It’s raining and fish are on the move! If you’re like us, when the rain comes, you’ve got one big thing on your minds: salmon and steelhead migration. We have our eyes peeled on our local streams and creeks for steelhead, salmon, and other fish, but we need your eyes too.
Bay Area community scientists: we need your help to share photo observations of salmon, steelhead, or any fish that look like salmonids, alive or not! By submitting photos of the salmon and steelhead around you, you’re helping us build a more complete picture of fish migration through and around Bay Area watersheds to inform our restoration and management efforts. Your submissions also give you a chance to win amazing prizes (details below)!
If you’ve been following along with our Migration Matters campaign, then you know how important and impressive California’s native fish migrations are. Now is your chance to get involved and help us better understand and track them.
November rains provide opportunities for fish to return from the ocean and begin their upstream migrations to find places to spawn. When we see salmon and steelhead in our local watersheds, this indicates that our watersheds are healthy and can support human communities too. Please remember to not disturb these fish while they prepare for the next generation! And always remember to be safe around water (or stay home!) especially during storm events.
Rules & Instructions:
- Your observations must be submitted as photos through our iNaturalist project page. If you do not already have an iNaturalist account, you must create one to submit observations. You may submit as many observations as you’d like.
- Observations must be of salmonids (salmon, steelhead, and trout) in the Bay Area (from Monterey County to Sonoma County). Observations must be tagged on iNaturalist as in the Subfamily Salmoninae and in the Bay Area.
- Observations may be of living or deceased salmonids – both observations provide valuable insights.
- If you are fishing (although we encourage you to observe and document fish from afar!), be sure you are aware of local fishing regulations. While some Bay Area streams are open to trout fishing, some are not. And it is never legal to target salmon in Bay Area streams.
- Do NOT disturb fish as you are documenting them. Disturbances to listed species may be a federal crime.
- You may submit observations through March 30, 2025.
Tips:
- The best times for quality observations are as a creek recedes following storm surges.
- Polarizers work well for photographing fish. You can even put your phone camera up to your polarized sunglasses. A polarized filter on a telephoto camera is best for filming fish from outside of the water.
- PLEASE be respectful to the fish as you are documenting them. Move slowly and quietly. The fish should not know you are there.
Prizes:
- Most observations submitted wins a Patagonia / CalTrout Daypack (1 winner)
- Best photo wins a “We Love You California” CalTrout eco tote bag and CalTrout hat (1 winner)
- All entries entered in a random drawing to win a CalTrout hat (1 winner)
Most observations submitted wins a Patagonia / CalTrout Daypack (1 winner)
Best photo wins a “We Love You California” CalTrout eco tote bag and CalTrout hat (1 winner)
