Salmon and steelhead spawning gravel at Sailor Bar. Here they go again...

[tcorfey]

Thank you Brian for setting the record straight.

Fishtopher, I have learned from your postings that you are incapable of engaging in any meaningful discussion. Your mind is closed to any information presented that may be contrary to your theories or beliefs. But thank you for providing the references to web sites and information where we can read what is supposed to happen in these projects. It is helpful to know the government is trying, even if they have not figured it out yet. Perhaps if our government worked with the public instead of insisting their way is the only way, then we could move forward together. I must say that it is disheartening to learn that the people working on these projects have the opinion that all fisherman are ignorant and incapable of knowledge or observation. I saw this same attitude pervasive in the MLPA process and it is sad to know that people working in the public trust have no trust in the public but are stuck to following an agenda. It would be helpful if you could continue to share what you know or have read without trying to discredit anyone with a dissenting opinion. I am not sure you are capable of that but, it would be helpful.

Regards,

Tim Corfey

[Siskiyoublues]

Ah...the Trinity.
Remember the good ole days with all those deep holes up top and those fish were a lot easier to catch?
At least all the Montana guides stay home now.
Pristine and untouched by man prior to these projects? Besides the dam and the hatchery of course...wait.
Seems like the Salmon fishing is pretty good this year!

[mogaru]

This fishstopher is full of himself and he would never recognized his own mistakes. Since he hates fly fishermen as he stated in a previous thread( "Everyone hates fly fishermen") only comes over here to hijack threads ("Since I hijacked this thread......) with his patronizing attitude typical from an ignorant who thinks that because he holds a collegue degree of a dollar a pound is in possession of the whole truth. You just have to see his message at the bottom of his comments and what he is implying:

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
― Issac Asimov
Like probably many over here we also have graduate or collegue degrees but we don't walk around hanging them from our necks disrespecting others comments. You don't need a collegue degree to report what you see with some river restorations and that's what Brian is doing.......and now he blames Trump on his last posting. Hilarious. Perhaps, he should create his own site, so that. him and his "great minds with doctorate degrees" don't have to interact with the fly fishermen he hates.

[STEELIES/26c3]

people working in the public trust have no trust in the public

an absolutely classic line...

[Darian]

It is a classic line to which I would add, .... and at times with good reason(s). This thread started out as a good back & forth with both sides trying to make points without getting personal but now is beyond hope of rational exchange of info. There's still quite a bit I wanted to find out about TRRP but this isn't going to get it done. So, I'm outta here!!!

[Terry Thomas]

I would agree with Darian. I have learned more about the Trinity issues and appreciate the time that the posters have put into it. However, it has run its course. It’s time to swing some flies!

[ycflyfisher]

Brian,

Just some questions for you.

1- Let's assume you're correct, and to some degree the river is as FUBAR'd as you seem to believe that it is. How do you reconcile the fish response; specifically the stream-born Chinook response Fishtopher asked you about in post #30? How specifically would you presume to get such a huge jump in production if the project is making conditions less favorable to the fish?

[Fishtopher]

I love being attacked for providing objective information. All I was trying to attempt was correct some of Brian's many inaccuracies about river restoration and why they do the things they do. I have major issue with Brian calling every project a "failure" with no objective reasoning. He seems to concentrate on projects that have been constructed in the last several years that are actively changing as designed. For instance, the "failed" side-channel that has disconnected from the mainstem. It may be disconnected at 450 cfs, but when the river is 1000 cfs, like it is in the late winter/early spring when juveniles are present, it is connected and providing useful rearing habitat. Does that make it a "failure"? He has already called a project a "failure" that hasn't even been completed. His idea of "failure" is entirely subjective and has no objective basis. The thing is, the TRRP has already hypothesized how large-scale restoration will affect a multitude of things within the Trinity basin. They have developed objective metrics for evaluating the program. It is all available to the public. I would strongly encourage anyone who is interested in the river or restoration to read the Trinity River Flow Evaluation, the Record of Decision (ROD), and/or the Integrated Assessment Plan (IAP). All of which can be found here: http://www.trrp.net/program-structur...nal-documents/

Tim, my mind is not closed at all. In fact I welcome other viewpoints. Just because someone has a opposing viewpoint does not mean its valid though. There's lots of people who buy into the Flat Earth Theory, should I act like their opinion about the shape of the earth is valid? I also do not think all fishermen are ignorant, of course there are some, but its like that with any group. I don't understand why correcting someone spreading blatant misinformation is an issue.

Mogaru, I appreciate all the personal attacks. Unfortunately, the Trump administration did in fact suspend the Trinity River Adaptive Management Working Group, which was the stakeholder input group. See here: https://www.redding.com/story/news/l...ngs/342513001/

This will be my last post since the Kiene board does not want to hear from people who actually work in the fishery science world. If anyone has any questions about river restoration, the Trinity River, or any thing related to them, I'll be happy to answer them via PM.

[Peter S]

Blaming Trump for disbanding the stakeholder group is weak. If this agency truly believed in the importance of stakeholder relations to project success they would have found another way to keep it going. Maybe in addition to biological/scientific metrics these projects should incorporate metrics for public participation and satisfaction in evaluating project success.

[Brian Clemens]

Darin,
what I got out of reading these posts is that all the info you will ever need to know about trrp and their projects is on their website. Collected by and inputed by those affiliated with trrp. Now I've tried to get on there and read and understand what trrp is about and their projects, it doesnt take long to get confused, get a headache and come out of it with more questions than when you went into it. So be careful.

YC,
Here are my opinions on the "data" that was posted in the previous post. They have been spending millions upon millions of dollars since summer 2004, let's call it 15yrs at an estimated 8-15 million per project, that's 120 to 225 Million, let's just take the bottom end of that and say 120 Million dollars spent on these projects that havent had any significant increase in anything(I'll explain) , except juvenile "estimates", which is great if we are seeing those numbers of juvenile fish. Steelhead are 2 year return fish, salmon 2 to 5yr return fish. What those charts tell me if you truly study them is their work is 50/50 at best, flip a coin. Nothing has truly changed for the better. We are not seeing more fish returns even if it's just a small noticable increase, but there are no increases. What we are seeing is the destruction and shallowing of a river what once was a beautiful designated wild and scenic river. Really study those charts carefully. The spring run salmon has not increased if anything it has decreased since previous years, you can also see that its cyclic, like all anadramous fish. Those numbers are up and down, but way more spring run before trrp than now, the true wild salmon of the trinity. I'd have to say the same thing for fall salmon as well. Not a big change at all. As for steelhead, you cant count the mid 2000s when we had those huge unnatural numbers. The hatchery produce more steelhead than they were supposed to and released them. But you can see what happened, they returned in great numbers and we were all happy. Those numbers had nothing to do with trrp. So then you wonder, if more fish are being created by these projects we should be seeing more in return. So back to steelhead, if you take those big fish years out of the equation then again nothing has changed. If you truly have 5.4 million juvenile fish exiting this river system healthy and ready to go, it doesnt matter what river it is you are going to see a huge return of fish compared to pre-trrp numbers. Just like the mid 2000s with the return of the hatchery created steelhead. Lots of money being spent on returns that are lack luster.