LAKE COUNTY ? The Clear Lake Hitch, a fish endemic to the county, has started its annual spawning run up several of the 17 tributaries in the county.
The only healthy populations are found in Kelsey Creek and Adobe Creek, according to Robert Geary, Robinson Rancheria watershed coordinator. Robinson Rancheria received a Tribal Wildlife Grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2004 to benefit the hitch or “Chi” as they are known in a Pomo Indian language.
The funding helped pay for a weir redesign last summer on Clover Creek to allow spawning hitch to travel upstream and gravel to flow downstream. Geary said hitch used to be common in all 17 creeks. Culturally, they have great importance, he said.
“They used to come up in such huge numbers that Pomo people would catch the fish and preserve them to get through the harsh winter when game was scarce?different types of Pomo”s would come together in those spawning seasons and visit and tell stories on these fishing expeditions, so it was an important form of communication,” Geary said.
The Chi Council, a group formed to observe the hitch and track its numbers, reports scattered schools of hitch in Adobe Creek for the past two weeks.
But there was no sustained movement up the creeks until last Monday, when observers saw schools of more than 300 moving up both Kelsey and Adobe Creeks.
The Chi Council is seeking hitch-spotting volunteers to check locations in the next week. An annual field trip takes place today; meeting at Studebaker”s Deli on Main Street in Kelseyville at 9 a.m. Carpools will then drive out to prime viewing locations.
Sierra Club Lake Group Chair Victoria Brandon and Chi Council member said it is not known for sure why the hitch population started to diminish, but that “the population most likely started diminishing when creeks were developed.”
“This is the fifth year we”ve been taking Chi observations. It seems like over the past 25 years there”s been a really noticeable downturn,” Brandon said.
The hitch”s cousin, called splittail, is assumed to be extinct, she said. Brandon guesses that interferences with the natural flow in creek water ? as a result of dams, roadways or other obstructions ? led to their extinction. The last sighting of a splittail was in 1975.
Brandon said as more studies are conducted on why hitch have declined, the Chi Council hopes to have some evidence that obstructions in creeks are in fact a problem, and then tap into additional funding for waterway improvements. She said improvements made on Clover Creek, where observers are now seeing hitch successfully move through to spawn, can help provide evidence that modification to weirs helps hitch populations.
“On Middle Creek Ridge at Rancheria Road you can see schools of fish bang their noses against the concrete. We need new weirs that lead gradually up to the area ? there are miles of spawning territory in that creek,” Brandon said.
Contact Elizabeth Wilson at ewilson@record-bee.com
