Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

The Seattle Times recently spent the day on Miller Bay with Paul Dorn, the Suquamish Tribe’s salmon enhancement biologist. The article focuses on the chum salmon returning to the area and the best ways to view them.

The autumn backdrop. The trail of floating leaves from cars whizzing by. A sign of fall? Nah. You’re in salmon country now. That signals the start of chum runs here. Time to grab the binoculars and polarized shades and set out by kayak to witness the return of a Northwest icon.

Some watch from the shoreline, eelgrass dangling from their rubber boots. You can smell the tide rushing in from here. You can see the salmon jumping.

“You see fish up to 25 pounds splashing their way up the stream, returning to their place of birth,” said Paul Dorn, a local biologist, known around these parts as “The Salmon Guy.”