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Nimbus Fish Hatchery
Rating Details »
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
10 reviews for Nimbus Fish Hatchery
Yep!! This place is super cool! right off the bike trail, and excellent destination on bike, plus great easy access by car as well. Lots of fun for big and little kids!
My son loves getting handfuls of fish food and feeding the masses,
an awesome way to spend a casual afternoon with the fam!
Clueless how to entertain your kids during the summer or other vacation? Are they getting on your nerves? Take them to the fish hatchery. It's fun, it's free, it's educational, and I haven't met a kid that didn't like it.
For a nickel, you can purchase a handful of fish food, but my suggestion is to bring a lot of nickels, along with plastic cups to put the food into. Especially if you have a kid that likes to dump the whole cup into the water at once (that's happened to me!)
There is a great visitor center with some educational things inside, including an informational video about the salmon.
What's great about this place is that you can visit month to month and see how they grow. I believe the salmon are at their largest around Thanksgiving and they're pretty huge then!
And when you're done watching the fish, you can take a walk alongside the river, or go to the Old Spaghetti Factory for some lunch!
This is one of the best places to spend time outdoors in the Sacramento region. I've visited many times and have always loved it. It's free, it's beautiful and it's interesting. Bring nickels to buy fish food (they have gumball-like dispensers), but often the rangers dole out free food. I recommend bringing a container for the food because it will make your hands smell nasty for two days. My kids love this place but it's a good day with friends, a date (if they aren't a douche bag or girly-girl type), or solo.
There are several places to hit when visiting. Two fish pens, on either side of the visitor center, have graduating sizes of hatchlings and fish. The pedestrian path runs along the river and is part of the American River Bike Trail. The visitor center has crazy interactive fish facts and interesting info about the Sacramento region. The gigantic salmon play structure is a must for hyper kids (behind the visitor center). A concrete ramp leads down to the river and former dam site and is a good place to critter watch. Last time we visited there was a river otter sitting on a rock about 15 feet out eating a fish and performing antics for the kids.
Once a year they do the spawning run and it is the coolest thing since Logan's Run. Puts mating and dying in perspective. They open the ladders, huge fish jump all the way up to the plant attached to the center, and the rangers separate the males from females. You can watch it all through the glass wall in the center. They squirt the sperm out of the males (I'm not kidding--it's so cool!) and cut eggs out of the females, then mix them in containers. Like old school IVF. The run starts on a different day each year, but usually is around November 1. If you call the visitor center leading up to this time they will let you know when a date is settled on.
The rangers are always nice and should get a special shout out for running such a cool place and tolerating a million questions from the kids and squirting fish sperm.
Number one spot to go when the Ladder is open and the fish are jumping.
Parking is free - the fish show is free - the gorgeous natural setting is relaxing and so serene.
Bring nickles if you want to feed the fish.
Fantastic field trip especially when they take the eggs. We go every year and it never gets dull.
After parking here for years to use the bike trail- I finally explored the whole fish hatchery and I was really impressed! This place is so cool! I highly recommend making a visit during salmon season (Oct thru December). Its fun, informative and even better- free!
You can walk around and look at all the little trout that are waiting to be released into the wild. They have dispensers where if you pay 5 cents you can get a handful of fish food.
The visitors center has a ll sorts of exhibits explaining everything from fish eggs to salmon spawning process to watershed management. Its geared for kids- but as an adult I found it really interesting.
My favorite part is the fish ladder where you can watch the hugest salmon I have ever seen. They also have a little trail that goes along the river with interpretive panels.
Definitely check out the fish hatchery!
The fish Hatchery. Sometimes, I wish that i can be a sushi chef when i come here.
But anyways, I like the Salmon festival they throw here.
Especially the SALMON BBQ :)
Fun for kids. Fun for enthusiasts. Fun For all.
Pros: The nice people
Cons: You can eat the live Salmon :P
I had no clue this was here! My friend and I went for a ride on the bike trail from Goethe Park to Hazel. The ride ends right at the fish hatchery. What a nice surprise!
After riding a good 15 miles on the bike it was a great stopping place. We spend about 40 minutes walking around there.
It is a great - FREE- place to take children. Great for a day trip. You can always go swimming at Lake Natoma across the street to. Make a whole day trip...
Love this place. Used to go fishing here, below the actual hatchery, with my pops, uncles, and cousins back when you could actually fish for Salmon. It breaks my heart that you could not Salmon fish last year. It was always fun to hike up to the hatchery and feed the salmon and see how everything works. Great place for kids and adults. Come see it before there are no more Salmon :(
Located on the banks of the American River, this place is quite a site! We got to watch huge salmon jump up a fish ladder. I had heard about this place before however, I used to come to Sacramento during the summer and the fish jump during the fall/winter months. Therefore, I had never seen the fish jump before!
You can literally watch them jump out of the river onto a "ladder" where they will go to spawn and die. Then, you can view the baby salmon and even feed them for 5 cents. Don't try to feed the adults because they will no longer eat, since they are there to die. (sniff....)
It was interesting to see how beat up the adult fish were. What a goal they have, to jump up river! It is so difficult for them to do that they end up with huge sores and bruises all over their bodies! What an accomplishment!
Hawks were flying overhead, I assume in hopes that some of the salmon wouldn't successfully make the journey. The leap from the river to the ladder looked the biggest, I saw one salmon attempt to make the jump but unfortunately it failed. The hawks found something (I am not sure what) because five of them were flying overhead in formation.
It was amazing to see how long this ladder was that they had to climb. Just when I thought they had reached the top, I realized the ladder turned the corner because they were only halfway there! AMAZING!
Check out my photos!
I go to this place a lot during the spring to enjoy the scenery. I would recommend going here during the Salmon Festival which is held in mid-October. You can feed the salmon for free, enjoy the entertainment, food vendors, and then walk off the calories by going on the small trail along the river. Keep an eye out for white cranes located along the trail, right after the hatchery.