How was the opener on the American R?

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Jeff Ching reported that he had a 5 pounder on for a short battle but lost it on an Olive Caddis Pupa.

Anyone up near Sailor Bar yesterday?

[mogaru]

The American river is as dead and voided of fish as I've seen it. Bad to worse to terrible. The salmon run was pretty bad and the steelhead run ..................No wonder there is thread talking about bait and cocktail shrimp........sign of desperation.

[STEELIES/26c3]

I know a lot of people who have fished the AR for 20+ years and the report I got from all of them was D I S M A L.

One guide friend reported that his client hooked 1 hot, 12# steelhead and 2 smolts on a plug for his all day boat trip.

I know one gear guy who caught 1 Coleman strain steelie in the basin.

20 guys who fished between the hatchery and Sunrise hooked (0) steelhead, saw only 1 steelie landed on the opposite side of the river (I think it was Jeff C) between them all.

Lots of salmon (mostly beaters) hooked by mostly fly guys and/or flossers.

Keep in mind Bill the major failures, due to low, warm, septic... water infiltration, of the Nimbus Hatchery 2, 3 and 4 years ago. That, coupled with the drought and increased water exports to SoCal, have devastated even the hatchery's ability to sustain a healthy population of winter run fish.

This all goes to show the reality of what I have always said about the river...
It is NOT capable of sustaining numbers of natural fish and without the hatchery, we will have NO winter run steelhead.
Unfortunately, Fish and Game and Fish and Wildlife and NMFS and BOR and DWR are all under the illusion that they can add gravel to the river in a less than 12 mile stretch and that summer run fish from another hatchery (Coleman) will A) actually use it and B) use to an extent that it replaces the thousands of miles of tributaries which historically fed the 150 combined miles of (North, Middle and South Forks of the American River) ABOVE Nimbus and Folsom Dams.

I believe this is the year to go west and north for your winter steelhead fix and if mother nature continues to do what she is currently doing (raining and snowing) and if Guvna' 'MoonBeam and his cronies don't convince Trump to Mandate the twin tunnels for mass water exports south...then we may just have a decent steelhead season in 2019.

I won't count on it and hopefully I'll be in Washington state by then anyway~;)

oh yeah... HAPPY NEW YEAR!

[stefanoflo]

Maybe the Extra Cold frost has them still on Holiday????Hopefully, the river will warm up with fish??

[Mark Kranhold]

Don't quote me on this but I hear they're killing off all the Coleman strain at the hatchery? Has anybody heard of this?

[Terry Thomas]

I believe that is not true. I talked to an employee at the hatchery on Friday and he said that they did take some tagged Coleman fish for research, however, there is no plan to dispatch all of them. Fished a couple hours today @ Sunrise with no grabs. I did talk to one guy that said he landed two fish on the opener. I also watched him as well a few others fish the inside of the island. @ 4,000 cfs today. With the storms coming, I don't expect them to drop the flows as posted earlier and wouldn't be surprised to see them go back up.

[STEELIES/26c3]

Yes Mark they are and that was always their intention.

I started to address this topic in another forum but wanted to ask Dennis Lee a couple of things first.

The basics are:

