The official Deschutes steelhead season is from April 1 to March 31, so the 2018/2019 season is now over. Today, PGE released their March monthly newsletter which stated that a total of 35 upper basin origin adult steelhead returned and were passed above the Pelton Round Butte project and released into Lake Billy Chinook. Clearly, this is a dismal number. You can see the number of smolts that were released downstream here. Assuming that adult returns were from 2016 smolts that’s a return rate of only 0.87% (not 8.7%, I missed a decimal point in the original post). There is hope for some improvement in the adult return count, however, if not the percentage. In 2017 and 2018 steelhead smolt counts were much higher. 2017 was a better water year and in both years more smolts were planted. Starting next year only smolts will be planted. Read more about this here.
Category: Selective Water Withdrawal Tower
Upper Basin Anadromous Fry Stocking
This spring marks the last stocking of fry as part of the upper Deschutes Basin salmon and steelhead reintroduction effort. Yesterday I was part of the crew helping with the final chinook salmon fry stocking and backpacked fry into the lower Crooked River canyon as well as where Alder Springs meets Whychus Creek not far from the middle Deschutes. As I wrote about here, the reintroduction effort has been a disappointment for many reasons one of which is the unsuccessful fry stocking effort and a new approach is needed.Read More »
Oregon Chapter American Fisheries Society Meeting and Another SWW
Last week the Oregon Chapter of the American Fisheries Society held their annual meeting in Bend. I attended the 21 presentations on Water & Climate. I’ll make a few posts with highlights and, hopefully, some copies of presentations I have requested. One of the presentations was on the unintended consequences of selective water withdrawal at Cougar Dam on the South Fork of the McKenzie River. There are some interesting analogues to what is happening on the Deschutes.Read More »
The Osprey and a Critique
The latest issue of The Osprey is now available. If you like to read scientific articles about steelhead and salmon conservation, mostly in the Pacific Northwest, then this is the journal for you. I encourage you to subscribe and help keep them going. This issue has a couple of articles that once again illustrate the peril facing anadromous fish in many PacNW river systems. It also contains an article on the lower Deschutes River which I found problematic. Read More »
Deschutes Wild Steelhead Update
Unfortunately, as of the end of September things still look pretty bleak for wild fish this season. The trap at Sherars Falls has captured a total of 44 wild steelhead. Only 3 of these have made it to the the trap at the bottom of the Pelton Round Butte complex (Lake Billy Chinook, etc.). Two of those are actually hatchery steelhead that were released above Lake Billy Chinook but did not have their adipose fins clipped. As I detailed in a series of posts starting here, these fish could be on a path to extinction in the not too distant future.
Steelhead in Crisis, Time for a Management Change?
The following is a guest column I submitted to the Bend Bulletin a while back but which has not been published. It is a summary of some recent blog posts that I believe are worth further exposure in a timely manner.
Last year was one of the poorest on record for steelhead in the Deschutes. After some initial optimism for a modest rebound, the forecast for returns this season has been lowered to be even worse. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has now closed the entire Columbia River and lower John Day River to steelhead retention. ODFW went further and asked anglers to avoid steelhead fishing altogether for the remainder of the year. Wild steelhead are currently on a path to extinction in the Deschutes and entire Columbia Basin.Read More »
Reintroduction: Time for a Change in Strategy
After 10 years of effort it is clear that the current approach to reintroducing anadromous fish into the upper Deschutes Basin above the Pelton Round Butte project is not producing acceptable results. Fisheries managers acknowledge this but often state that it will take more time. They reply that it has been over 50 years since these fish were cut off from their traditional spawning grounds and reintroduction is a complex problem. This is true, but I believe the current dire state of steelhead returns to the Deschutes River should provide impetus to take bolder action. This is a long post, but worth reading if you care about the future of steelhead in the Deschutes River.Read More »
