Chinook observed in Klamath River tributary above Iron Gate

With all the new habitat available from the dams coming down, have the escapement levels for salmon and steelhead in the Klamath been adjusted upwards? How has that affected in river and ocean fishing?

WDFW doesn't do this. With all the habitat work and culvert replacement, the escapement levels don't seem to change.
 
davew said:
With all the new habitat available from the dams coming down, have the escapement levels for salmon and steelhead in the Klamath been adjusted upwards? How has that affected in river and ocean fishing?

WDFW doesn't do this. With all the habitat work and culvert replacement, the escapement levels don't seem to change.
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Good question. My guess is that for some interim period we're seeing fish that would have spawned downstream of the dams now moving upriver above the dam sites because of the silt deposition occuring downstream of the former dams. Increases in productivity won't show up until after the cohorts spawned upstream of the dams mature and begin returning. I don't know that CFW uses hard number escapement goals for salmon or steelhead like WDFW.
 
For Klamath fall chinook (basin wide), the minimum stock size threshold is 30,525 natural adult spawners and the sustainable maximum yield is 40,700 natural adult spawners. The Klamath fall chinook have been classified as overfished by PFMC for quite awhile now and for the last several years, de minimus harvest control rules have been applied when crafting salmon regulation impacts. For the 2025 fall run, the minimum natural area adult spawner escapement was set at 19,417 adults which was the seventh lowest value over the past 49 years of data.

I believe @Salmo_g is correct that for now, there will be no changes as dam removal impacts has caused adult spawner dispersal over a wider area. We should know the actual 2025 escapement in a few months - hopefully much higher than 19,417.
 
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Continuing on the topic of fall spawner dispersal - chinook have now shown up in Klamath Basin irrigation canals: chinook strays I think this is probably occurring more rapidly than anyone had anticipated and now there will be a mad scramble to screen agricultural diversions. A similar scenario occurred when restoration and river channel rewatering occurred in the San Joaquin Valley. If you build it (or in this case, remove it), they will come.
 
RRSmith said:
Continuing on the topic of fall spawner dispersal - chinook have now shown up in Klamath Basin irrigation canals: chinook strays I think this is probably occurring more rapidly than anyone had anticipated and now there will be a mad scramble to screen agricultural diversions. A similar scenario occurred when restoration and river channel rewatering occurred in the San Joaquin Valley. If you build it (or in this case, remove it), they will come.
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It's really exciting to see salmon returning to the Upper Klamath Basin! I guess the stories (about salmon being caught and dried near Keno) an "old timer" told me when I was a college kid in Klamath Fall, were true.

I seem to remember stories about flood irrigation of pastures along the Dungeness River where salmon were washed out of irrigation canals into pasture land. I do recall seeing salmon strays in irrigation ditches on the mint farm along the old Olympic highway, I don't know what species they were.
 
Buzzy said:
It's really exciting to see salmon returning to the Upper Klamath Basin! I guess the stories (about salmon being caught and dried near Keno) an "old timer" told me when I was a college kid in Klamath Fall, were true.

I seem to remember stories about flood irrigation of pastures along the Dungeness River where salmon were washed out of irrigation canals into pasture land. I do recall seeing salmon strays in irrigation ditches on the mint farm along the old Olympic highway, I don't know what species they were.
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Here in north whatcom county you can see chums and coho spawning in irrigation ditches along the border, conditions permitting. Growing up we would hunt ducks in the flooded fields along the nooksack. I have had coho and pinks busting in my decoys over a mile from the river proper.
 
You probably know this but it’s surprising how many people don’t realize—In Western Washington, a lot of those “ditches” with fish are actually streams with natural headwaters that have been pushed around, dug out, straightened and turned into something that looks like a ditch to try to dry out naturally wet lands that were converted to fields all for the purpose of agriculture (and at the expense of fish habitat).
 
Matt B said:
You probably know this but it’s surprising how many people don’t realize—In Western Washington, a lot of those “ditches” with fish are actually streams with natural headwaters that have been pushed around, dug out, straightened and turned into something that looks like a ditch to try to dry out naturally wet lands that were converted to fields all for the purpose of agriculture (and at the expense of fish habitat).
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When squiggly vegatated streams become straight lines are they no longer streams?

