StEELhead Discoveries Series - Part 13: September 2024

*This is Part 13 of an ongoing series on the campaign to Free the Eel and efforts to better understand and revive the iconic steelhead in the Pacific Northwest by Native Fish Society Fellow Samantha Kannry. View Part 1 - 12 HERE. Additional parts and updates will be posted over the next several months. Stay tuned!

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"We furthered our exploration of the mid-Klamath and Trinity tributaries this August. On a warm evening in early August, we stopped at a confluence pool to camp, took a dip, and settled in for the night’s fish collecting. My field partner jumped in first (surprisingly, as he usually takes a long time to convince himself the “cold” water won’t chill him to the bone), and he stayed in for a few minutes, floating at the head of the pool. I thought there must be something of great interest there, perhaps a few adult summer steelhead. Upon slithering in and adjusting my sights, I was delighted at the presence of upwards of 45 summer-run beauties circling around the top of the pool. Throughout the night our ears were bestowed with the pleasant thud of large fish leaping and landing on the water, and we slept with warmed hearts.

On a subsequent trip, we unintentionally found ourselves at the site of the 1967 legendary Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot film (the footage of a female bigfoot walking midday in a clearing next to a creek). It turns out to be a relatively easy location to access upper Bluff Creek (tributary to the mid-Klamath River). Being people who work in creeks at night, we are accustomed to hearing and ignoring sounds we cannot identify or later question whether we actually heard. We assume they are the various ways flowing water moves wood and reverberates off rocks, not always consistent, or deer, birds, small mammals, or other known life forms. Whether you are a believer in Bigfoot or not, the Siskiyou and Klamath mountains and tributaries have a unique energy that has the power to take your breath away. The next morning we saw a mountain lion run across the road and watched it meander through a torched patch of forest. That was a creature we know is around and sees us, but we rarely ever see. Could there be something else that we never see?

And back to the Eel River, the 2024 Pikeminnow Derby has come to a close. Over one and a half months, 34 fishermen and fisherwomen caught over 500 of the invasive fish and put them to various uses (we made delicious fried cakes). The public effort significantly augmented the removal efforts of local tribes and researchers this summer. We hope to see even more pikeminnow hooked and prevented from predating upon native fish next summer."

-Samantha Kannry

Photo Credit: Sam Rizza

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About the Author:

Samantha Kannry has been monitoring, studying, and swimming with summer-run steelhead in the Eel River and other rivers of Northwestern California for the past thirteen years. She joined NFS as a volunteer in 2015, then became a fish genetics fellow in 2020.

While it has been clear to the native peoples of the region since time immemorial that summer-run steelhead and the congeneric spring Chinook are separate populations, not everyone else sees it so clearly. Her research has focused on using conservation genetic tools to elucidate the distinction between summer and winter-run steelhead.

When not minking (a combination of hiking, swimming, snorkeling, sliding, shimmying, and boulder jumping) down rivers, she is usually growing and eating fruit, moving manure at Caudal Fin Farm, or bike touring distances large and small. All working towards re-establishing the inherent continuity between rivers, land, and people.

Read StEELhead Discoveries Part 1 - 12 HERE.