BIG RUN OR BIG BUST?
EXPECTATIONS HIGH FOR FALL-RUN SAC RIVER KINGS AFTER LAST YEAR’S LETDOWN By Chris Cocoles
H
The area around downtown Sacramento near the Tower Bridge can be as productive as anywhere else on the Sac River. (TIGHT LINES GUIDE SERVICE) 36 California Sportsman SEPTEMBER 2020 | calsportsmanmag.com
e’s heard this song and dance routine before – just last summer, in fact – to wait before tipping the band. For guides like James Netzel, the buzz that the fall-run Chinook salmon season will be outstanding in the Sacramento and surrounding Central Valley rivers is being met with tempered expectations this fall. In an Aug. 24 report, Keith Fraser of San Rafael’s Loch Lomond Live Bait House (415-456-0321) told the San Francisco Chronicle that a “traffic jam of fish” could be headed from the Pacific through San Francisco Bay and into the freshwater Delta and its river drainages in September, October and early November during the fall run of kings. Indeed, charter boats have been slamming salmon off the coast. The problem is, some of the same predictions were made around the same time in 2019 about that year’s salmon run. That’s why Netzel is a bit cautious going into the peak of the run, when water temperatures drop. “You can’t judge the rivers by the ocean anymore. They’re releasing millions and millions of salmon smolts in the ocean rather than the rivers,” says Netzel, who operates Tight Lines Guide Service (888-975-0990; fishtightlines.com). “So a lot of those fish don’t ever make it back upriver.” The California Department of Fish and Wildlife projected a fall run of over 473,000 Sacramento River kings, up almost 100,000 from the 2019 forecast. That bodes well, but
