STEELIES/26c3
02-27-2015, 09:23 PM
I've never met the guy who posted the thread below but he is spot on...
I have mixed emotions when thinking about the future of our anadromous fisheries. With the continuing drought 2015 freshwater salmon season will be a bust even if there are more fish. Warm water will cause the fish to be on the move with lockjaw until they run into Keswick as they did last season, even bypassing the barge hole. Sure there will be good days where limits are easily attained but there will be lots of 1-2 fish days with everyone shrugging their shoulders as well. Then you add in the low water navigational hazards on the Sacramento (below 6000 cfs at Red Bluff gage) and the Klamath (below 2500 cfs at the Glenn gage) raising the odds of contacting the bottom or worse. This takes a little bit of the enjoyment out of the day for the captain as it's always on your mind, everyone on the boat is banging fish and drinking beer and I'm still thinking about that 6 inch deep riffle we have to get through to get back to the ramp.
When it comes to steelhead I have even more mixed emotions. The American to me is in it's own category. Sad to say since I live in Sacramento and grew up fishing it but the AR is a man made ditch. It's my batting cages. If there's fish I'll get out there a few days, no fish I don't even think about it. It's hatchery based so even with bad years the runs will always be there, at least salmon. Steelhead on the other hand, if the hatchery runs of out-of-basin Eel river fish collapse, say this year they don't hit their quota then the hatchery has a massive die off of what smolts they do produce, worst case scenario, it's over. DFW will never again plant out-of-basin stock in any river even if it's replacing runs that were already there. With all the science on hatchery steelhead straying and a shift back towards wild runs. I don't think hatcheries will continue producing out-of-basin stock even with existing programs. What is the benefit other than sport recreation of the American River having 1000 Eel River fish in it? Science and organizations with their own agendas says the risk outways the reward. And we all know California politics doesn't give a rats a$$ about sport fishing. Hatchery salmon at least have a commercial industry to lobby.
When it comes to wild steelhead I think numbers will continue to crash and our opportunities to fish for them will crash as well. Sure their existance might hang on by the skin of their teeth as they are in some southern California drainages but fishing for them, forget about it. It is painfully obvious the inpact vinyards, logging, road construction, and pot grows are having on our coastal rivers. One river in particular due west of Sacramento has been devastated by the introduction of vinyards, logging, and illegal land use. Just in the last 10 years it has become filled in with silt and during the critical heatwaves of the Summer months the vinyards pump every drop of water out of the upper river to save their vines. You can watch the gage go from 6 to .05 cfs during the heatwave then come back up to 6 cfs when the weather cools. This traps the smolts trying to get down river to the estuary as the water temps become lethal. Go 15 miles north of this river and there is a healthy river with no silt, cool Summer time flows and twice as many fish (on a much smaller river). What's the difference on this smaller river 15 miles north? No vinyards or logging. It's just a matter of time before this river gets raped by the wine industry too. Somehow steelhead with their resiliency are hanging on, coho and lamprey eels have all disapeared from these rivers in the last 20-30 years. You can see this up and down the coast. I think our opportunities to fish these rivers will start going away with all out closures in the near future.
J W
I have mixed emotions when thinking about the future of our anadromous fisheries. With the continuing drought 2015 freshwater salmon season will be a bust even if there are more fish. Warm water will cause the fish to be on the move with lockjaw until they run into Keswick as they did last season, even bypassing the barge hole. Sure there will be good days where limits are easily attained but there will be lots of 1-2 fish days with everyone shrugging their shoulders as well. Then you add in the low water navigational hazards on the Sacramento (below 6000 cfs at Red Bluff gage) and the Klamath (below 2500 cfs at the Glenn gage) raising the odds of contacting the bottom or worse. This takes a little bit of the enjoyment out of the day for the captain as it's always on your mind, everyone on the boat is banging fish and drinking beer and I'm still thinking about that 6 inch deep riffle we have to get through to get back to the ramp.
When it comes to steelhead I have even more mixed emotions. The American to me is in it's own category. Sad to say since I live in Sacramento and grew up fishing it but the AR is a man made ditch. It's my batting cages. If there's fish I'll get out there a few days, no fish I don't even think about it. It's hatchery based so even with bad years the runs will always be there, at least salmon. Steelhead on the other hand, if the hatchery runs of out-of-basin Eel river fish collapse, say this year they don't hit their quota then the hatchery has a massive die off of what smolts they do produce, worst case scenario, it's over. DFW will never again plant out-of-basin stock in any river even if it's replacing runs that were already there. With all the science on hatchery steelhead straying and a shift back towards wild runs. I don't think hatcheries will continue producing out-of-basin stock even with existing programs. What is the benefit other than sport recreation of the American River having 1000 Eel River fish in it? Science and organizations with their own agendas says the risk outways the reward. And we all know California politics doesn't give a rats a$$ about sport fishing. Hatchery salmon at least have a commercial industry to lobby.
When it comes to wild steelhead I think numbers will continue to crash and our opportunities to fish for them will crash as well. Sure their existance might hang on by the skin of their teeth as they are in some southern California drainages but fishing for them, forget about it. It is painfully obvious the inpact vinyards, logging, road construction, and pot grows are having on our coastal rivers. One river in particular due west of Sacramento has been devastated by the introduction of vinyards, logging, and illegal land use. Just in the last 10 years it has become filled in with silt and during the critical heatwaves of the Summer months the vinyards pump every drop of water out of the upper river to save their vines. You can watch the gage go from 6 to .05 cfs during the heatwave then come back up to 6 cfs when the weather cools. This traps the smolts trying to get down river to the estuary as the water temps become lethal. Go 15 miles north of this river and there is a healthy river with no silt, cool Summer time flows and twice as many fish (on a much smaller river). What's the difference on this smaller river 15 miles north? No vinyards or logging. It's just a matter of time before this river gets raped by the wine industry too. Somehow steelhead with their resiliency are hanging on, coho and lamprey eels have all disapeared from these rivers in the last 20-30 years. You can see this up and down the coast. I think our opportunities to fish these rivers will start going away with all out closures in the near future.
J W