Blog: Saving Clear Lake’s endangered chi
‘Tens of thousands of these fish once ascended streams in Spring. They are of major cultural importance to the Pomo people who harvested them as a valued food source.’ When you read statements like this, most likely it is salmon that come to mind. Yet this statement characterizes the Clear Lake Hitch or Chi, a non-salmonid fish, that ascends the tributaries to Clear Lake (Lake County) to spawn each spring (Thompson et al. 2013, Pfieffer 2022). Spawners are typically 10-14 inches long. They once moved up the streams in large numbers as soon as spring rains created sufficient stream flows to attract the fish (Moyle 2002, Moyle et al. 2015, Feyrer 2019).