Todd,

I'll keep ya' in the loop. Consultation is between FERC, SCL, and the federal services, but it looks like SCL is planning on an open process.

Invertebrate production was a thesis project by Graybill, summarized in Graybill, Burgner, Gislason, Huffman, Wyman, Gibbons, Kurko, Stober, Fagnan, Stayman, and Eggers. 1979. Assessment of the reservoir-related effects of the Skagit project on downstream fishery resources of the Skagit River, WA. UW-FRI/SCL. It's been treated to far more than a sentence. I just don't have the typing fingers to do it justice here.

The dams make the Skagit very dissimilar to the Sauk in stream hydrography and accounts for glaring differences, both positive and negative. Although subject to more flow fluctuations, but tempered by license restrictions, the upper Skagit between Newhalem and Marblemount is exactly where egg to fry survival is highest for all salmon species, and reduced flood scour is the reason. A disproportionately high % of the pink, chum, and chinook runs spawn upstream of Marblemount because of reduced loss to flooding. Pinks, chums, and to a lesser degree, chinook get creamed on the Sauk -- due to flooding. Steelhead fare better in the Sauk system because they are spring spawners and are spared from winter floods which are much higher flows than spring floods, excepting 1997, which hammered Sauk steelhead fry.

Yes, it's funny about floods and pinks and chums unless a fuller context is provided. Pink, chum, and chinook survival in the upper Skagit is good almost every year, although extreme floods affect even that reach. Pink, chum, and chinook survival in the Sauk and the Skagit downstream of the Sauk are highly variable and directly and inversely correlate with peak winter flood flow. I don't know enough about didymo. I don't even know if I need to know more about didymo at this point. And if I did, I still probably couldn't do a thing about it.

Aunty,

I wish I could do it all, but I'm still trying to build a house in my spare time and occasionally go fishing. Researchers are looking into juvenile steelhead survival in the early marine environment. So far they've documented that the survival rate appears low. Finding out the cause, whether it is food or something else, will be a next step. The pace of scientific inquiry is almost as slow as democracy. It takes time.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

Could not agree more.

This state needs a new way of management for our fish. The last 100 years should prove the way it's been done by the so called fishery Guru's..SUCKS!!

With commercial and tribal netters the fish do not stand a chance with the dam operators having no regard for the fish....Good luck

Rock Snot on the Skagit!!!! Man if you haven't seen that stuff when it's at it's peak clogging every nook and cranny on a river your in for a massive eye opener. Seems like it really comes into play when a dam is in the mix. It will only get worse.

Steve, do keep me in the loop, and maybe we can talk about it over a beer or three out fishing sometime soon...

Fish on...

Todd

With all the talk of closure too, its a shame we can't get more enforcement up there in may. Like Todd stated, thats when it seems like the bulk of the sauk fish are in. I've heard that the sauk fish are the latest spawning native run in the Puget Sound. Not sure how that compares with the rest of the state.

I'm almost glad I'm pretty new to the system and never got to see how good it once was. I was stoked to get 3 hookups most trips this winter/spring and can't even imagine how it must have been.

One other aspect which I know very little about. But what about the heavy netting that takes place lower in the system for springer and 'early sockeye'. How or does it even affect the downstream migration of the native fish??

I've caught unspawned winter runs on the Sauk as late as the third week of July...

Fish on...

Todd

Todd, that funny you say that. We were springer fishing June 3rd and hooked an absolute CHROME missile of a native hen around 15lbs. with sea lice still on it. I couldn't believe it. No downriver for sure. Gorgeous fish that took to the air atleast a dozen times with big runs in between.

So those are still just late returning spring fish and not native summerruns?

Definitely winter runs...or more accurately, like you said, late spring steelhead.

Fish on...

Todd

Here's an interesting link for ya Todd and Salmo.

[url=www.piscatorialpursuits.com]www.gmtrout.com/untitled89/index.html/[/url]

Note: Under the broken link heading, hit the first suggested link.

Try this instead:

http://www.gmtrout.com/untitled89/index.html

Thanks Kaiser.

I fished the Cowlitz this last weekend, and in some spot we couldn't even get a good drift because the snot was soo thick.

Article notes that feathers, furs and felt bottom boots all help spread didymo. Uh oh.

Take a look here for rock snot info.

http://www.loe.org/shows/shows.htm?programID=09-P13-00032#feature7


Here is a 5min audio clip of a bio talking about rock snot
http://loe.org/audio/stream.m3u?file=http://stream.loe.org/audio/090807/090807elephants.mp3

Salmo g.
As you know I have long been concern about the apparent lack of insect production from the main stem Skagit (especially up strem of the Sauk) and have to agree with Todd's assessment. In the time that I have spend in that basin I have observed a great diversity of insect species on that upper reach but very little bio-mass. I can not recall a single large scale "bug" hatch on the reach.

Regarding the impacts of the flow modification from the SCL projects Gislason in 1985 said -

"Reduction in the amplitude and duration of power-peaking flow fluctuation can be a highly effective management strategy for enhancing aquatic insect standing crop, with a potential for increasing the survival and growth of fish dependent on insects for food."

