Today I helped with the first of four days of fish sampling on the Crooked River below Bowman Dam. The good news is that we captured some healthy redbands. As predicted, the numbers are definitely down from the past few years, maybe only a third as many, but there are fish in there. Extremely low flows and high temperature last fall, cold temperatures in the winter, and flows above the level that introduce gas bubble disease this spring made this an easy forecast. This 20.5″ fish was by far the largest, but had no adipose fin, so was almost certainly one that came down from Prineville Reservoir where hatchery fish are stocked. That is most likely going to be the case for most of the larger redbands in the river this year. Of course, it was only day one, so I look forward to the final results. The photo is of Tim Porter, ODFW Assistant Deschutes District Fish Biologist, who will present the findings of the survey and talk about other local fishery issues at the July 19th Central Oregon Flyfishers meeting.