What is up with the rivers this year?

[WinterrunRon]

Many major rivers (American, Feather, Sacramento, Rogue...) seem to be devoid of our anadromous friends. Must be an ocean thing from a year or so ago to have so many having an off year thus far. Are they late? Or not coming at all? :?

What about the Mad, Eel, Smith, Chetco; can anyone shed some light?

Guess the lower sac for rainbows is always an option, but I'd rather not fish for striper bait if there's real fish to chase! :D

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Funny cycles with the off shore currents moving in an out maybe?

Mad, Eel, Smith, Chetco, Russian, Gualala, Garcia will generally have Steelhead in them Dec/Jan/Feb.

[ycflyfisher]

Dunno how much light there is to be shed on this subject at this point. There's no question though that the trends that have emerged thus far have been very alarming. We've simply seen the worst collective return of Sacto valley salmon in recent memory. The return on fall run steelhead on the Feather has been dismal to say the very least. Very puzzling since the concensus was that the Feather last season, had really good conditions for, and seemed to experience really strong outmigration last spring. Very little residualization, yet the predominant LH on the Feather is very biased towards a 1 salt LH yet we've seen next to none of those fish return thus far this fall. It could as you're suggesting be attributed to deleterious conditions in the salt, but it could be attributed to other factors as well. A well chronicled collapsing food chain in the delta likely could have contributed as well, with the preds in the delta being more dependant than the norm on anything that underwent smoltification and was downmigrating. There's simply too many factors and way too many unknowns to do anything but speculate at this point. I wouldn't write off the possibility of a strong hatchery winter component showing on the American. Those fish express a different predominant LH and those fish that should be returning this year are largely from a different age class. You could still get a strong run of multisalt winter fish this year on the American.

In any case, the trends are disturbing. The population trends in the KMP are the most disturbing IMO. While those flyanglers that have been able to shoehorn themselves into the river somewhere, are probably really happy and think it's a virtual anadramous bonanza this year, most are failing to see the big picture.

By the numbers on the Trinity:

Chinook returns are slightly down from last year, and last year was only slightly up from 2005 which was as far as I'm aware the worst year recorded there in respect to weir counts, carcass and redd counts. Numbers are not only way suppressed compared to a six year average, but are dismal even compared to the dry numbers from the 1990's. Not good.

Hatchery Steelhead abundance is off the hook. Great at first glance, but in reality, a disturbing trend here.
Looking closer at the data from mid Oct this year vs. last year:
4110 fish over the WC weir for 07 vs. 2471 for 06. Keep in mind the numbers for 07 are skewed lower than actual for 2 reasons (i.e. the weir washing out for a week during the storms in Sept and counted no fish for that week during a week where the river was under extremely good conditions for upmigration, and a week in Aug that saw no fish due to a break in the run progression caused by the mouth being closed. ) Yet, this years steelhead abundance is nearly double that of last years and last years was nearly double that of 05. Abundance on the T has been very much on the upswing since 2000. Here's were it gets disturbing.

By the same numbers: Streamborn fish over the same period were averaging right around 26 percent of the run composition. Throw out 2006 and 2007, that average goes up to about 29-30 percent. About in the ballpark for what was considered the norm ratio for the T.

2006: 21 percent
2007: 13 percent

For the same time frame 2007 vs. 2006: 557 (2007) vs. 538 (2006) streamborn fish over the WC weir. A negligible increase where recorded total abundance has nearly doubled. A very disturbing trend. Weir counts aren't inclusive of the total population, but do show trends effectively. The trends they reveal are very problematic.

Again total speculation on my part, but I've really got to wonder at this point what the "otherworldly" hatchery abundance is/has been doing to the overall fitness of the streamborn stocks via spawning interactions for the way too massive numbers of hatchery products that are simply electing to spawn somewhere "in basin" as opposed to swimming back up the raceway. We could very well be seeing the beginning of the end of self sustaining, wild fall run stocks on the T.

[Bob Laskodi]

Actually, the "wild" fish component on the Trinity is even more alarming when you consider that the "wild" count uses the definition of a non-fin clipped fish only. Unfortunately, most of the "wild" fish have a significant bloodline of hatchery fish in their parentage. The large numbers of hatchery fish being dumped into the Trinity are only going to further dilute the true "wild" fish left. And I suspect that there are very few truly "wild" fish around in the Trinity. That is one of the many reasons why I don't bother with the Trinity much, and don't understand the outcry over the crowding issue on the Trinity since all the fish are basically hatchery origin any ways. I'd much rather have the "hoardes" fishing over hatchery fish than truly wild fish. And that also explains why the Trinity is so popular, since the hatchery is basically supporting the entire fishery, and the runs in all the other rivers that don't have the large hatchery component (except for a few such as the Mad, AM, etc) are so poor people are going to fish where the fish are. This leaves the Trinity as the only viable option for early season steelhead.

