About a dozen anglers lined the mouth of Kennedy Creek at Totten Inlet on Tuesday, enjoying the sunny weather and hoping to hook a chum salmon.

Less than a mile upstream, a few Shelton High School students chattered with excitement during an intimate look at chum salmon that splashed and prepared to spawn along the Kennedy Creek Salmon Trail.

It's November, which means chum salmon are returning to South Puget Sound streams to spawn.

By the time the salmon are spent in early December, more than 5,000 people will have visited the half-mile salmon trail situated between Olympia and Shelton just off U.S. Highway 101, including the special-needs students from Shelton, who were there Tuesday afternoon.

"I love coming out here," said student Natasha Fadder. "I've been coming out here since I was a little kid."

The Kennedy Creek Salmon Trail, along with the McLane Creek Nature Trail off Delphi Road, are two of the best places in South Sound to see wild salmon spawn in the fall, noted Larry Phillips, a district fisheries biologist for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

This year's escapement to Totten Inlet streams is predicted to be approximately 14,000 fish, most of which will return to Kennedy Creek.

"We've been hovering around that range for a while," Phillips said. In more productive years, as many as 40,000 fish have returned to Kennedy Creek. The small number of fish visible from the salmon trail Tuesday were among the early arrivals, still bright from their ocean journey and not quite ready to excavate pockets in the stream gravel to lay their eggs - about 3,000 to 4,000 per female.

After three or four years in the ocean, about two to four adults per one spawning female will make it back to the spawning grounds.

Some will fall victim to ocean predators, others will be caught by tribal and nontribal commercial fisheries and others will be hooked by sports anglers at the mouths of their natal streams.

The fishing success Tuesday was spotty at best near the creek mouth.

"They're just starting to show up," noted George Rough, a South Puget Sound Community college instructor who fished without success Monday.

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Information from: The Olympian, http://www.theolympian.com