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September ends the warm and hazy summer months and begins the onset of a long and usually very wet winter months on the outskirts of the Olympic Peninsula Rain Forest. The forests replenish and are very lush this time of year. The water temperatures drop dramatically as a result. This is particularly visible when wandering along Hood Canal’s South Shore and Twanoh State Park. The area exudes a tranquil feeling from around the beginning of September until around June.

However, the salmon come home to Twanoh Creek in late October, early November. The salmon are called chum salmon and they literally bubble the waters in Hood Canal as well as the rivers. The will remain in the area until they die off after spawning their youth in the native streams and creeks. This will occur around the first of December.

Twanoh Creek runs through both the upper and lower portions of Twanoh State Park and empties into the famous Hood Canal where there is a boat launch and picnic tables. However, your best fishing is in the Hood Canal area itself and not on the Twanoh Creek itself as there is fencing to keep people from getting too close or fishing from the Creek itself.

The salmon do a reproductive “dance” that is always fun to witness and the female “digs” the “redd” or the salmon “nest” is a deep narrow indentation in the bottom of the creek bed where the female salmon will lay her eggs. The males then will swim after the female and fertilize the eggs. 

Thanks to conservation efforts, the runs are enormous these days. However, back in 1986, the salmon were declining. However, a local resident by the name of Jerry Manuel changed the course of nature by inventing the Remote Site Incubator and over the next 10 years he was able to reestablish the salmon.  As a matter of fact, over a quarter of a million salmon eggs were hatched and released as fry in the Creek and eventually ensured that the salmon run has survived.  In 1996 the Remote Site Incubator was removed and the salmon run has remained self sustaining.

The young fish born in the Creek will live their first month in the Creek and then swim into the Hood Canal and the salt water and will return only after another forty-three months. So as you can see, the life span of a chum salmon is only 48 months. It is amazing to see how fast they grow and reach maturity. After returning to the Creek to spawn at the end of their life cycle, their remains become food fo newly hatched chum salmon, native birds and animals.