1) The original steelhead, native to the American River (now extinct) were a summer run fish.
2) The current, predominant steelhead on the AR are Eel River winter run fish.
3) Over the years many experimental rearing and planting programs have been implemented to find a suitable replacement for the fish which the dam made extinct.
4) The only strain which REALLY took hold was the Eel R. fish
5) NMFS geneticists expressed concern that Eel R strays (from the AR...) might inter-breed and compromise the genetics of native, central valley populations of steelhead in other rivers connected to the AR via the Sacarmento/San Joaquin Delta (ie, Yuba, Mokelumne, Feather).
6) The Coleman strain was suggested as a plausible replacement because it is already native to the Sacramento River and being a summer run fish... it would better approximate the *summer-run* life history of the steelhead which inhabited the river pre-Folsom and Nimbus Dams.
7) I have friends that fished the river in the mid 1940's at what is now Rainbow Bridge in Folsom and the peak of steelhead season was June-August.
8) In 2015, Nimbus did not get enough returning Eel R adults to collect their quota of 450,000 eggs. They collected 150,000 and they got 160,000 additional Coleman strain eggs which were raised not only to supplement the shortfall of eggs gathered from the AR that year but also to experiment with them as a possible replacement for AR broodstock.
The problem with the Coleman fish in the AR is that they come back in the fall and are sexually immature. If the dams were not on our little river... they would continue upriver to the North, Middle and South Forks of the AR and eat stoneflies and crawdads and small fish, get fat and happy and eventually spawn in the tribs of the forks or in the forks themselves at a time (late fall to early winter) when water conditions are favorable to offspring.
9) BUT there are dams and so the Coleman fish come up in Sept-Nov, mill around, come up the ladder in December- and now... get WHACKED!
10) I believe that this is just the first phase of the study. The first order of business is simply to see how many return.
11) The CNFH all have been coded wire tagged with a blank tag.
11) I was told that Brian Poxon of CDFW is in charge of the monitoring process and has installed a V detector to count the CNFH steelies and that they are indeed being killed and returned to the river.
12) This is yet another precautionary measure to ensure that interbreeding does not occur between Coleman fish and Eel R fish or other naturally-spawning stocks in the river.
13) I am NOT an expert in fisheries biology or genetics but I have a pretty decent grasp on the biology and ecology of our river and I believe that this and most of the studies implemented on the AR are just a song and dance and an incredible waste of time and money.
14) Without flows of 2000-2500 CFS for most of if not all year AND sustained inundated floodplains as nurseries, there will NEVER be a naturally occurring strain of steelhead in the AR... so I am not sure what is really being 'protected' by killing off the Coleman fish once they enter the Nimbus Fish Ladder.
15) I say put them back in the river as a put and take fishery and continue to spawn Eel River steelies in the winter as they have done for 50 years.
16) Spend the money on nursery habitat restoration on the AR or better yet on other watersheds with viable native fish populations like the Smith, Eel, SFE, Navarro, Gualala, etc...

[koffler]

I was out for about 3 hrs. Felt like a smaller fish but was indicating double egg. Lost him/her in higher current middle of river. Saw one bait guy catch a nice 7 lb or so hatchery fish.

Editing this post, my bad, wasnt bait, he had some sort of lure (i helped him lqnd the fish)

[STEELIES/26c3]

CDFW will never be able to dispatch all of the Coleman fish anyway because I'm sure only a percentage will go up the ladder.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Before all the dams I think many longer rivers had summer run Steelhead way up stream living all summer in those deep trout holes.

[Mark Kranhold]

Let the Coleman strain enjoy there lifecycle, the river is so out of wack when it comes steelhead genetics anyhow! You would think in today's advancements we would be able to grasp on to a little better scientific matter when it comes to fish and water? But you F--- with Mother Nature and your sure to pay the consequences! The corrupt government could give a poop about the fish , there just in it for the water wars.

[STEELIES/26c3]

Yup~

I think it's best to save wild rivers and fish where wild rivers and fish can be saved.

Catch and release only in those waters is great.

But on a heavily-compromised, urban river like the AR, the focus should be on providing increased and sustainable fishing opportunities for we anglers who pay $60+ annually TO CATCH FISH!!!

[Chukwithak]

My uncle and I fished the inside of the island at sunrise hard on the opener. Everyone else was on the channel. A lot of people nymphing, Jim and I were swinging. I had a black OCD, jim had a pink and purple bunny leeech. No grabs after 6 hours. Saw one gear guy catching something. We counted 20 men at sunrise.

[winxp_man]

My uncle and I fished the inside of the island at sunrise hard on the opener. Everyone else was on the channel. A lot of people nymphing, Jim and I were swinging. I had a black OCD, jim had a pink and purple bunny leeech. No grabs after 6 hours. Saw one gear guy catching something. We counted 20 men at sunrise.


