Tuesday November 18, 2025
NBC Bay Area —
Chinook salmon have been seen making their way up Los Gatos Creek in Campbell.
This is all part of their late fall run, which is taking place a little early this year thanks to recent storms. The run typically starts around Thanksgiving.
The fish leave the ocean, travel under the Golden Gate Bridge and head down to the South Bay, where they enter local creeks and look for areas to spawn.
Experts say salmon numbers have been increasing in recent years.
“The numbers year-over-year have been increasing,” South Bay Clean Creeks Coalition Executive Director Steve Holmes said. “When we first started, we’d see a couple dozen fish and that was it. As we’ve been working to clean the waterway, we’ve seen incrementally the numbers increasing. Two years ago, it was about 500 fish. Last year it was 600.”
Volunteers counted about 40 fish on Sunday.
They’re hoping to see hundreds more over the next week or so.