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A fall-run Chinook salmon navigates the Nimbus Fish Hatchery’s ladder on opening day in November. (Photo by Steve Martarano)

Brian Gilmore, a California Department of Wildlife scientific aide, displays the wonders of salmon biology to a group of school children at the Nimbus Visitor’s Center. (Photo by Steve Martarano)

A crowd gathers along the Nimbus fish ladder waiting for the gates to open and the first Chinook salmon to enter. (Photo by Steve Martarano)

Visitors watch the salmon being processed at Nimbus Hatchery. Each salmon that is spawned holds an average of 5,200 eggs. About 6 million eggs will be collected over the next two months. (Photo by Steve Martarano)

Visitors watch the salmon being processed at Nimbus Fish Hatchery. (Photo by Steve Martarano)

Visitors view the Nimbus Fish Hatchery ladder activities near the American River. (Photo by Steve Martarano)

A salmon jumps one of the 22 steps at the Nimbus Fish Hatchery on opening day. Around 2,600 Chinook salmon will be spawned at the hatchery over the next two months. (Photo by Steve Martarano)

Time for a Swim

Chinook salmon — crucial to California’s fishing industry — return to Rancho Cordova’s Nimbus Fish Hatchery

Back Photo gallery Nov 22, 2019 By Steve Martarano

During the first week of November every year, like clockwork, the gates to the fish ladder open at Nimbus Fish Hatchery on the American River, and the Chinook salmon — crucial to California’s commercial and recreational fishing industry — climb 22 steps to complete their final journey home.

“It’s our favorite day of the year,” says Laura Drath, interpretive services supervisor at Nimbus for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, during this year’s Nov. 4 opening.

A Chinook salmon goes into a waiting bin for processing in November. More than 840,000 eggs were collected during the first week of spawning at Nimbus. (Photo by Steve Martarano)

Salmon is a $1 billion commercial industry in California, Drath says. The annual opening of the hatchery’s ladder provides a window into the wonders of science, but also shows the key role the hatchery system plays in keeping California’s salmon fishery healthy. “Without the support of hatcheries, we wouldn’t be able to sustain populations at a high enough level to support that industry,” Drath says.

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The fall-run salmon will arrive through December, with steelhead trout following. Fish will continue to enter the hatchery in Rancho Cordova through February. The salmon entering the hatchery were hatched at Nimbus or in the American River, with some strays coming in from the Feather and Mokelumne rivers. Their three- to four-year round-trip journey includes a trip to the Pacific Ocean. The fish are spawned at the hatchery, providing public viewing opportunities twice a week to watch the egg collection process.

Chinook salmon are processed at the Nimbus Fish Hatchery. (Photo by Steve Martarano)

About 840,000 eggs were taken during the first week of spawning at the Nimbus facility, one of the three major state-run hatcheries in the Central Valley that will collect a total of about 24 million eggs this fall. From those eggs, Nimbus will produce about 4 million Chinook salmon, as well as about 430,000 Steelhead, for release next spring.

There are some indicators this will be a good year, Drath says, such as the large number of fish stacked up at the base of the ladder waiting to spawn and positive early reports from ocean commercial boats.

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