Washington Hunter
Well-known member
By MARK FREEMAN
The (Medford) Mail Tribune
BANDON, Ore. — Shannon Osbon first met Jim when the two crossed paths in the Coquille River tidewater. Osbon knew she had a keeper.
Jim fit the bill for what Osbon sought — not too old but definitely mature and a near-perfect body.
“He was silver bright, long and lean, and not a mark on him,” Osbon says. “We nicknamed him Jim The Bullet.”
And when Jim The Bullet sets out to share his DNA with as many Coquille females as he can this winter, Osbon will be there, in a form of anadromous voyeurism that will help wild steelhead and the anglers who stalk them.
Jim The Bullet is the first wild steelhead captured this winter and fitted with a special radio-transmitter that will allow Osbon, an Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist, to track his movement throughout this year's run.
The $175 radio transmitter, sponsored by the Port of Bandon, which named him Jim after a former port commissioner, is one of 50 Osbon hopes to affix to an equal number of hatchery and wild winter steelhead to create a road map of when, where and how these fish use the Coquille's system of forks and tributary creeks.
The data will help reveal what spawning habitat wild Coquille steelhead prefer and how many hatchery-bred fish are in the mix. It can also show if hatchery and wild fish segregate themselves in the Coquille, the river's steelhead-rich South Fork as well as other forks and tributaries.
The tracking also will show where steelhead hold, when they migrate and how far they swim. It will help determine how vastly the steelhead can distribute and whether there are any unforeseen barriers to their migration.
And ultimately, it also will show how many Coquille wild and hatchery steelhead survive a spawning run and return to sea.
This cornucopia of information is for a river system that historically is a top 10 steelhead angling stream buoyed by hatchery fish raised elsewhere.
“It's a pretty comprehensive approach to getting an idea of what's happening with the steelhead there,” says Rhine Messmer, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's recreational fisheries program manager. “We need to know what happens when these fish go through a fishery. Our main objective is to maintain a good, productive wild steelhead population throughout the system.”
Osbon tried radio-tagging fish last winter, but drought conditions allowed her to capture and tag only two steelhead.
The 50-fish target is planned for two years, funded in part by a $65,000 grant from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's Restoration and Enhancement Program.
Another $40,000 will come from steelhead sponsorships.
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The (Medford) Mail Tribune
BANDON, Ore. — Shannon Osbon first met Jim when the two crossed paths in the Coquille River tidewater. Osbon knew she had a keeper.
Jim fit the bill for what Osbon sought — not too old but definitely mature and a near-perfect body.
“He was silver bright, long and lean, and not a mark on him,” Osbon says. “We nicknamed him Jim The Bullet.”
And when Jim The Bullet sets out to share his DNA with as many Coquille females as he can this winter, Osbon will be there, in a form of anadromous voyeurism that will help wild steelhead and the anglers who stalk them.
Jim The Bullet is the first wild steelhead captured this winter and fitted with a special radio-transmitter that will allow Osbon, an Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist, to track his movement throughout this year's run.
The $175 radio transmitter, sponsored by the Port of Bandon, which named him Jim after a former port commissioner, is one of 50 Osbon hopes to affix to an equal number of hatchery and wild winter steelhead to create a road map of when, where and how these fish use the Coquille's system of forks and tributary creeks.
The data will help reveal what spawning habitat wild Coquille steelhead prefer and how many hatchery-bred fish are in the mix. It can also show if hatchery and wild fish segregate themselves in the Coquille, the river's steelhead-rich South Fork as well as other forks and tributaries.
The tracking also will show where steelhead hold, when they migrate and how far they swim. It will help determine how vastly the steelhead can distribute and whether there are any unforeseen barriers to their migration.
And ultimately, it also will show how many Coquille wild and hatchery steelhead survive a spawning run and return to sea.
This cornucopia of information is for a river system that historically is a top 10 steelhead angling stream buoyed by hatchery fish raised elsewhere.
“It's a pretty comprehensive approach to getting an idea of what's happening with the steelhead there,” says Rhine Messmer, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's recreational fisheries program manager. “We need to know what happens when these fish go through a fishery. Our main objective is to maintain a good, productive wild steelhead population throughout the system.”
Osbon tried radio-tagging fish last winter, but drought conditions allowed her to capture and tag only two steelhead.
The 50-fish target is planned for two years, funded in part by a $65,000 grant from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's Restoration and Enhancement Program.
Another $40,000 will come from steelhead sponsorships.
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