Gorst Creek.

Because of heavy rains, the creek was running high and very fast this afternoon, and the waters were a muddy brown. In fact, the sediment load was so heavy that we spotted only a few fish swimming upstream. We suspected that a lot of them were hunkered down in deep pools, waiting for the flows to decline and the stream to become more passable.

Although we did not see a lot of fish, it was exciting to watch coho salmon trying to jump up into an outlet pipe that discharges water from the salmon-rearing raceways in the park. Coho, wearing their spawning colors of red, are known as jumping fish, but these guys were going nowhere fast. Check out the video on this page.

I’m looking forward to returning to the stream after the rains decline and the waters clear up a little bit. The coho may or may not be gone by then, but Jon expects that we should be able to see chum salmon in Gorst Creek at least until Christmas.

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Coho salmon add to viewing experience in Gorst Creek

Gorst Creek is the place to go right now when looking for migrating salmon — not only chum but also coho, all decked out in their bright-red spawning colors, according to Jon Oleyar, who surveys East Kitsap streams for the Suquamish Tribe.

Jon called me last night with the news the coho, which adds some excitement to the salmon-watching experience.

Coho often hide along the stream edges, making them hard to spot. That’s why I generally focus the attention of salmon watchers on the more abundant chum, which race right up the middle of the streams. But it’s great when coho add themselves to the mix.

Jon reported that the coho can be seen easily in Gorst Creek at Otto Jarstad Park off Belfair Valley Road.

“There are a ton of fish in there,” he said, “and there are a lot of coho, bright red.”

He said there were also plenty of chum, some that have been in the stream awhile and others that have just arrived.

Bremerton Public Works officials, who manage the park, have not objected to people parking outside the park gate and walking into the park, where salmon-viewing platforms were built along the stream by the Kitsap Poggie Club.

One good spot, Jon said, is near a pipe where water from the nearby salmon-rearing operation pours out into the stream. Salmon seem to get confused and try to jump up into the pipe before heading on upstream.

Gorst Creek contains one of the latest chum runs on the Kitsap Peninsula, and people may be able to see salmon there until the end of the year. I often tell local residents that Jarstad Park is a good place to take out-of-town visitors during the holidays.

That’s especially the case this year, when the chum run in the Chico Creek system has basically run its course. The peak of the run typically comes at Thanksgiving, but this year it was about two weeks early, Jon tells me. While this year’s run was a decent size, he said, the stream right now is mostly a “smelly graveyard.”

“It is one of the earliest runs I’ve seen here,” he said of the Chico chum. “To have everything dead by Thanksgiving is very unusual.”

Another possibility for seeing salmon is Dogfish Creek, which runs through Poulsbo. “There might be a few stragglers in Dogfish Creek,” Jon said.

It’s not too late to take a look at any of the viewing spots listed on my salmon viewing map of the Kitsap Peninsula, but don’t go in with high hopes of seeing a lot of salmon at this time of year. Gorst, it appears, is the one sure bet at the moment. (The map also contains tips for observing salmon, which can be easily spooked.)

It’s worth noting that the rains this fall continue to be nearly ideal for the salmon, coming in with just enough intensity and frequency to keep the streams flowing at a good level without flooding. I covered this issue in Water Ways on Oct. 31.

“It has been perfect for salmon,” Jon told me yesterday. “Those early storms brought up the streams, and the fish that were coming in early had plenty of water.”

When the rains eventually dropped off, springs created by those rains kept the streams flowing until the next rains arrived. As a result, salmon were able to distribute themselves as far upstream as they could go. That does not happen every year.

A torrential downpour could still cause flooding and disrupt salmon eggs incubating in the gravel, but for now things look good on the Kitsap Peninsula.

As for total rainfall, we were on a record pace for the month of October across most of the Kitsap Peninsula, as I reported in Water Ways at the end of last month. But, as you can see from the charts below, we dropped off the record pace in early November but remain above average for the water year, which begins Oct. 1.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hansville

Central Kitsap

Holly

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Kitsap rains: not too much, not too little for salmon and aquifers

The on-and-off rains over the past two weeks are nearly perfect for both spawning salmon and for recharging shallow groundwater supplies, experts say.

