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Thread: keepers?

  1. #41
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    Mar 2006
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    Reno, nv
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    I usually kill one fish a trip, the smallest, most beat up hatchery runt I can catch, and only when I'm camping. That doesn't include valley fish which I won't eat because of water quality issues. The fish I do kill get BBQ'd with my homemade teriyaki sauce, roasted potatoes and some BBQ'd zucchini and that makes about the best meal anyone could ask for.

    I would never, ever kill a wild fish and I have been spending a lot of time writing letters to Oregon fish and wildlife trying to get the 5-wild fish per year reg overturned in S. Oregon. Why? Wild anadramous fish need a break, they have been getting the "shaft" for the better part of 150 years.

    -John

  2. #42
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    Jul 2006
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    Petaluma Ca
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    David,
    Rest assured you had VERY little to do with the downfall of the river! What it takes to "downfall" a fishery like the steelhead is depletion by bazillions.....not onesies and twosies. Covelo has the handle on what the detriment of the fishery was/is....demise of smolts and fry by the bazillion by introduced squawfish (or whatever them thing are )
    Among other enviriomental changes.
    .....lee s.

  3. #43
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
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    North Highlands, Ca.
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    2,220

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    Hey guys, just a simple truck driver here, but what about all the native rainbows up in the upper part of the drainage? Aren't they descendants of the steelhead from way back before the dams?
    Elwood: It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark... and we're wearing sunglasses.

    Jake: Hit it.

  4. #44
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    Jul 2006
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    Petaluma Ca
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    686

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    E.W.,
    From another DA truckdriver , from what I have read, that works. But without workable plunge-pool fish ladders at the damns, they too, are lost to the envirioment, steelhead wise. Workable ladders could do nothing but help deminish somewhat the intrusive impact our damns have.
    As to the hatchery fish being "lazy", which we agree to too, it seems that Oregon somewhat solved that by netting fish from the Chetco for seed instead of taking cousins that come knocking at the hatchery door. Their hatchery fish do NOT seem lazy.
    .....lee s.

  5. #45
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    Feb 2005
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    North Highlands, Ca.
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    Sorry, what I was getting at is that the gene pool is still there. No cloning needed. Those rainbows are the descendants of the AR steelhead that at one time utilized the entire watershed. I've read that historically steelhead spawned as high as the Desolation Wilderness. The native runs aren't gone, just isolated.
    Elwood: It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark... and we're wearing sunglasses.

    Jake: Hit it.

  6. #46
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
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    Sutter Co and the KMP
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    274

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    Quote Originally Posted by steeliejim
    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.

    The "residual" run of steelhead that many of us are convinced are remnants of the original native steelhead run are not "romantic notions" but based on irrefutable facts.

    Now, if you are talking about the half pounders that are caught in the winter, slender immature steelhead from 10 to 14 inches, or the run of football-shaped brightly colored rainbow-looking fish that are caught in August/Sept. I won't argue with you.

    But many of us fish for steelhead in the early spring months--middle of Mar. well into April and have been doing so since the 1960's. Those fish are mature adults (very tiny eggs, but would spawn before returning to the ocean), deep-bodied and 3 to 5 pounds.

    The proof? DFG's Eric Gerstung wrote a report study of these fish in the early 70's and listed the hatchery return numbers by month starting wiht the first year that the dams were finished. Any returns those first years would be natives. NO steelhead entered the hatchery until March and the run continued through April. It was because the numbers were small and got smaller in subsequent years, that the Eel River straiin was introduced. For many years, DFG ignored this remnant native strain taking all the eggs they could early in the run until they reached capacity, then stopped taking fish, some years as early as Jan. A number of people, me included, were successful in getting DFG to spread the egg take.


    Gerstung's report also gives a fascinating history of the AR's steelhead run pre-Folsom/Nimbus dam, pointing out that there was a substantial steelhead run before the power facilility was built in Folsom. There was a fish ladder, but it was washed out in floods and not rebuilt. Still, a remnant of the original run hung on struggling to get past the barrier to the tributaries high in the system.

    Further, there was also a spring fishery of what many were convinced were steelhead trapped in Folsom Lake at the inlets (No rubbed fins, silvery) which hasl largely disappeared.

    It is unlikely that steelhead came up the AR in the fall, because, as was pointed out, flows pre-dams were very low and warm in the fall until the rains arrived. BTW, I do have a copy of that report somewhere. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to make a copy and get it to Bill for others to be able to look at. It was a great effort and gives great insight to the history of steelhead in the AR and the failings to protect AR fisheries early on.
    Your post is rather confusing to me. You may first want to reread what I initially posted because you're taking some things out of context here.

    I very much would like to believe that the native run(or at least a portion of it) is being preserved in it's entirety with no genetic mixing from bastardized hatchery stock as you seem to think is "irrefutable fact" via temporal separation, but to put it as bluntly as possible I think this is highly unlikely to say the very least.

    What's highly ironic is the individual who convinced me that the likelyhood that the genetic integretity of any vestige of the native AR run could somehow be preserved in the truncated AR system is slim to none was none other than Eric Gerstung-retired assoc. biologist from the DFG. This was from a conversation from around 2002-2003. There's a slim possibility but I don't think I'm remembering anything he said out of context.

