One of the presentations I look forward to every year at the Deschutes Fisheries Workshop is the ODFW report on their annual fish population estimates. There are many who continue to argue that the operation of the selective water withdrawal tower has been detrimental to redband trout. Once again, the science says otherwise. Redband trout continue to do well. You can see the presentation below, but here’s a summary. Steelhead returns continue to be low. Clearly, this is not due to the SWW, steelhead returns are low throughout the entire Columbia River Basin. Coho salmon returns are increasing. Spring chinook returns are critically low. Fall chinook returns are robust. Smallmouth bass are exploding in the Columbia River and seasonally move up into the Deschutes but they are not spawning in the Deschutes.