On Monday, September 28, Jeffrey Jensen was flying a drone over the Sammamish River below the mouth of Little Bear Creek when a school of fish came up the channel. His first guess was Chinook. The fish were moving too fast for that, and they flashed bright and silvery when they turned. They were coho. When he went back through the footage he counted 71 of them, a school he describes as heading upriver toward the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery.
Three weeks before that, the City of Bothell closed the Back 9 of the former Wayne Golf Course to the public and started construction to rebuild a stretch of the same river for salmon. So for the next year and a half, the city's most familiar salmon water is closed so it can eventually hold more fish. Meanwhile the best places to see salmon this fall are elsewhere, and rain sets the schedule.
What Closed on September 8, and What Didn't
Construction on the Sammamish River & Waynita Creek Restoration Project started September 8. It runs through winter 2027, and the city plans to reopen the area in early 2028. The Back 9 is closed for the whole stretch. The Front 9 and Blyth Park next door stay open.
The dividing line is 96th Avenue NE. The Front 9 sits west of it and south of Highway 522. The Back 9 sits east of it, beside Blyth Park. To reach the Front 9 lot, turn onto 96th Avenue NE from Bothell Way NE. The Washington Trails Association says the lot is on the right about a quarter-mile in, and public access runs from 30 minutes before sunrise to 30 minutes after sunset.
You may have seen WTA describe Wayne Open Space as about three miles of trail. That figure covers land on both sides of 96th, so it overstates what you can walk this fall. A WTA visitor report from June 16 counted room for about 30 cars in the gravel lot, plus portable toilets. That report predates the closure, so conditions may be different now. The city has not posted a current map of which Front 9 loops are open.
Blyth Park gets you closer to the water. WTA describes riverside trails running to 96th Avenue NE, wooded trails climbing toward Norway Hill and the Tolt Pipeline Trail, and the Burke-Gilman Trail at the park entrance. The lot holds roughly 75 cars. From Highway 522, take 101st Avenue NE to NE 183rd Street, then 102nd Avenue NE and West Riverside Drive.
The Front 9 has its own planning process underway. The city's Wayne Open Space Action Plan materials identify a four-acre Front 9 parcel that could someday hold a community building, parking, a playground, viewing platforms, restrooms or picnic shelters. They also mention a regional-trail branch into the site and better bridges. Those are options, not decisions. The process opened with a public open house on January 15, 2026.
What the Construction Is Actually Building
According to the city's December 2025 environmental checklist, the project restores about 13.2 acres of aquatic and upland habitat. That covers roughly 1,000 feet of Sammamish River shoreline and the lower 1,500 feet of Waynita Creek. Crews will widen the spot where the creek meets the river and reroute Waynita Creek into a wider, shallower, winding channel. They will also bring two buried tributaries back to the surface, improve existing wetlands, create new ones, add wood habitat structures and plant native vegetation.
The city's announcement explains the purpose. It says the new slow, cold water will give migrating Chinook a place to rest. The work also reconnects groundwater to the creek, expands its floodplain, removes invasive plants and adds native trees and shrubs.
Two bridges will be replaced. One is a 100-by-12-foot span over Waynita Creek. The other is a 20-by-12-foot crossing over a newly created wetland. When the area reopens, the city says it will have trails, pedestrian bridges and viewing areas.
"By restoring this vital salmon habitat, we're not only investing in our environment and region, but also our whole community by creating a space we can connect with, learn about, and enjoy nature together." Bothell City Councilmember Carston Curd, at the August 31 groundbreaking
This work has been coming for about a decade. Forterra bought the whole golf course in 2016 and held it while Bothell and its partners raised money. The city then paid Forterra $3.4 million for the Front 9 and $400,000 for the Back 9, a total of $3.8 million for 89 acres. King County paid $7.7 million for two conservation easements that removed development rights. The Bothell-Kenmore Reporter covered the final step in December 2017, when the Back 9 purchase was approved on the same day the Front 9 deal closed. Construction funding comes from a long list of partners, including the Washington Department of Ecology, King County Parks and Flood Control District, the Salmon Recovery Funding Board, the EPA, Forterra, Meta and Swire Coca-Cola USA.
Where the Fish Have Been Seen Since Late September
Jensen, a UW Bothell professor, runs a volunteer salmon-watcher program and posts his survey results online. His September 2026 posts are the most current local record of where fish are showing up. He has not reported any recent sightings at Bothell Landing or Blyth Park. These are the spots with recent evidence or his direct recommendation.
- Sammamish River below the mouth of Little Bear Creek. This is where the school of 71 coho turned up on September 28. Jensen calls it "the best salmon site on the Sammamish." He notes that most of the river is deep, slow and dark, which makes it hard to see fish almost everywhere else.
- Lower North Creek, near the mouth and under the SR 522 bridge. In a September 24 survey, Jensen saw two live Chinook in lower North Creek and two Chinook carcasses farther downstream. He lists the mouth and the 522 bridge among his preferred viewing sites.
- The public boardwalk at UW Bothell. The section of boardwalk that leads to North Creek is open to the public, and Jensen says he has watched Chinook, sockeye and kokanee spawning upstream of it. The campus wetlands beyond the boardwalk require permission. The university also lists the boardwalk as a place to see spawning salmon.
- North Creek behind the Country Inn & Suites, upstream of I-405. Jensen calls this "a great site if salmon can get past the beaver dams."
- Swamp Creek, at the Burke-Gilman crossing and in Wallace Swamp Creek Park. Jensen still records coho and Chinook in Swamp Creek and considers both spots good for viewing, though he has had very few reports of salmon there in recent years.
Rain Sets the Schedule
The condition attached to item four matters most. Jensen writes that a high beaver dam on the UW Bothell campus will likely block salmon from moving up North Creek "until we get some strong rains," and he puts a question mark on November. That means the upper North Creek sites, including the stretch behind the Country Inn & Suites, may stay quiet until the weather changes. Fish already below the dam are easier to find.
Rain also hurts coho. Car tires shed dust containing a preservative called 6PPD, which breaks down into 6PPD-q, a compound Jensen describes as highly toxic to coho. When rain washes it into streams, many coho die within hours of reaching the stream they were born in. The same week he counted the 71 coho, Jensen received videos of coho in the Sammamish showing what he calls "the classic signs" of 6PPD-q poisoning. He has also seen a coho die this way in Little Bear Creek. If you see a coho spiraling or rolling along the bottom, it is probably in that condition.
So October in Bothell has two windows. During dry stretches, the Sammamish below Little Bear Creek has shown schools of bright coho moving upriver. After heavy rain, North Creek may open up past the beaver dam, but that rain also carries the runoff that kills coho in the river. The North Creek Trail Park "Salmon SEEson" listing also says to watch for sockeye in October and to look beneath bridges, which fits Jensen's advice about the 522 crossing.
Wherever you go, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife asks viewers to stand quietly at the edge of the stream and stay out of the water. Its season guidance runs from July through November. If you want to help count fish, Jensen's salmon-watcher sign-up is open. He has also asked for more reports from the Sammamish below Little Bear Creek, and as of September 23 nobody had signed up to watch Swamp Creek.
The city plans to reopen the Back 9 in early 2028. By then, the lower 1,500 feet of Waynita Creek will be a new channel, built to give Chinook the slow, cold water they have been passing by in the Sammamish.
If the 2028 reopening of Wayne Open Space or the Front 9 planning process affects how you think about a home near Blyth Park or the Sammamish River, Nick Loveless Real Estate is glad to walk through the timeline with you and share what the city has published so far. Work With Nick.
