I’m still amazed by my recent visit to the Nimbus Fish Hatchery. Salmon work hard to complete their journey and spawn. The hatchery plays an important role in insuring the salmon life cycle.

Here’s what Wikipedia says: From November through March river water flows down the fish ladder to encourage fish to enter and climb the steps to the hatchery. The gate at the foot of the ladder is closed when the holding pool at the top is full in order to prevent overcrowding. Ripe (ready to spawn) fish are brought from this holding pool into the hatchery spawning deck, where workers collect eggs from the females and milt from the males. Fertilized eggs are placed in hatching jars, with river water upwelling from the bottom to simulate natural conditions. When the eggs are ready to hatch the jars are tipped into large tubs where the baby fish (alevin) will remain while they absorb their yolk sacs and become free-swimming. They are then moved outside to raceway pools where they are feed multiple times a day and grow rapidly. Once the fish are ready to begin their outmigration to the ocean, at 60 fish to the pound for salmon and 4 fish to the pound for steelhead trout, they are loaded into tanker trucks and transported to the river for release. From here they make their way downstream and eventually journey out to sea.^[7]

The salmon work hard, jumping to get out of the holding tank. Taking their picture was also difficult. At first I tried to follow a possible jumper. That didn’t work. Then I tried zone focusing, which worked better. I was shooting at a shutter speed of 1/160, but still some of the fish were not in focus. My other problem was a slow reaction time. Sometimes I didn’t push the shutter down fast enough. They jump so fast, water splashing all over the place, and some jumping around the one I had in sight. I did get enough though.

My lesson for the day: patience. I just stood there, camera aimed and waited. I know, that’s not me, but I did it!

At certain intervals, the salmon are pushed into the building where their eggs are collected. I was about to shoot the last fish being gutted when a worker stepped in front of my camera. All I have is a shot of them cleaning the table.

We were fortunate enough to have a Ranger show us a female that still had some eggs in her.

So, take a look at my adventure.

The ladder.

They test out the wall.

And, then jump.

Another jumper.

It looks like this one got just above the water.

They are being pushed into the building.

Once inside, their eggs will be harvested.

They try to get back to the other side.

Workers clean up the table.

Inside the visitors’ center.

A female salmon.

Her eggs.

The American River at the Hatchery.