Salmon Creek

Wild factor • 4

Trout rating • n/a

Fish caught • 2

Fishing season • For the stretch west of Highway 1, Dec. 1 through March 7, on certain days of the week. Trout fishing east of the bridge is open from the last Saturday in April through Nov. 15. 

Directions • Salmon Creek crosses Highway 1 in Monterey County 47 miles south of Big Sur State Park and 23 miles north of San Simeon. 

Like Villa Creek, no one has nominated Salmon Creek for wild and scenic status, but not for lack of beauty. A short trail leads to a split waterfall on the creek near its crossing with Highway 1. Below the falls, which serves as a boundary between anadromous and potamodromous rainbows, the stream continues to cascade through large boulders in a steep ravine to the ocean. The steelhead here were also affected by black spot, but not as severely.

I hacked my way to the ocean on the north side, then fished upstream. Slipping off a rock, I fell backward into a pool and drowned my camera. My picture-taking might be on hold for a while ...

Villa Creek

Wild factor • 4

Trout rating • n/a

Fish caught • 3

Fishing season • For the short stretch west of Highway 1, steelhead fishing is allowed Dec. 1 through March 7, on certain days of the week. Trout fishing east of the bridge is open from the last Saturday in April through Nov. 15. 

Directions • Villa Creek crosses Highway 1 in Monterey County 44 miles south of Big Sur State Park and 26 miles north of San Simeon.  

Villa Creek isn't a candidate for wild and scenic status but it's one of several streams in Monterey County undergoing an intensive steelhead restoration project by various agencies. I caught three juvenile steelhead, which stay in the streams for up to three years before heading to the ocean. The fish had black spot disease, a parasitic infection that is linked to poor water quality, according to a study done on the Columbia River. Black spot doesn't pose a threat to humans, I was told at Central Coast Fly Fishing in Carmel, but occasionally gives rise to spinal problems and other disorders in infected fish.