Webinar - fish recolonization nearly 10 years after White Salmon River dam removal

[Hydrophilic]

“Join researchers Ian Jezorek and Jill Hardiman from the US Geologic Survey and Joe Zendt with the Yakama Nation to learn the latest about fish recolonization nearly ten years after the historic removal of Condit Dam on the White Salmon River.”

Wed, April 24
7:00 PM
Free

Fish recolonization of the White Salmon River since the Removal of Condit

Fish recolonization of the White Salmon River since removal of Condit Dam: What we know, and what we don’t!

www.eventbrite.com

 

[Irrelevant]

“Join researchers Ian Jezorek and Jill Hardiman from the US Geologic Survey and Joe Zendt with the Yakama Nation to learn the latest about fish recolonization nearly ten years after the historic removal of Condit Dam on the White Salmon River.”

Wed, April 24
7:00 PM
Free

Fish recolonization of the White Salmon River since the Removal of Condit

Fish recolonization of the White Salmon River since removal of Condit Dam: What we know, and what we don’t!

www.eventbrite.com

Oh dams... I'll be in the desert then. Hopefully it'll be recorded. That's my home river. I have coat hangers made from the old rebar of Condit. And crashed out company internet when I broadcast it the final detonation web link. Fished it from stem to stern.

 

[Hydrophilic]

Oh dams... I'll be in the desert then. Hopefully it'll be recorded. That's my home river. I have coat hangers made from the old rebar of Condit. And crashed out company internet when I broadcast it the final detonation web link. Fished it from stem to stern.

If it’s recorded I’ll post the link. The June hogs that used to run up that river were unbelievable! From the stories I have heard anyway.

https://whitesalmontimelapse.wordpress.com/category/history/

 

[Irrelevant]

If it’s recorded I’ll post the link. The June hogs that used to run up that river were unbelievable! From the stories I have heard anyway.

https://whitesalmontimelapse.wordpress.com/category/history/

Yeah, Zoller was quite the story teller though. He ran his WS rafting operations out of my grandparents property in BZ. Everything I've read about June hogs were that they were primarily an up river run. Which is why they've effectively gone extinct. There's still enough spawning habitat below that dam that if they were present they would have been persisted to some degree IMO. But with passage at GC we may find there are some genetics remaining out there.

 

[Irrelevant]

I was able to make it after all (Feb not April).
Here are some of the cooler slides presented. I was pretty disappointed with the level of surveying they'd done so far. And that they didn't have access to the data the tribe had collected.

 

[Hydrophilic]

Glad you caught that error on my part (Feb). Recovery has not been as dramatic as other rivers so far, will be interesting to see long term trends.

 

[Salmonchaser]

well that is disappointing.

 

[Irrelevant]

well that is disappointing.

My thoughts exactly. The only three real positives I heard were that steelhead were making it over lower rattlesnake falls easily (10-12'), a couple Chinook have made it over Husum falls (12'), and the release of sediment into the lower river has really increased spawning in that reach.

Another real bummer in my book was that half of the adult steelhead returning to the WS were hatchery origin despite there not being a hatchery there anymore.

 

[Hydrophilic]

I believe they are going to consider moving the hatchery plants (f/ little white salmon?) to help this.
I thought it was interesting they are seeing a lot of URB utilize the river and are concerned about hybridization with native Tule stocks. Those stinky Tules!

 

[Salmonchaser]

Tules suck, as far as hybridization goes if up river brights are swinging in there now they were doing it before the dams. We know Clearwater B run steelhead duck into the Descuttes. Hatcher fish from the old hatchery wow maybe they aren’t so genetically inferior. If they want a system to return to a natural normal state they should just leave it alone. The hatchery fish will fade away.
The real problem is not if the white Salmon can recover if left alone, fish need to make it up the Columbia.
The guys I know who are trying to make a living guiding on the coast streams are having a tough year. Just poor returns. Oregon voted to eliminate gill nets on the Columbia. That crook KitsHarper vetoed the plan. I got stuff to do. Poor ocean conditions is simply too many nets. Nobody really want to talk about that.

