Native fish like to lay eggs in gravel, not mud.
Historically, steelhead would come back to spawn in the winter over three, four and even five months, depending on the stream. They would arrive around Thanksgiving and continue through March.
Historically, flooding hasn't been a problem for fish because they have had complex stream habitats, abundant riparian forests and extensive flood plains.
In Mack Creek, there were tons of fry in the stream the year after the 1996 flood. They were four times as abundant as anything we'd ever seen before.
Steelhead and other native fish have had thousands of years to adapt to flooding. Not only can they survive, floods usually improve the habitat by scouring out river bottoms, creating new pools and cleaning out the silt.
