For example Calawah from 800 cfs to ~ 20k cfs and also other rivers.

Would it wash out all the redds and eggs and impact the runs 3-5 years from now?

The waters will obviously take a few .. but it won't wipe them all out, especially in the Quillayute system as gravel shifts are not a real problem there. We've seen a good early spawn so far (I saw about 3 dozen redds each trip my last few days before they blew). There might be some concern for those as the water was so low that many were dug closer to the main channel than we'd normally see.

The Hoh will suffer though. Although not a super-extreme high water there (we've actually had higher this year), there's a big difference in that this high water has seen huge flows for nearly 24 hours now rather than a spike and immediate drop like we normally see. I think this may allow a little more scouring than we would normally expect on a water of this size, but we'll know more as things recede.

Another issue with the Hoh is that I don't think we've seen as good of a spawn in there to this point due to the concentration of traffic (vs. the Quillayute system) there over the last few months based on much lower than normal flows and a high harvest in the lower end.


We're keeping our fingers crossed!

Would a flood help and move eggs to a new location hence spreading them like wind or bees do with flowers?

<img border="0" alt="[Goldfish]" title="" src="graemlins/goldfish.gif" />

Unfortunattely, eggs swept from the gravel have little, if any chance.

Redds can often survive burial of more gravel, but scouring or crushing basically dooms the nest