[ycflyfisher]

Agree in totality with your main point. I specifically referred to the non clipped fish as streamborn and not "wild" for that exact reason. I don't think it's at all a stretch to speculate that the vast majority of streamborn fish over the WC weir that also travel over the JC weir are likely the 1st or 2nd generation progeny of hatchery products. This really is what I was I was speculating about and I'm in total agreement. It's well documented that hatchery products end up in basin, but in places they shouldn't be. When abundance increases 4 fold, you typically see a similar or even more exaggerated increase in the numbers of hatchery products that look to spawn somewhere in basin. (i.e. increased mixed spawning interactions that lead to overall reduced fitness and consequently lowered streamborn abundance).


That is one of the many reasons why I don't bother with the Trinity much, and don't understand the outcry over the crowding issue on the Trinity since all the fish are basically hatchery origin any ways.

Can't agree with you here. First off, I think the overcrowding issue really is a totally different animal and the overcrowding issue is simply an issue because of the negative impact to the angling experience first and foremost. If what you're getting at is that you feel those bringing light to the overcrowding issue under the pretense that it is deterimentally impacting the fishery soley on a "rods and flies:Too many people are catching too many fish and it's measurably impacting the health of the ecosystem" pretense. I would agree that the impact is cleary being overstated and bluntly as possible, is a purely ridiculous notion founded in little more than blind faith and misguided beliefs. I don't agree that the impact to the river that the throngs of anglers that have showed up in the last few years IS negligible when one considers what all those anglers are doing to incubating substrate with their feet and their floatillas of boats that have scoured the tongue of every tailout clean all the way from the Lewie Bridge to Pigeon Point.

Also strongly disagree with your belief that "all the fish are basically (of)hatchery origin any ways.". This simply isn't the case. It's well documented that there are numerous established demes of wild steelhead in basin that have have not experienced measurable negative spawning interactions with hatchery products due to either temporal, or spacial separation or both. Fact is, a good deal of the self sustaining portion of the run never shows up in the weir counts simply because they progress pass WC when the weir isn't there. Agree that the angling interests are dependant of a largely hatchery supplemented run. Disagree totally that from an ecological standpoint that the streamborn component of the T, has no biological value based on the premise that they're ALL likely progeny of hatchery products to varying degrees. Simply untrue. The Trinity really isn't a severely truncated watershed like the American with no spawning tribs. Historic imstream production is a pipe dream, but there's still considerable habitat intact.




I'd much rather have the "hoardes" fishing over hatchery fish than truly wild fish. And that also explains why the Trinity is so popular, since the hatchery is basically supporting the entire fishery, and the runs in all the other rivers that don't have the large hatchery component (except for a few such as the Mad, AM, etc) are so poor people are going to fish where the fish are.

Can't agree with this notion. Just my opinion, but I think the Trinity above the NF has become a combat zone for two basic reasons:

1- Abundance has increased tremedously over the last 8 years.

2- The mechanics of fishing the upper river. It's a "tiny little trout stream" flowing around 400 cfs, that's incredibly easy to fish. Truth be told, you can take someone to the upper T that has rudimentary skills and providing they're willing to listen to some basic instruction so that you can have them stack mending to a bobber at 50 feet, they'll likely hook fish from day one.



This leaves the Trinity as the only viable option for early season steelhead.


Again disagree. Run timing on the Middle Klamath totally overlaps the run progression on the T and abundance there hasn't been lacking over the last few years. Hatchery fish are virtually a non factor on the Klamath as well. Angling pressure hasn't gone off the board there simply because successfully fishing the Middle Klamath requires a different skill set, that if you don't have at the beginning of the day, you likely won't be able to develop by the end of it. Wading nipple deep in the rip rap at Humboldt and hitting a bucket off a drop off 90 feet away, simply isn't something that most newbies that could acheive success from day one on the T are either going to feel comfortable doing or even be able to do by the end of the day. It's simply a more demanding river to fish successfully.

If you were to take two identical anglers on the very same point on the learning curve and had 'em both fish x number of days: one exclusive on the upper T and the other exclusively on the middle Klamath, there's little doubt in my mind which angler is going to catch more fish over 20". There's also little doubt in my mind which one is clearly going to become the more proficient angler.

Steelheading IMO used to be about paying your dues to become more proficient and the gratification was all about becoming more proficient. Now it seems to me to be more of a social sport where the "instant gratification" factor runs high. The bolded isn't a gripe, simply one angler's opinion. Just my take.

[Ed Wahl]

:lol: :lol: :lol: 'hatchery products' :lol: :lol: :lol: