A 2 mile dirt road leads to the campground. There is an area for fishermen to park, and a trail leads to the river. The best fishing is another 200 yards downriver from the campground.

If I’m out to just get the kids the joy to catch and release fish, I’ll put on a soft hackle and help them cast a wet-fly swing. The fish can grab at any time, but frequently when the swing is complete and the fly straight downstream. This is a very user friendly way to fish here.  Dry flies and nymphs work well also.

Tiburon hosted an outstanding event today – Kiss and Release. This was a party centered around releasing 1000 baby chinook salmon into San Francisco bay. High-school students raised the salmon from eggs, and had help from hundreds of kids. The kids appeared to be from 3 years old to 10. What a great way to educate kids about salmon.

How it went

The anticipation excitement peaked when the salmon truck arrived- filled with fingerlings that were raised in water from Adobe Creek in Petaluma California. The truck had a thousand salmon, about 3 inches long. The fish were raised from eggs in Casa Grande high school – by students. All of the water used came from Adobe Creek, which hopefully causes the salmon return to spawn.

The fingerlings had to be acclimated to the bay water – so the first order of business was to organize a bucket brigade to bring bay water to the salmon truck. The kids tried, but their (literally) pint-sized buckets didn’t help much.

After giving the salmon 20 minutes to acclimate to the new water, the release started. A new bucket brigade ferried the fish to the water’s edge. The high school kids distributed the fish to the younger set – who had the honors to release each fish.

This was a cool release. This girl released her fish a little too soon, in the grass when a wavelet flooded the area. The salmon was stuck in a footprint, about 2 inches of water. On the next wavelet, the salmon wiggled out of the footprint, then wound it way through the grass out into the bay.

The cool part was seeing that fish use its instincts to head out into the safety.

The sponsors

The United Anglers of Casa Grande high school in Petaluma, CA supplied the fish. They have a fantastic program, adopting a dead Adobe creek and brought it back to life. Cleaning up the creek, planting trees to re-establish a fishy habitat, build a state-of-the-art hatchery, and raised salmon using Adobe Creek water. King salmon returned to spawn in Adobe creek, the first salmon in a century.

The Tiburon Salmon Institute is chartered with educating children on rebuilding habitat and protecting the remaining salmon.

The Romburg Tiburon Center is a marine laboratory for San Francisco State University. The Romburg Center maintains salmon rearing pens and is a very important part of the marine biology education.

Trout Unlimited contributed to this event, and had a booth. My wife actually read the Have Your Salmon and Eat it Too brouchure, cover to cover during lunch.