keepers?

[David Lee]

Hi Covelo , I'm not trying to be rude by correcting you .....
Sacramento Squawfish ARE California natives - I can't imagine them not being in the Eel river 200 years ago . Bass and Sunfish (only exception being Sacramento Perch) are introduced .
Dams and water diversion have killed off any chance of large runs of NATIVE Steelhead and Salmon coming back . Once a race of fish native to a watershed are gone , that's that . Hatchery fish can naturalize and become "wild" , but are not "native" .
Once again , I mean no offense with the correction . D.J.L.

[Covelo]

The squawfish are native to the Sacramento River system and the Russian River because it use to be connected to Clear Lake. In the Eel River though, they were introduced into Lake Pillsbury in the 1970s or 1980s and were dumped into the lower river in 1986 during an illegal release of water in a flood event I believe. While they are native to Calif, they are not native to the Eel River.

It is amazing how much they have taken over the Eel River also. If you snorkel the lower river there are literally clouds of them. Last time I was there I witnessed them relentlessly chasing the few fry that were residing at the head of the hole. They have spread all the way down the main stem and quite a way up the Middle and South forks at least. The DFG has considered everything from poisoning the river to releasing smallmouth bass to erradicate or control them. The extent of their infestation seems only controlled by flow and water temp.

[David Lee]

Covelo , I stand corrected (thanks , by the way , for the info) .
I've no idea how to rid the Eel of Squawfish . Stripers would thin them out , as well as anything else swimming !
On a related note , my family summered on the Eel 3 months out of the year for my first 13 years . We stayed at Innmans (now "wild river campground" ??) near Legget .... no catch and release back then , I now hang my head in shame for all of the "Trout" we caught and killed . All of those fish were , of course Steelhead Smolts - Hard to reconcile having a hand in the downfall of a river ..... David

[Darian]

Hi Covelo,..... First, I've really enjoyed this exchange. You raise some very interesting points. Must admit, I'm torn between jumping into the natural fish thing with you but (here comes my realistic side again) believe the genie is out of the bottle and it's too late to put the cork back in..... Given the current state of water needs/politics, here, there is little chance that any river will remain as it is for very long. If you interpret from that statement that I'm a cynic when it comes to this subject area, you're absolutely correct..... )

I'm still convinced that the problem with acceptability of the gene pool for hatchery fish has more to do with in-breeding than the location where spawning occurs. Introduction of a considering that spawning in the American (for example) is enclosed, it might be viewed as a larger form of hatchery. If you accept that, then spawning of natural fish would result in inbreeding. Introduction of a robust strain of fish from some other source should result in genetic diversity and re-invigorate the species.

I'm sorry to hear that the Eel has become infested with Squafish. That doesn't bode well for re-establishing runs up there. During my years of fishing the north coast, I spent many very satisfying trips to Singeley & Fernbridge pools to try for Salmon. Lotsa good memories of places to eat, drink and enjoy.....

[Covelo]

I tend to be a cynic also which is probably justified considering the ever growing human population and their water demands, mine included. I tend to have a pretty big chip when it comes to non-native species especially when they are managed by our DFG. I am all for protecting wild steelhead, but they better be the pure thing. I am less upset about the effects of changed selection pressures under a dam since this is reality as you stated, but don't protect the wild fish when they are not even the native strain to that river and were introduced by the DFG decades ago. If the larger sized fish and later runs (Feb-April) of steelhead are actually representing the introduced strains in the American then the DFG should be promoting their take so as to dilute the possible impacts that they might be having on the remnants of whatever truely wild fish remain. Certainly their spawning protocols should be changed, perhaps to something like the Rock Creek Hatchery on the NF Umpqua River where they only use wild fish for their broodstock to minimize the selection effects of the hatchery. Getting back to the original topic of this thread, killing hatchery fish is only a good thing in my opinion.

Yeah, the Eel River was glorious when I was growing up. It seems to be benefiting lately from the better winters and changed ocean conditions if the fishing reports I have heard in the past couple years from the South Fork are indicative of anything. I would not worry about killing a few smolts back then, but it does point out another poor policy. How many streams are still open to summer "trout" fishing. I have a lot of memories from Singley, Fernbridge, mouth of the Van Duezen, and the South Fork also. You should try the Middle Fork above the town of Covelo in May before it closes. Big summer run steelhead that will rip your arm off. Just be gentle and release them without taking them out of the water as there are less than 1000 left up there. Take a snorkel and go back in August and you can watch them in the deep pools.

[ycflyfisher]

I always feel compelled to enter a discussion where steelhead is the focal point. The American river steelhead exhibit Van Arsdale (Eel River)genetic markers and it's generally accepted that the fish present there now largely evolved from those fish when they were introduced into the AR basin. There has been a virtual hodgepodge fish introduced into the AR from out of basin, but the current "American River" steelhead follows the run dynamics and physical similarities of the VA fish, and it's generally accepted from a scientific standpoint that the other out of basin transfers haven't really contributed much to the genetic make up of these fish.

