Looking for a GREAT opportunity to escape? Want to learn a little about conservation and restoration?
If your like me and have a hard time being near water without a rod, Redwood Regional Park may be for you. NO FISHING OF ANY KIND ALLOWED.
You'll hike, you'll be in a cool environment, you might learn some stuff...but no fishing.
Check out these pics. It's in Oakland. Look it up on google.
Lots of good stuff about the creek, the fish, and the history.
In the last two pics, look at the tailout to the right of the first, then see the next photo.
I can't be sure but in the last shot it appears that the 4 water filled, depressions to the right center might be exposed trout redds. This happens when fish clear deposits out of a desired place, lay eggs and then the water level drops leaving the redd exposed.
This was my first visit to this area. I have read that the fish in this creek come up out of a near by reservoir to spawn in late fall to winter. It is possible that these fish have hatched and are hunkering down until their bellies button up, and they head back down to the resv as fingerlings.
I posted the following to my Facebook album on this topic:
From this Redwood Creek drainage in 1855, three native fish were collected and sent to Dr. W.P. Gibbons, founder of the California Academy of Sciences. He described and assigned them the scientific name Salmo iridia. It was later determined that Johann Julius Walbaum, a German naturalist, had described and named the same species in 1792, and so Walbau's original scientific name, Oncorhynchus mykiss is now used to refer to the species, and iridius is still used today as the subspecies name for rainbow trout.
"You tell yourself that it will be both educational and spiritually uplifting, as all imaginative excuses for goofing off are." John Gierach, "Music of the Spheres".
I was cycling up there on a road ride 2 years ago. At one point we stopped at a point where one of the tributaries was right next to the road. Looking over the guard rail I could clearly sea 3 trout tailing in shallow water clearing out a redd, their backs were breaking through the surface. They were about 14-16" each, very cool to see these fish were still making it happen in this protected watershed.
I used to mountain bike there alot. I never did see any trout but have read that they still come up there to spawn. Theres even a fish ladder. It's a great place to get away for a few hours close to home. It's sad that most of the creeks you see in the area used to hold wild trout, Most are now extinct, But a few seem to hold on. A true survivor they are.
It was about this time of year that I saw them, if anyone is up there riding road or dirt keep looking in the creeks when you pass by, you might get lucky and see something.
I've been surprised at where I've seen trout, there are tons of places where the fish have been landlocked by dams or obstructions and still thrive in the headwaters of little creeks even though the lower sections go bone dry in the summer. There are lots of studies I've found on the web with fish survey results from visual or electroshock surveys all over the bay area, some with results consolidated from many decades, even going back to the 40's and 50's. These fish just keep hanging on, rainbows are remarkably well adapted to surviving with their ability to adapt from anadromous to landlocked life cycles, they're just tucked away in these tiny sanctuaries of habitat. Theres lots of good genetic coding in those fish that would be a shame to lose.
Havent posted in a while, but there are a few creeks that still have some runs of these guys. heres a few picture of a 16-18 incher fighting its way up a riffle in a stream that is only about 5 feet wide
