Fluke appearance: Whale surfaces in Delta (10/15/1985)

Originally published 10/15/1985

RIO VISTA - There are a whale of a lot of big fish stories floating around Rio Vista, home of the annual Bass Derby.

But the yarn about the whale that swam into town Monday afternoon was different.

It was true.

A humpback whale, estimated to be 35 or 40 feet long, evidently took a wrong turn at the Golden Gate, swam through San Francisco Bay and into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

At Rio Vista, 58 miles from the Golden Gate, the whale either realized its mistake or ran out of salt water.

The Coast Guard spent much of the late afternoon trying to turn the big mammal around, but it seemed content to circle in the semi-salty water just downstream from the Rio Vista bridge.

With the 1985 Bass Derby barely history, some riverside whale watchers were looking ahead to 1986.

'That'll be a category in next year's derby - the biggest whale,' said Norm Bechtold of Lodi, an avid fisherman and one of several dozen people lining the walkway on the big drawbridge across the Sacramento.

Linda Clark of Rio Vista, accompanied by four children, declared: 'Now we've got the fish story.'

The Coast Guard had several 21-foot outboard boats tailing the whale, which showed a little of its back but no tail fin when it rose to spout.

Observers saw the whale run into light-marker posts in the river on two occasions, leading to speculation that it was disoriented and in poor health.

'It's been zigzagging below the bridge for several hours. I suppose it's quite confused,' suggested Rio Vistan Junior Chapman. 'I suppose if it were in the ocean, it would be going north.'

'Too bad they don't have a recording of a whale that they could use to lead him back down the river,' she cqsaid.

'Old-timers say they've never seen a whale up here, although they have reported spotting sea lions and a shark,' Chapman said.

According to The Bee's files, a juvenile gray whale wandered into the Mare Island strait at Vallejo, 30 miles downstream from Rio Vista, in June 1984.

Kathy Carademos of Rio Vista was watching at about 4:30 p.m. Monday when the humpback clobbered light post number 32. The pilings are sturdy, supporting lights that mark the ship channel.

'He hit that and he really made it shake,' Carademos said.

In Rio Vista, a fisherman with a big striped bass or sturgeon can draw a crowd at the municipal dock.

Fishermen can be found along the river and in boats upon it in almost any season. But Monday afternoon, they traded their fishing tackle for cameras and binoculars.

The whale provided some close-ups, at one point nearly touching the east bank of the river and coming within a few yards of the bridge, where it spouted for the spectators.

By midevening, Coast Guard attempts to chase the whale downstream had failed. A spokesman for the Coast Guard station at Rio Vista said the whale was still circling downstream from the bridge. The spokesman was unable to say what the strategy would be today if the whale doesn't show some inclination to head back to the Pacific.

Junior Chapman made it sound like the townspeople, all 3,270 of them, wouldn't mind if the whale hung around another day or two.

'Every time a ship gets aground or somebody catches a big sturgeon, everybody gathers and you meet all your friends,' she cqsaid.