The VA fish do well when transplanted to other basins like the AR and the Mad which have a tendancy to run fairly warm during the fall. The later arriving VA fish (i.e. winter run) allows the fish to escape the issues of finding thermal refuge associated with warmer water/ lower flows that the fish would have to contend with if they were to arrive in mass, in the fall.

I really think that the notion that the "half-pounder" run on the AR is representative of a residual of the native AR steelhead, is a romantic notion that we'd all like to believe is true, but it's highly unlikely. First off, the VA fish typically exhibited a half-pounder component in their respective life histories of about 30% frequency. This seems to be what is also happening on the AR. Also there really are only two ways in which the integrity of a native run can be preserved: Spacial and temporal separation. In the AR, there is no opprotunity for spacial separation. Anywhere the smaller native fish could have gone, the larger VA fish have access to as well. This leaves us with the only real possibilty the preservation of the native run, being temporal separation. This seems unlikely. The generally agreed upon opinion is that the native AR fish were similar to most of the other native fish of the Sacto river basin: A fall arrival time, comprised of mainly single salt fish. The only way to achieve temporal separation would be for the native run to arrive and spawn earlier or later than the larger, mainly multisalt VA hatchery fish. The thought or arguement that the native fish could be preserved by an earlier arrival/spawning time does not seem very likely. If this were happening, the native fish would have to arrive very early and emergence from the gravel of their progeny would have to preceed the time when the chinooks arrive and begin tearing up the very limited amounts of spawning gravel on the AR. The AR suffers the fate of many damned tailwaters in terms of the amount(or lack thereof) of availible spawning substrate via the one way(downstream) sediment transport with no possibility of gravel recruitement caused by the damn dam. The AR currently also has a later arrving component of smaller, primarily one salt females that arrive in the late winter/spring. This is also a characteristic of the VA hatchery fish, and I don't think for the most part can be attributed to being a residual of the native run. It is interesting to note, that a greater percentage of early arriving half-pounders and those spring arriving one salt fish seem to have intact ad fins. Still I think this can be explained by the following facts:

The AR does have a small but self sustaining population of resident bows that spawn in the late spring. I think a good portion of the "wild" half-pounders caught by anglers from late Aug-Sept are these fish. These fish simply move out of the thermal refugia in river when it becomes biologically feasible for them to do so. I believe the "trigger" for this occurring corresponds to the increase in caddisfly activity(which peters off to next to nothing during the height of summer but becomes more prevalent again in the late summer/early fall). The benefit of exploiting this hatch, IMHO, cause the fish to risk predation by the Pikeminnows and linesides, and the cost/benefit aspect of expending the energy while feeding during periods not necessarily trout freindly, thermal conditions swings in favor of the fish while the hatch activity begins to elevate.


In similar fashion, I think the later arriving wild fish(which tend I'm told seem to have a greater percentage of intact ad fins) are largely the progeny of those hatchery fish that have spawned in the AR basin, having elected not to enter the hatchery. The fact is probably the AR native run was effectively spawned out of existance by the AR hatchery fish which were more suited to the AR in it's currently altered state.

I've actually been told by more than one biologist that a considerable amount of spawning did likely occur below where the dam is now. Back then the river was much different than it is now and instinctively this would have seemed like water that was not suitable for steelhead spawning, but their arguement is pretty compelling.

Agree 100% that no angler is doing any harm by killing hatchery fish.

Also agree with the point that comparing the AR with the Trinity/Klamath is not really a good one by the same points stated by Covelo.

[PatrickM]

Good discussion. I find this very interesting. Does that mean I'm becoming a fish nerd? Oh well, I've been called a lot worse things.

[Hairstacker]

Yeah, I find it very intersting too, although the extent of my knowledge is more like, "hey, I think there's steelhead in there!"

[David Lee]

Dean - look what ya started !

For what it's worth , I've been told by guys who knew the American BEFORE Folsom dam went up .... It was a great Smallmouth stream , didn't run high very often , and didn't hold many Steelhead in fall (they never said anything about winter runs ...) .
The problem is US - too many people taking everything that there is to take . If there were no demands on water/power/recreation , nature would fix itself in a few hundred years ... Mankind is breeding itself out of existence , or already has . I believe it's too late to repair the mess we've made .
Meanwhile , back here on Earth , I'm sure a few wouldn't agree - please send hate mail to my Email address - I don't want to clog up Bill's board with shouts of "kill the hippie" ... David

[Dean]

Yeah, David. Really like this thread. I wonder if parts of it can be archived under a different topic or forum? The posts involving the native/hatchery/origin debate are too good to get lost.