I saw that. Actually took a pic of some of them hahaha. Above that channel in the tail out lots of salmon on reds for sure still rolling around. When I got there in the morning that parking lot was packed. If I do fish I also fish the big channel. Caught a few in there over the years.

[stefanoflo]

the steelhead that I saw at Mokeulume hatchery had at least 100 or more Steelhead with yellow tags in them.They had come up early and are being either DNA studied or released into the river . I think they are also concerned with cross breading. but there are a lot of them .It would be a real shame to waste those fish if they decide to do that

[hwchubb]

Fished several miles downriver from Sunrise, same results as everyone else is seeing. Didn't see anything caught either, on Sunday or Monday. More salmon than I've seen in years past, at least it seems to be. Saw almost no steelhead in the raceway in Nov / Dec, by far the worst I've seen in 20 years. Hope they are just late, and I'm sorry to hear about all the screwing around and wasted money at the hatchery. I suppose that is the one part of the steelhead run that we can count on...

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Bill;

I hope you and Marilyn had a merry Christmas and a happy New Year holiday.

You are correct, evidence suggests the American River historically supported a spring run of “summer” steelhead. Prior to construction of Folsom and Nimbus dams, fish counts made at the original Folsom Dam near Folsom Prison suggested the highest number of steelhead migrated upstream during the months of May and June, typical of spring run of “summer” steelhead. As you suggest, the fish most likely migrated to cooler water habitat higher in the watershed. In addition, the first Nimbus Fish Hatchery manager reported in his 1956 annual hatchery report some steelhead passed the City of Folsom every month of the year except August and September, and the peak of the run occurred in May or June. Runs of summer steelhead occur in California in the Middle Fork Eel River, and several tributaries of the Klamath River, however, their numbers are usually small compared to the late summer/early fall and winter runs.

Additionally, during the first two seasons of Nimbus Fish Hatchery operation in 1955 and 1956, hatchery personnel trapped and artificially spawned native adult steelhead from the American River. These fish were artificially spawned in March and April, several months later than Sacramento River steelhead (now called Central Valley Steelhead) that are spawned at the Feather River or Coleman National Fish hatcheries. Based on early hatchery reports prior to any egg or fish transfers to the hatchery, American River steelhead spawned at the hatchery also produced a higher average number of eggs per female fish than the smaller Sacramento River steelhead, suggesting the American River steelhead trapped at the hatchery were larger in size than Sacramento River steelhead.

Department of Fish and Game personnel did attempt to establish a summer steelhead run in the American River during the early 1970’s. Eggs from summer-run steelhead stocks were transferred from two northwestern hatcheries to Nimbus Fish Hatchery. The eggs were hatched and all or a portion of the fish fin marked and released. A few marked adult summer steelhead returned to the hatchery but difficulties holding the adult fish for several months prior to spawning and high mortality resulted in the discontinuance of the program.

Steelhead will spawn naturally in the American River but water quality, limited habitat, and predation limit successful juvenile fish production. The American River steelhead run is supported by hatchery production and genetic analysis indicates suggests the steelhead trapped at the hatchery, and any naturally produced juvenile fish, continue to be most similar to the original Eel River stock transferred to the hatchery in the late 1950’s.

Hope this is helpful.

Dennis Lee

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Bill;

Much of the history and information relating to American River steelhead and the hatchery can be found in my draft Hatchery and Genetic Management Plan for the Nimbus Fish Hatchery Winter-Run Steelhead. For those interested, the 2007 draft is schedule for updating but can be downloaded from the CDFW document library at -

http://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=15323


Dennis Lee

[FattMerro]

I spent the opener down around the Ancil Hoffman area for about 4-5 hours of swinging a fly for nada. Went back out on the 2nd for a couple hours also for zero fish. Saw one small steelie caught on a spoon by a guy on the other side of the river, but that was the only fish I saw for the two days I was out. Will keep trying!

[cdevine]

What a bummer. I was hoping to get out later this week but with the yo yo flows and dismal reports I might be looking elsewhere.
Thanks for the updates.