Malibu Creek in Southern California was once a good producer of wild steelhead. But you know the story…civilization popped up all around the creek and it got completely trashed. Well, that’s changing now. There’s a big restoration effort going on in Malibu Lagoon, which is the creek’s estuary, which has been channelized, dewatered and filled with construction debris for decades.
Apparently, the effort is working! On May 15, a 20-inch adult steelhead was spotted swimming in the lagoon — while there have been a few adult fish in the creek itself in recent years, a steelie hasn’t been spotted in the estuary for over a decade.
The restoration work is moving along nicely!
You can read more about the lagoon HERE
Also be sure to check out the Malibu Lagoon Restoration Project
Now, we need to get rid of this baby further up Malibu Creek…Rindge Dam:
Rindge Dam: Blocking steelhead for decades
Scott Smith says
Hey JD, have you ever heard about the fantastic fishing for Striped Bass in Pyramid lake ? It between Castaic and Gorman right next to hwy 5. They get in there thru the LA aqueduct.. This lake also has great channel catfish, many are quite large. Anyone that says channel Cats don’t fight well or aren’t great table fare has never caught them from a deep cold lake
JD says
Scott, yes and I have never fished it. Every time I drive down to LA to see family I want to go fish it. Cool looking mountains all around!
Scott Smith says
What I find incredible is how the land owner was able to simply decide to dam this creek without any regulations of any kind preventing it. That’s just the way it was back then, and it is how so many place were damaged or destroyed. Look at what was done to the Eel river by damming it and diverting (stealing) it’s water.
Sterling Sorenson says
It’s time the state took control of the dam and remove it. There are dozens of creeks on the central coast where there were Salmon and Steelhead. Can anyone give one fricken reason for allowing the dam to exist?
Scott Smith says
I used to fish Malibu Creek 30+ years ago with a friend of mine that “discovered” that the creek did indeed had a small winter Steelhead run. We’d hike up all the way to the dam as it was the only place that held them consistently. We always caught a couple. Too bad you chose to do an article about this. The little creek really doesn’t need the pressure. You can look it up on the Web how lots of movie stars and celebrities fished it back in the 1920’s + 30’s.
JD says
Scott, that’s cool you used to catch ’em. I highlighted this not to ruin a couple local’s fishing hole (it’s closed year-round to steelhead fishing anyway) but instead to show the positive things that are happening. There’s so much negative stuff going on in the fish world these days, we need to look beyond our own interests and see the big picture.
Rich says
Couple years ago a 30″ one was found in the lower reach of Trabuco Creek in OC stuck behind a concrete dissipater in the wash.
Ronnie Engle says
is that the furthest south a steelhead has been seen, i think it is, not sure