Salmon wait for festival’s end to spawn

Thursday, Oct. 9, 1997 | 10:09 a.m.

Hours after the end of the event on Sunday, hundreds of salmon fought their way up the stream to the spawning gravels where they were born three and four years ago.

During the weekend festival, spectators who came to witness the end of the salmons' life cycle found only a few of the fish in the creek's shallow waters.

But by Monday morning, hundreds of the landlocked sockeye salmon had entered the creek.

"There are hundreds in the stream now, and there may be thousands by this weekend," said fisheries biologist Jeff Reiner of the U.S. Forest Service. "This weekend will be real nice."

The beginning of the run is one of the latest on record at Taylor Creek, and suggests that the salmon may still be spawning into November.

Reiner said the timing of the salmon's spawning run had little to do with the presence of a lot of people at the two-day event.

"As long as people stay out of the water and don't bring dogs with them, the kokanee don't seem to be affected," Reiner said. "If there are just a few salmon, they may seek shelter, but when there are so many salmon, so long as people are respectful, they're not bothered."

Instead, Reiner said the salmon were probably responding to cooler weather that lowered the water temperature.

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