Chum salmon in Chico Creek. Kitsap Sun photo
Chum salmon in Chico Creek.
Kitsap Sun photo

For October, total rainfall ranges from about 5 inches at Hansville to 12 inches at Holly, according to rain gauges managed by the Kitsap Public Utility District. Fortunately, those rains have not been delivered to us in only a few days.

The intermittent nature of October rains has allowed the streams to maintain their flows without flooding. They’ve also allowed infiltration into the ground without excessive runoff.

“It is the good kind of rain,” said Bob Hunter, interim manager of Kitsap PUD. “We’ve had a couple of days when we’ve had 2-plus inches, but we haven’t seen the streams flash.”

In other words, the streams have not risen excessively fast. Bob attributes that to how dry the ground was before the rains began. Soils were able to absorb much of the early rainfall before stormwater runoff began to increase. Pauses between the rainstorms allowed more of the water to soak into the ground.

“It just goes to show you the variability that we have around here,” Bob told me.

October marks the beginning of the 2015 “water year.” Although we are just a month into the start of the year, the rainfall has been closely tracking all-time highs at some rain gauges — including Holly, which has been monitored since 1999. (See charts below.)

Meanwhile, the rain pattern in October was nearly perfect for salmon, said Jon Oleyar of the Suquamish Tribe, who walks the East Kitsap streams to count migrating salmon as they arrive.

“It seems like we’ve had storms coming in every couple of days, so they are not right on top of each other,” Jon said. “That gives the streams some time to recede.”

When there is not adequate flow, the salmon often wait for the streams to rise. On the other hand, too much flow can wash salmon eggs out of the streambed.

Last week’s rains got the chum salmon moving into most of the East Kitsap streams, Jon told me.

“I checked Chico Creek on Wednesday, and there were almost 11,000 fish in there and going up about as far as they can get,” he said.

A good escapement for the Chico Creek system is between 12,000 and 15,000 chum, and there is still more than a month left — assuming a typical timing of the run, he said. But things are looking a little different this year, he noted, and the bulk of the run may have arrived already.

One indication that timing could be different this year is that Gorst Creek already has a fair number of chum salmon — perhaps 500 — yet the Gorst Creek run usually comes in later and continues well into December.

Is it possible that all or most of the salmon runs are coming in early? It’s a question that only time will answer.

Jon told me that he’s a bit water-logged at the moment, trying to count fish in the rain with the streams running high.

“I’m pretty happy about it,” Jon said. “I have my fish up where they need to be, but it’s just hard to count them right now. If you’re a fish, this is really working for you.”

In the charts below, found on the Kitsap PUD’s website, you can see that October’s rainfall has been tracking the record high rainfall at these stations. Of course, the “water year” has barely begun, so anything can happen. (Click on images to enlarge.)

Rain-Holly

Rain-CK

Rain-Hansville

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Streamflows are creating good conditions for salmon

It appears that our summer and fall weather around Puget Sound has been very good for chum salmon.

A chum salmon navigates its way upstream in Chico Creek past new weirs installed at Kitsap Golf and Country Club.
Kitsap Sun photo by Meegan Reid

I’m getting reports that good numbers of chum are swimming up into sections of streams where they have not been seen for years. This means that conditions are ripe for watching salmon. Check out our salmon-watching map of the Kitsap Peninsula, and read my latest reports in the Kitsap Sun and Watching Our Water Ways. Also, Kitsap Visitor and Convention Bureau has created a special website for visitors who want to see salmon.

Jon Oleyar, who counts salmon in the East Kitsap streams for the Suquamish Tribe, offered the example of Johnson Creek, which flows into Poulsbo’s Liberty Bay.

“These chum were thick from the mouth all the way up,” Jon told me after checking out the stream this week. “There was decent flow, and I was amazed to see them all the way up.”

Reports of unusual numbers of salmon have been coming in from other streams as well, including Strawberry Creek, a small, heavily impacted stream that flows through Silverdale.

Most of these salmon appear to be coming in much earlier than normal, Oleyar said.
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