 

[Irrelevant]

Tules suck, as far as hybridization goes if up river brights are swinging in there now they were doing it before the dams. We know Clearwater B run steelhead duck into the Descuttes. Hatcher fish from the old hatchery wow maybe they aren’t so genetically inferior. If they want a system to return to a natural normal state they should just leave it alone. The hatchery fish will fade away.
The real problem is not if the white Salmon can recover if left alone, fish need to make it up the Columbia.
The guys I know who are trying to make a living guiding on the coast streams are having a tough year. Just poor returns. Oregon voted to eliminate gill nets on the Columbia. That crook KitsHarper vetoed the plan. I got stuff to do. Poor ocean conditions is simply too many nets. Nobody really want to talk about that.

I was very disappointed to see WDFW continue to allow gill nets. Seems like we should all be able to agree they are indiscriminate killers. I prefer the "experimental" salmon trap that is being ran by some non-profit. Even though traps were outlawed long ago, the way I see it, is that you can then process live fish and put all your wilds back and only keep the species and type you want. But when it's said and done we likely should be simply doing away with commercial in freshwater, at least IMO.

 

[Hydrophilic]

I was very disappointed to see WDFW continue to allow gill nets. Seems like we should all be able to agree they are indiscriminate killers. I prefer the "experimental" salmon trap that is being ran by some non-profit. Even though traps were outlawed long ago, the way I see it, is that you can then process live fish and put all your wilds back and only keep the species and type you want. But when it's said and done we likely should be simply doing away with commercial in freshwater, at least IMO.

Wild Fish Conservancy - YouTube

Is this what you are talking about?

 

[Irrelevant]

Wild Fish Conservancy - YouTube

Is this what you are talking about?

yes

 

[Hydrophilic]

We need terminal fisheries

 

[Irrelevant]

We need terminal fisheries

What do you mean by that? Fishing for steelhead in Rattlesnake, or the WS?

 

[Hydrophilic]

What do you mean by that? Fishing for steelhead in Rattlesnake, or the WS?

No sorry, the selective harvest method you were referring to (which looks awesome) always takes me down a rabbit hole!

If we localized our commercial harvest to terminal rivers (where the fish return to spawn - ex Columbia, bigger Columbia tribs, specific PNW rivers) we would have more control over our impact. Right not SE Alaska gets hammered with non selective commercial fishing. A mix of PNW salmon stocks migrate up there to the ‘nursery’ but it’s impossible to identify which salmon populations are being harvested without having a negative impact. I.e they could from the Columbia river or a small trib in SW WA where the run is struggling. It’s frustrating because you can imagine how this could result in over harvest for some systems.

 

[Irrelevant]

No sorry, the selective harvest method you were referring to (which looks awesome) always takes me down a rabbit hole!

If we localized our commercial harvest to terminal rivers (where the fish return to spawn - ex Columbia, bigger Columbia tribs, specific PNW rivers) we would have more control over our impact. Right not SE Alaska gets hammered with non selective commercial fishing. A mix of PNW salmon stocks migrate up there to the ‘nursery’ but it’s impossible to identify which salmon populations are being harvested without having a negative impact. I.e they could from the Columbia river or a small trib in SW WA where the run is struggling. It’s frustrating because you can imagine how this could result in over harvest for some systems.

Gotcha. YES, that is the direction we should be going. Team that with better enforcement of fishing in international waters (not our boats), especially off Russia

 

[Salmonchaser]

There is a corollary between those gigantic trawlers in the north pacific fishing for haddock and cod and the spiral in particular of Alaska’s King run. Then you add in the foreign fishing fleets off the coast that receive very little monitoring. Add in Com fish in Alaska it’s hard to make any progress. Several years ago we had a confrontation with the commercial manger of the Naknek district for Alaska fish and game. Long and the short of it he jumped up from his desk and told us he didn’t give a f... about sport fishing, bunch of f...ing idiots. He could do what he wanted with escapement numbers because he was inf...ing charge. He would personally erect a statue to the fisherman who killed the last f...ing King on the river so people would quit bitching about it. The result of our written complaints was AST doing checks on our boats, hadn’t been checked in years. Thankfully there is a new guy out there now, might be too late for the kings.
Getting Com Fish to do anything to protect Salmon heading to the Columbia or BC is going to be tough.

 

[Hydrophilic]

Jesus Christ we’re screwed