… As the salmon runs have declined for many reasons, one of the strategies to reduce salmon smolt mortality has been trucking the juvenile salmon to the delta to bypass the striped bass. Stripers are spawning in the Sacramento River during the spring salmon out-migration. Stripers love to eat baby salmon. As with many things in life, the solution to today’s problem is often the cause of the next issue. Trucking the juvenile salmon directly from the hatchery on Battle Creek to the lower delta or the bay does not allow the salmon to imprint on the Sacramento River water. These fish did not know their way home. The result was salmon wandering to freshwater creeks flowing into the bay. … The solution to this has been to set net pens in the Sacramento River to hold these Coleman salmon smolts for a period of time to imprint on the water. Then they are trucked down to the delta or bay.