    I don't doubt that you have the report that you claim to have. I would be very interested in seeing it(again not because I don't believe you) but because I'm very interested in the work that Mr Gerstung accomplished during his storied career with the DFG. If your familiar with Mr. Gerstung, you're already aware the knock on EG was that he was regarded as one of the most brilliant pure scientists the DFG ever had who for the most part, couldn't be troubled with taking the time to publish his work. After retiring from the DFG, EG remained closely affiliated with said organization and was being asked still to write a summary on the state of the few remaining summer run steelhead that we have left in CA and what is know historically about these fish. Gerstung before he retired was almost irrefutably the most referenced person in scientific literature regarding summer runs in CA. Unfortunately the vast majority of those references were of the personal communication(pers. comm) nature as the paltry amount EG published on his work with these fish was not in proportion to either the volume or importance of his work.

    Also ironically, Gerstung was one of those biologists that I mentioned earlier in this same thread whose opinion cut againist the grain of the conventional wisdom that a good portion of the spawning by anadramous fish in the AR basin occured historically below where the dams are now.

    Again it's impossible for me to speculate exactly how you're concluding with certainty that the aforementioned work by Mr. Gerstung is indeed 'irrefutable fact' that any portion of the native AR run has been preserved in it's genetic integrity.

    I'm guessing you may be jumping to some conclusions here, but please correct me if I'm wrong:

    Does this report state that the later arriving (composed of mainly one salt fish) spring component of the current AR run is not predominantly exhibiting Van Arsdale Eel River genetic markers?

    Is it possible that this report supports that the AR in it's prealtered state, supported a run of fish in the same temporal window that corresponds with the later arriving predominantly one salt, 'blueback' component that is characterisitic of the VA/Eel River fish, and that you're possibly jumping to conclusions here that the fish currently present in the later portion of the current run progression are indeed purely progeny of the native AR fish as opposed to the progeny of hatchery products?

  7. #47

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    ycflyfisher -- My family has some land on the upper Middle fork Eel River which we visit every spring. I became friends with DFG biologist Wendy Jones and twice volunteered for his summer death march to survey the summer steelhead on the upper river. I am always interested in acquiring info on this run of fish so am curious if Eric Gerstung published anything on this run that you may know about.

    On a related topic, I spoke with a gentleman in Fortuna, CA who stated that the lower river below the confluence with the Van Duezen used to hold a large number of summer adult steelhead before the 1964 flood and the contruction of the levees that moved the course of the river away from the town. He said the best time to fish for steelhead used to be in July. I've seen some of these taken in early November by salmon fishermen and once caught an adult (10 lb fish) about 25 years ago at the confluence of the South Fork while fishing for half-pounders in Sept. Is there any data on how large this lower main stem component of summer steelhead once was?

  8. #48
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
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    Sutter Co and the KMP
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    Covelo,

    To my knowledge Mr Gerstung, published next to nothing on the Middle Eel summer-runs. What I'd consider to be the definitive work regarding the MF Eel summer runs is: "Summer Steelhead of the Middle Fork Eel and Their Relationship to Environmental Changes" by Weldon(Wendy) Jones. This was a summary of a ten???(not sure on that from memory so don't quote me) year study conducted by Wendy and his cohorts about virtually all aspects of the Middle Eel fish. The MFE summer runs for the most part have been the healthiest and most stable of those we have left in Ca, until recently when snorkel surveys have shown that some of the populations of summer runs in the K-T basin have slightly eclipsed those of the MFE. it's not that the MFE surveys have trended downward, but that two major tribs in the K-T basin have shown significant populations upward trends in the last half decade or so(a great thing to see).

    The 1964 flood event really ruined a lot of the habit in the watersheds of the tribs where large scale logging operations had gone on unchecked not only in the Eel but the K-T basin as well. The aforementioned work by Mr. Jones began in the 1960's but after the 1964 flood event and ran into the 1970's.

    The exact magnitude in terms of abundance regarding summer runs from a historical perspective is not really known for most watersheds in Ca. I think it is safe to say they were far more numerous than they are now. I've heard countless similar stories about local anglers on the Klamath exploiting abundant summer runs on the main stem near the mouths of Dillon and Swillup Creeks and other tribs in the late spring and into the summer prior to when the 1964 flood event change(coupled with unchecked logging practices) the Klamath basin drastically. NF Stilly type stories about good numbers of summer runs taken on dry flies but often under less than ideal water conditions.....


    Wendy Jones IMHO is the foremost authority about what is known about the MFE summer runs. From what I've heard, even though Mr. Jones is also retired from the DFG he continues to do the 'death march' on a volunteer basis to assist in obtaining the population trends for the population of fish he's most noteably associated with during his DFG career.

  9. #49

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    Wendy Jones IMHO is the foremost authority about what is known about the MFE summer runs. From what I've heard, even though Mr. Jones is also retired from the DFG he continues to do the 'death march' on a volunteer basis to assist in obtaining the population trends for the population of fish he's most noteably associated with during his DFG career.
    I am glad to hear he is still in good health. He has to be at or over 70 now so it is impressive that he continues to do that 33 mile rock hop. Thanks for the info.

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