Every summer for the past 20 years, biologists with Sonoma Water don their waders and boots, not to catch fish but to count them.
Seven days a week, at five different put-ins, Sonoma Water biologists Miguel O’Huerta and Sanoe Deaver wade into the cold Russian River to scoop small fish from traps laid in late spring. One-by-one they tally each salmonid — fish in the salmon family.
“Coho smolt. Yeah, gorgeous. This is going to be at 95,” O’Huerta called out to Deaver who logged the data. She asked if he’d scanned the fish yet. “Yep, no snout. Yep, no scan,” O’Huerta responded. “And this is going to be at 9.7 and it’s going downstream. Beautiful.”…