This past Saturday, Kevin and I were cruising around the county in the warm sunshine, and ended out in Olney near Sigfredson County Park, there is a small turnout on Highway 202. While wandering down to the creek, we dodged mosquitoes, mud holes, and crossed over the rocky beach to reach the water. Being oblivious, we start finding good skipping rocks and try to skip them to the little rock island in the middle of the creek. While bending down to get a rock near the edge of the water, Kevin is surprised to see hoards of eight inch fish (not certain if they are steelhead or Chinook)! After a closer look, we discover that twenty feet of water is plugged with hundreds of small fish! Kevin kindly ran back to the truck to get the camera so we could document this cool event. They were fighting for position in the river, but not attempting to advance, essentially to just tread water. We watched them swimming for some time, thoroughly entranced by their beauty and vigor. I wish I could watch them every day! Or at least track their movement regularly. I suppose I would have to work for the hatchery in that case.
Although the images are still hard to see, Matt seems to think based on a few of the tails that he could see that they are steelhead (if you have other images let me know.) A hatchery must have just released all their fish, because this is definitely not a natural occurrence.
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Hanna