He did so in an article titled
"Aquatic Insect Abundance in a Regulated Stream under Fluctuating and Stable Diel Flow Patterns"

It was published in the NAJFM (1985 5:39-46) and used the Skagit river as the test stream. He compared the insect densities in the 15 to 45cm water depth range between 1976 where the flows were subject to diel flow variations normally associate with hydro peak and 1977 when there were relatively stable flows when peaking was curtailed. He found that the densities at corresponding depths and months were 1.8 to 59 times higher in 1977 than in 1976.

Remember that those density increases where just from one summer of flow protection. I suspect that as with nearly every other tail water situation in the west that if that sort of non-peaking operation was applied over time there would huge increases in insect abundances compared to today's levels. Yes of course it would be at the cost of power generation and squeezing the maximum $$ from the water released but just the same folks need to acknowledge those potential costs/impacts from current and past operations.

Todd's observation about the numbers of steelhead spawning in the main stem Skagit above the Sauk also has some validity. During the late 1970s and 1980s typically 10% of the basins spawning steelhead would be found using the reach of the river. From the mid-1990s on that has fallen to about 3% of the basin's total. As we have discussed before I have to wonder whether the flow changes in the early 1990s while doing great things to reduce the stranding of Chinook fry may have had an adverse effect on those fish who rear for longer periods in the river.

Regarding the Skagit pink and chums - I think it would be safe to say that prior to and during most of our public careers the the Skagit basin would have been considered pink and chum central for all of Puget Sound. That no longer is the case; for most cycles the production from the rest of the Sound basins now exceed that of the Skagit and often just the production of the Snohomish will exceed that of the Skagit. As you know the majority of the pink and chum production in the Skagit basin occurs upstream of the Sauk. I have concerns that given the situation with that reach's steelhead, pinks and chums that something has gone awry with the freshwater production there.

Tight lines
Curt

Good discussion on a really depressing topic.

The Skagit bull trout seem to be doing well in the upper river. Bro-in-law and I tagged quite a few of them this past weekend in the midst of a decent mayfly hatch. Good thing they were all 19 inches or less because he would have wanted to harvest a few (he's living in Virginia and doesn't know any better). Although I have no data to support this, it seems that if the invertabrate population was doing so poorly, it would affect bull trout recruitment at the juvenile stage.

I have seen something in the Methow that looks an awful lot like didymo.

I would be very interested in following the consultation process of SCL. Could someone here keep the board updated on that issue?

Word on the street is Simms is doing away with felt on all their boots in the next few years as a preactive measure to help control didymo.

Hope to run into you on the.....

Chuck,

As much as sportsmen think commercial netting is the bane of fish populations, we don't have the evidence to support that. Granted, netting that takes fish from a depressed population sure doesn't do it any favors, nor does CNR sportfishing for that matter, but present indications are that netting is WAY down the list of problems for wild Skagit steelhead.

Aunty,

I hear ya'. We can't harvest forage and expect it not to affect the species that depend on that forage. Tell ya' what, make me king, and I can fix a few things, tho no where near all of 'em.

Todd,

Most of the world's problems and deals are dealt with and made over a few drinks. This should be no different.

Mitch,

May is tarheel season. Always has been, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. Fortunately, bad as that is, even that is not the proximate cause of population decline.

Smalma,

I'd like a normative river as much as anyone. Yet we have to acknowledge that the steelhead population was good, and even rebounded under the sustained flow fluctuation conditions that do cause depressed benthic production. Makes it impossible for me to conclude that is the proximate cause, tho it is an incremental contribution, like so many other effects.

We have a window of opportunity, but the legal burden is likely to be: clear, cogent, and convincing - the highest legal requirement in an evidenciary hearing. I remember what Skagit fluctuations were like in the 1970s, and I'm more than hesitant to recommend returning to that model of flow management. If we can figure this out, we can do something. However, ESA consultation doesn't require new or additional studies. It relies on the "best available," so we need to see if we can eek out new conclusions from existing data and studies.

BTW, with the Skagit River as the blood running through my veins, it's more than slightly bothersome that the Skagit is no longer pink and chum central. It's like when my home team is a basketball dynasty for decades and then some podunk town down the road comes along and trounces ya' all of a sudden, and it keeps happening year after year. Maybe it's emotional; maybe it's ecological. Either way, it would help to know. I intend to give it a good look. Maybe you'll want to join Todd and me for those beers?

DaveD,

Benthic invertebrate production has been depressed in the upper Skagit since at least the 1950s, so we need to identify more recent causes of adverse changes. Bull trout juveniles tend to remain in there tributaries where forage is somewhat more abundant than in the mainstem upper Skagit. Bull trout grow slower than hell until their mouth is large enough to eat stoneflies; then their growth curve takes off. They do better on large forage items, like small fish, hee, hee. Consequently if the Skagit dams adversely affect bull trout, it would be the indirect effect of limited the forage supply. But honestly it would be close to impossible for me to make that case. Bull trout are faring better than steelhead in the Skagit.

ESA consultations are not public. Seattle seems pretty committed to an open process, so if they are agreeable I'll post occasional status reports. The consultation won't officially begin until June 2010.

Killallmarxist,

I think you posted in the wrong thread. This is gonna' be a place for serious and thoughtful discourse. Adios.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

The Skagy system at this point is in diar need of some rain to get the fish in the system to the spawning grounds. Its been a dry summer for the fishies.

Imreallygladthishorseshitwasbroughtupagain.