What Sonoma County Water Agency officials are calling a “Miracle March,” of heavy rainfall has pushed water supply conditions for the Russian River from “critical” to “normal,” ”
The move to normal means the water agency will not reduce Russian River flows in April.
“That means there is more water in the river system for recreation and more water in the system in the fall for the Chinook salmon run,” said Sonoma County Water Agency spokesman Brad Sherwood.
Pillsbury Lake went from 43 percent of capacity to 82 percent in 3½-weeks.
All this happened without me--I was in the desert in India. So I have the best of all worlds--missed all the rain, but it rained enough to bail out the drought fears.
And right now the sun is shining after some morning showers. All is good! We won't be dragging kayaks over gravel bars this summer!
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( 3 / 355 )This blog will go quiet for three weeks as tomorrow I head for northern India: Rajasthan, Agra, and Varanasi. I will be back, blogging my Russian River experiences, the beginning of April. In the meantime, if you're in the Russian River area, please check out the River Reader, our locally owned bookstore. There's a great selection of books about our area, plus some interesting music selections, and there are many events here---book clubs, readings by writers, etc. It's right on Main Street in Guerneville and always worth a visit.
One of the projects for when I come back is to gather information on all of our arts. We have an abundance of artists, art galleries, community theaters, and performance venues, many of which tend to be known only to locals but are deserving of much broader support. So stay tuned....
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( 3.2 / 449 )Today I saw two large fish in the river, both heading downstream. One was moving quickly in the channel, near the surface, and the other was jumping in the channel. Wondering if these might be Coho Salmon. They should be up in the tributaries now spawning, but with all the dry weather there may not be enough water in the streams. Not sure what this means. What happens to the adults if they can't get up into the streams to spawn? They turn bright red when they are spawning and I didn't see any red. They were headed the wrong way if they were Coho looking for streams.
They are so endangered any loss is a big loss and if they are in the river when they are not supposed to be they may be hooked by people who don't know what they are. Fish and Game has been posting information to educate people as to what they look like, so they don't get fished by mistake.
Worrisome in a year when we've had record numbers of returning adult Coho.
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Two days ago there was a lone adult harbor seal making its way up the river past Drake's Beach, many miles from its home at Jenner. This is the second time this year a seal has been spotted here. Have to wonder why one seal out of the pack decides to take off and explore over such a long distance, but it's a thrill whatever its reason.
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They speak for themselves....
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