Lake County reports first year of Clear Lake hitch community‑science spawning survey; volunteers document hitch at multiple creeks

Lake County Water Resources Department officials on March 9 presented preliminary results from the 2025 Clear Lake hitch community‑science spawner observation survey, a volunteer‑driven monitoring effort that covered 33 preselected sites around Clear Lake and ran weekly for 10 weeks beginning March 9, 2025.

The program is intended to track relative population trends over time, support restoration evaluations and involve the public in fish monitoring, Lake County Water Resources Director Pawan Upadhyay told the Board of Supervisors. Chris Childress, program coordinator, and watershed protection technician Taylor Woodruff led the presentation and thanked volunteers for their field observations and training participation.

County staff said the dataset presented excludes sites where no hitch were detected and that observers recorded confidence levels for fish identification; some entries were subject to quality assurance checks in the field. Childress said one Adobe Creek site returned a notably large count that staff double‑checked in the field and validated as reported. "This is just simply those fish were present at the site at the time of the survey," Childress said,…