Our Mission 2023
Third Creek and Incline Creek on the North Shore are, according to the UNR, PHD Geneticist Dr. Galland who's studied all 63 Lake Tahoe streams, "The most genetically diverse and important streams feeding Lake Tahoe."
Friends Of Third Creek's focus is to help Lake Tahoe's watershed and fisheries through community participation, education, and by proactively stewarding the direction of environmental interaction.
Our Team
Our amazing team of regular and part-time volunteers are committed to assisting in the health of Lake Tahoe tributaries for the return of Lake Tahoe's only native trout, the Lahontan Cutthroat Trout (LCT).
Our board of advisors is comprised of long term community leaders, local biologists, and fisheries research professionals.
Would you like to become an FOTC volunteer? Please, get in touch! For more information! (see contact us)
Our History
Seeing a need for energetic, nonprofit work in the North Shore's watershed area, we formed our organization to assist with sensible solutions to the challenges of today's public/government/environmental interface. Our group started collaborating with wildlife studies related to North Shore streams in 2016. With our aid the combined 8 year effort has netted close to 200,000 fertilized Wild Lake Tahoe Rainbow Trout eggs,.
- 90% will be returned as young fish throughout Nevada's lakes and streams, including Lake Tahoe. For the past three years North Shore fishing is being raved about. Now the numbers of mature adults returning to Third Creek are enough to produce record numbers.
- The LCT's habitat, spawning methodologies, and season are so similar to the Wild Lake Tahoe Rainbow Trout that over time they've created their own sub-species (the Cutbow and Bowcut - as determined by their gender pairing) and the information gathered from this study is intended to be the data base for best welcoming the LCT back to Third Creek.
- According the the USDA Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit, based on First Nation records, Third Creek is the only stream on Lake Tahoe recognized as a Lahontan Cutthroat Trout habitat!
- In the adjacent 2021 photo: 6,000 fertilized eggs, provided by two spectacular Rainbow Trout, are being packed in ice, then delivered to the hatchery. The spawning moms and dads are returned to the lake and may return again to Third Creek next year as others have..