Mind if we watch while you spawn?

Chizz has been wanting to go up to Lake Tahoe and see the salmon spawn at Taylor Creek. A friend of his from work went a week before and had some amazing photos. We decided to take a drive up for the day. Snake needed freeway driving experience and we wanted to see the salmon spawn, so we figured we could get two proverbial birds with one big car shaped stone.



Taylor Creek is off the south shore of Tahoe. We don't often get to the south shore, we are more north shore folks. Each autumn, mature Kokanee salmon return to the streams where they hatched to get a mate, spawn and die. Wow!! And each year we humans come to watch. Not much privacy. It was a beautiful day in California. We had some pretty significant rain the week or so before, so we were happy to see blue skies and it was only a bit nippy. We really didn't need sweatshirts or jackets. We probably missed the optimum day for viewing by a week or so, but it was still pretty good and far as really getting to see a number of salmon up close and personal. The salmon go through some pretty amazing physical changes not the least of which is changing from their silvery kind of color to a brilliant bright red. When you walk along the creek, you just see all kinds of fish kind of swimming in place looking for a good place to lay and fertilize their eggs. Also there? The ducks - ready to eat freshly laid eggs and/or fish. They weren't really picky. The ducks did this amazing thing where they kind of scooted along the water really fast and chased the fish. I am not sure if they were trying to catch them, and I never really saw any duck catch a fish or if they were trying to stir up the bottom of the creek where the eggs were just laid to try and eat the eggs. But there was quite a bit of scooting going on.

Even though we were a few days past the prime viewing time. There were still quite a few people there that day. I am not sure if it was the beautiful weather that brought them out or the chance to see the salmon spawning. But I was amazed at the crowd. Most of the people were respectful of the process, the viewing of the circle of life so to speak. But there are always a few that let their kids try and touch or catch the fish for the cute photo op. I wondered how the parents would have liked it if someone was yanking on their fins while they were conceiving their little miracle, or, more morbidly, meeting their maker. Some people just seem to believe that everything is put on earth for their amusement, to do with as they please. No wonder our society grows up with such entitlement!

I will say US Forest Service does quite a good job of explaining what is happening. There were various signs around, explaining the differences the male and female fish go through physically, what each of their roles were, how many made it through(3 eggs from every 1000 laid will survive). You can walk down the path and see the various spots that a salmon might choose to spawn. There is an underground cutout you can go through and it explains the different terrain and animals that live nearby and how that effects the salmon process. At one point we walked over a bridge and we could look down on all the various salmon in the creek bed. This is a photo of Chizz and Snakes' shadows. I thought it was cool. I am easily amused.



The aspen trees are beautiful this time of year and accompanied by the gorgeous weather, one appreciates living in such a beautiful place.