And if I hada dollar for every time someone told me that there are no wetlans on a property because they farm it................
 
Matt B said:
You probably know this but it’s surprising how many people don’t realize—In Western Washington, a lot of those “ditches” with fish are actually streams with natural headwaters that have been pushed around, dug out, straightened and turned into something that looks like a ditch to try to dry out naturally wet lands that were converted to fields all for the purpose of agriculture (and at the expense of fish habitat).
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The Dutch perfected water management in Lynden, WA. They've never met a lake they couldnt drain, or a stream they couldnt straighten. Turns out not so good for fish.
 
Pink Nighty said:
The Dutch perfected water management in Lynden, WA. They've never met a lake they couldnt drain, or a stream they couldnt straighten. Turns out not so good for fish.
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Takes a lot of maintenance which can be hard to do sometimes with listed fish around.

That’s why foggy fall mornings are “ditch cleaning days” now.
 
You aint telling ME what was observed!!!! Yaint telling ME what these guy are claimin to be true!!! Look i know the deal with these types. With these types you get these guys coming forth with all these big claims. Claiming they OBSERVED!! my ass!!! They aint observed nothing!!
 
Buzzy said:
It's really exciting to see salmon returning to the Upper Klamath Basin! I guess the stories (about salmon being caught and dried near Keno) an "old timer" told me when I was a college kid in Klamath Fall, were true.
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What a shame to learn that returning Chinook are moving up into irrigation canals instead of their spawning habitat.

At 3:31 the news story mentions the Klamath Power and Facilities Agreement (KPFA) signed 9 years ago between the Feds, the States, and (Ag) stakeholders in the Klamath Basin.
In Section 2.B.2.b (3:57) it calls for Non-Federal (State of Oregon, & possibly CA) funding for "entrainment reduction" or fish screens to keep the fish moving up river to their ancestrial spawning grounds rather than the irrigation canals that risks them being unable to spawn, and possibly creating additional restrictions and buffers for farmers.

5:19 "ODFW told us, although it is unfortunate some fish have found their way into canals and areas lacking suitable spawning habitat,
this behavior of exploring and searching for newly available suitable habitat in the upper upper basin is exactly what is needed at this time for successful repopulation. We are monitoring and hopeful that these fish will return to the main stem and ultimately find more suitable habitat".
6:26 "But the decade of delays leaves water managers like Scott White frustrated. "We share the excitement of these fish coming back. We wanna do what's right by the fish, and we wanna make sure that we do our best to take care of them as well. It's exciting it's fun. But doggone it, let's, let's do what we promised and do, do the best that we can by those fish [not to mention the $500M spent to complete breaching the dams] as well, and make sure that we're not creating opportunities for them to not go live out their life cycle the way that they're intended to"".

I'm interested to know from the bios in our community...
Is ODFW's response and the State(s) not following through on the commitment in the KPFA 9 years ago to see how many fish can find their way to their intended spawning grounds without spending the money for the screens, considered a best practice for extirpated fish restoration?
(that begs the question why "completing the screens" got into the agreement in the first place; just to pacify the stake holders and keep them quiet?)

What happened there?
Is this much ado about nothing?

Too many other new shiny objects for state spending... or you get what (by who) you vote for?
 
ODFW is correct that searching and exploring is natural behavior for fish, but that is beside the point. It's imperative to understand that the Klamath, like most watersheds, is a highly modified river basin. It's irresponsible to leave man-made dead end irrigation canals open to salmon entrainment. Maybe the conservation organizations should initiate a lawsuit against the federal and state signatories to the agreement to remind them they have an obligation to screen those irrigation diversions. Ordinarily I would argue that the irrigators should bear the cost of screening their diversions, but this is another exceptional case where the passage of time (over a century) has diluted the framework of who's responsible for what. In this case there is an existing agreement that spells out who is responsible for stipulated actions, and those parties are behind schedule.

WDFW has, or had, the screen shop in Yakima. Maybe they could lend a hand since the news segment said that demand for screens is outpacing the supply. I think WA state has been the forefront of fish screen technology, so it doesn't surprise me that CA and OR might find themselves ill prepared.
 
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