salmon festival

You'll soon be seeing red if all goes as planned.

The annual trek of the Kokanee salmon into Taylor Creek from Lake Tahoe should begin in the next week or so, but with the drought and a very active beaver population, the Forest Service had to step in and help.

"We didn't have a lot of fish last year," said Lindsay Gusses, the Taylor Creek Site Supervisor. "We are updating our strategies to have fish here during the festival."

The closed gates haven't stopped the droves of people drawn to Taylor Creek and the Rainbow Trail to watch the annual fall upstream trek of the Kokanee Salmon.

Visitors to the creek were locals and visitors and they all arrived via a myriad of transportation options. The Trolley running along Highway 89 through the weekend, which brought many down the road as did bicycles, motorcycles, cars as well as those that preferred to walk.

The U.S. Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit and the Tahoe Heritage Foundation will host the Fall Fish Festival Oct. 5-6, offering a variety of free, fun events with the beautiful backdrop of Taylor Creek in the fall.

Formerly the Kokanee Salmon Festival, the Fall Fish Festival will focus on the variety of fish species that live in Lake Tahoe and its rivers. In addition to the Kokanee, these species include the federally threatened Lahontan cutthroat trout and little-known smaller fish, such as speckled dace.

To Sherry Guzzi, the beaver dam on Taylor Creek was more than a watery jungle of sticks and branches. In that snarl of debris, she saw hope for a species long regarded as non-native in the Sierra but which new research claims has occupied the range for centuries and is key to ecosystem health.
Late last month, her hope was extinguished when the U.S. Forest Service tore down the dam to protect a tourist facility celebrating a non-native species: kokanee salmon.

The Tahoe Heritage Foundation recently received a donation of $7,050 from the Tahoe Mountain Milers. The running club raised the money during the 2011 Kokanee Salmon Run. These funds will be used to support next year's Kokanee Salmon Festival and the college internship summer program at Taylor Creek Visitor Center.

Celebrate fall Lake Tahoe style, with quaking aspen, crisp air and red Kokanee salmon that spawn annually in Taylor Creek. The U.S. Forest Service hosts the annual Kokanee Salmon Festival at the Lake Tahoe Visitor Center at Taylor Creek, which continues today, Sunday, Oct. 2. Come participate in this family fun festival which has become one of the most interesting and educational events in Northern California.