Here’s Mike with his king salmon taken on the swing in a deep pool staging area. Mike is pictured along with John/dad on the right and friend Dave on the left.
King salmon start to enter the Muskegon river in mid September. As they migrate up the river system, the kings seek and group up in large deep pools with natural springs submerged under the water column discharging a steady flow of cool 45 degree water temps.
These deep pools with submerged natural springs also offer a good supply of oxygenated water and cool water temps allowing the salmon to “catch their breath” from the long journey from Lake Michigan waiting for the spawning process to begin.
King salmon seek these deep pools (known as staging areas) as a resting area while the females wait for their eggs to become loose which will cause them to leave the pools and seek shallow water gravel areas to start the spawning process.
King salmon continue to enter the river system. The salmon are stacking up in the staging areas of deep pools and starting to fill up in massive groups as their biological clocks are ticking to start the spawning process.
post by: jon fortuna