Thursday May 29, 2025
CalTrout —
The Sacramento River is home to four distinct “runs” of Chinook (or king) Salmon. Each run is named for the season in which the adult salmon enter freshwater from the ocean as they make their way upstream to spawn: winter-run, spring-run, fall-run and late-fall run. These four runs mean the Sacramento River is home to the most diverse Chinook salmon populations on Earth. The river is capable of supporting this vast diversity of salmon populations because of the diverse landscape that it flows through.
Fall-run are a rain salmon, spawning in reaches of the rivers along the valley floor when fall and winter storms swell the Sacramento and its tributaries with water. Spring-run are a mountain fish, silver and sleek, entering the river from the ocean just as warm spring temperatures begin to thaw the snowpack off the high peaks of the Sierra Nevada (and to a lesser extent off the Coast Range). Imagine them “reverse-surfing” the pulse of spring snowmelt up into deep, cold mountain canyons where they will spend all summer waiting to spawn once water temperatures decrease in the fall. Late-fall run Chinook behave as a mix between spring and fall-run.