Right here in downtown Redding California. This group just enjoying the day on the mighty Sacramento River. 
There otter be a law
Fishing the Sacramento in the City of Redding
View salmon at Lake Redding’s fish ladder
Redding has a fish ladder at the dam for Lake Redding that serves to divert water to the Anderson Cottonwood Irrigation canal. It allows salmon and other species to get upstream when the dam is up. At the ladder are a few windows into their watery world. Structures such as these are vital in the effort to sustain the salmon population. Without structures such as these aiding salmon to swim upriver in order to lay their eggs, it could lead to the decline of the wild salmon population ultimately eliminating it as a food source. With the ever growing human population, food sources such as salmon need to grow as well in order to provide enough food for people, both wild and farmed. The demand for fresh fish has led to practices such as salmon farming in order to keep up with the demand, however, these practices are not always sustainable as farmers attempt to get a bigger yield each season. There have been strategies put in place as a way to cap these practices, sites like www.globalsalmoninitiative.org/en can show efforts that have been taken to preserve the salmon population throughout the world by many fishing farms.
Of course viewing fish is like any kind of fishing expedition. Sometimes you get skunked.
No matter.
You know what they say about the worst day fishing being better than the best day working.
Visual fishing. It’s ReallyRedding.
A Park Marina Vision
Once there was a plan for Redding’s most visible riverfront. Some students envisioned what it might look like. It was a nice idea.
View Larger Map
“Of the 27 acres in the Park Marina area, 18 acres will be dedicated to open space for various recreational uses. New development on the site will include:
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• a 6,000 square foot outdoor amphitheater;
• a 12 screen theater complex;
• 145 residential units of different types and sizes;
• two hotels and a bed-and-breakfast;
• a marketplace with eateries, small scale development, a
permanent outdoors facility for weekly farmers’ markets
and seasonal craft fairs, an arts plaza;
• 1,000 parking spaces in two new three-story garages on
Park Marina Drive;
• traffic calming measures along the whole project site and
a pedestrian bridge”
You can read the whole Park Marina plan document at the link. Thanks Cal Poly students and staff, for showing us what could be.
This subject came up at dinner with friends yesterday evening. And how Redding so often turns its back on the river that defines us. Surely it will not be that way forever.
Arches across the Sacramento
The one that got away
Gathered a few images of this fisherman just upstream of the Diestlehorst Pedestrian Bridge yesterday. The fish got away, but not completely. Not from my lens.
Gone. That’s how it goes. Still, not such a bad way to spend a February Saturday afternoon in Downtown Redding.
Compatriot fish looks on, directly below the Diestlehorst. Free Winter entertainment for everyone Downtown. That’s Really Redding.
4 views from the Diestelhorst Bridge
Paddle boarding on the Sacramento River in Redding
Our local river is deceptively unforgiving. Yesterday from the Sundial, seeing these two with no life jackets on sent chills. Tourists maybe? I haven’t seen anyone do this here before. Perhaps paddle boarding on the river will be an extreme sport that gains some followers, but people please! The river is calm and serene, until abruptly it isn’t. Then, its deathly cold grasp drags your body where it wants. Not where you want. Even with a life jacket, I hope your affairs are in order.
Common sense is unfortunately rare. But do have a care for your family, and for the first responders charged with your rescue. Or recovery.
I hope I’m wrong, but I predict dark clouds on the horizon for this sport, on this body of water. It’s Really Redding.
May Day images in Redding 2011
This season has proven to be an extraordinary Spring, with an abundance of wildflowers, water in creeks, and birds in the trees. It was a wet end to Winter, but a magic May Day ensues.
Popped my head over the bridge, and spotted these two enjoying the sun by the river.
That reminded me of this image from Redding long ago.
