notaspeyguy
Smolt
This may not go over well....brown trout are fun, get big, and can be sea run...just sayin'...
How's summer going?
- Thread starter notaspeyguy
- Start date
Central Oregon Coast, eh? You should have some decent opportunities come August/September (from what I'm told; no first-hand experience).
It's all in the shitter as regards steelhead, but everything I hear is that Oregon is doing better than Washington (maybe that's just for hatchery winter runs?)
As for why, it's a tough nut to crack. No targeted commercial fisheries (besides tribal, which generally don't take big numbers), and even an ever decreasing amount of sport pressure, and they continue to swirl the drain. Most agree habitat degradation is the biggest issue. I personally believe the constantly decreasing salmon escapements are affecting all the species in our rivers where steelhead still roam, because rotting salmon carcasses provide key, marine-derived nutrients to the entire ecosystem (to include our forests!) that supplement the productivity of our relatively sterile streams, which feeds more fish. Indeed, as has been said before, in many important ways, fish ARE habitat....
Anyway, I don't know. I still get out fishing when I can. I catch a lot less than I used to, but I still love the places it takes me...
It's all in the shitter as regards steelhead, but everything I hear is that Oregon is doing better than Washington (maybe that's just for hatchery winter runs?)
As for why, it's a tough nut to crack. No targeted commercial fisheries (besides tribal, which generally don't take big numbers), and even an ever decreasing amount of sport pressure, and they continue to swirl the drain. Most agree habitat degradation is the biggest issue. I personally believe the constantly decreasing salmon escapements are affecting all the species in our rivers where steelhead still roam, because rotting salmon carcasses provide key, marine-derived nutrients to the entire ecosystem (to include our forests!) that supplement the productivity of our relatively sterile streams, which feeds more fish. Indeed, as has been said before, in many important ways, fish ARE habitat....
Anyway, I don't know. I still get out fishing when I can. I catch a lot less than I used to, but I still love the places it takes me...
G_Smolt
Legend
Mic drop.
I only target hatchery steelhead, and feel it's unethical to target wild fish. So there's that.
When we don't know, or fail to recognize the problem, we blame ocean conditions. I fish the snake river basin tribs exclusively anymore, and if the ocean conditions are to blame, the fish I catch have figured out a workaround to the "poor ocean conditions".
In my mind, the poor returns of steelhead in the snake basin, albeit cyclical to a degree, are also the result of an increase in summer and fall Chinook returns. The bycatch loses that result from an increase in gillnetting IMHO contribute greatly to diminished returns of oversized 1-salt and 2 and 3+ salt fish.
This combined with an increase of predation of smolts and adults, in addition to a recent reduction of smolt transportation and a loss of coldwater refugia at the mouth of the Deschutes ajre having significant impacts on the returns of snake basin steelhead.
notaspeyguy
Smolt
I've got one summer steelhead river within "worth it" driving distance to me, the Siletz, it's got dismal numbers just like the Wilson/Trask/Nestucca area
Not surprised, but sad to hear.
HauntedByWaters
Life of the Party
I miss so many things about west side summer steelhead except the 3:30AM alarm.
I was just reading a report for one of the basin rivers and it said run timing and downstream netting results in significant losses. Also, for this basin, 50% of the fish overshot the river and were detected elsewhere, and 40% of the in-river fish were strays. It's messed up and they realize it, with notes throughout the report. So far the protocol seems to be try something for 5-10 years on the hatchery side and see what happens.
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The particular basin I think you are referring to, and the overshooting/straying you cited, is why barging of steelhead smolts was significantly reduced. It is also the namesake of the longest dead water pool on the Columbia/Snake system. The mouth of the river and it's proximity to the dam leads me to wonder if steelhead destined for said river, pass over the ladder on the opposite side of the river to the mouth, it would be very difficult for them to find their river of origin. I've wondered for many decades now if this river truly has it's own population of native fish, or if it's "wild" returns of steelhead are the result straying fish destined for other rivers.
So little is known of the life histories is known prior to the dam building/industrialization of the Columbia/Snake basin steelhead, that makes it hard for me believe that we can restore it to the "way it was". What I do know is that since the construction of Bonneville, the best returns of marked and unmarked fish occured in the first ten years of this century. We need to go back to what worked 10 years ago and quit fucking with it.
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