weirs on nehalem rivers

[hustlerrjim]

We wondered why there were no chinook in the no. and so. fork of the nehalem systems?and when we did catch one it was dark and their noses were wore back like they do in the holdig pens at the hatchery it became quite clear when a freind of mine drifted the lower no fork river and found a weir clear across the river, this weir had been in since the end of august,and stopped all fish until the first rain hit and the high water took it out--- odfw promptly put it back in,and has sterilised the river again,
this is as close to complete insanity as you can get.
The exscuse is ,they want to count the chinook and see how many get to the upper trap,at last count they only caught 25 in their lower trap and only recovered one in the upper trap they had tagged.
talking to Jody White who is in charge of this fiasco, we were told they would take it out for the fish along (renondevoue),guess what? they took out a small section where the plastic pipes are rattling so loud in the water the fish won't even get close to the weir,drifting down past the weir we find the chinook spawning in tide water because they can't get past the weir,do you think these eggs will hatch in salt water.I dont,
The weir on the so. fork, was also clear across the river to where the boats couldn't get down.now then there are reports of the dept using an electric shock system to capture chinook in the Winslow holes more on this later. and these are the people running our dept?????????

[SteelieSteve]

More mismanagemnt of the Nehalem system. Once was my favorite fishing area. Had so many great trips fishing both the N. Fork and the South Fork. But then ODFW stopped the hatchery plants in the South Fork, there may still be some good catch and release fishing for non-clipped fish in late winter. But we had many great days fishing with high counts of wild fish. Why ruin it by going wild only???? Now they won't even let the fish upriver to spawn???? Idiots!!!!!!!

[Hoosier Daddy]

Why don't you just throw some barbed wire at it? :whazzup: :rolleyes:

[Bait O' Eggs]

I cannot believe a local hasnt tore it out by moonlight :rolleyes:

[OneLastCast]

That weir is just down stream from my place. They often man it 24 hours straight. This has been the strangest year yet for fish. As HustlerJim says the fish that would normally have been holding behind my place and further up the river are all down below the weir in areas that they never really would hold up in before. I asked one of the technicians if he thought that maybe he was throwing off the timing of the run or unduly stressing the fish. He said that it was possible. I watched as he spent 5 minutes with a net chasing a fish around the trap. He never did get it and finally gave up. Three weeks ago I saw three dead, bright silvers laying on the bottom of the river less than a quarter mile upstream from the weir (just above tidewater). Could they have gone through some unnecessary stress?
I am pretty disgusted with the whole thing and am wondering if ODFW really has some other motive for this "study".

OneLastCast

[garyk]

As to the question of fish being able to move upstream, on Oct. 15th with the river low at about 28"-29", we saw hundreds of fish moving up all day long in the 1/2 mile or so stretch below the hatchery.

It was quite impressive and the most fish we had seen since 1988.

Silvers were also passing by the hatchery weir on the far side and moving above it.

Surprisingly, returns to the hatchery to date (about 5000 according to their hotline) are far below projections (30,000). For the second straight year this river is not seeing the bonus returns that other NW and Tillamook rivers are having. Perhaps their N.Fk.Nehalem hachery stock is worn out?

[ 11-12-2001: Message edited by: garyk ]</p>

[will_e_fish]

Jim thanks that explains why I never saw fish up there. How long has this been going on? I like going to the Nehalem. It doesnt affect the winter Steelhead because of the high water right?

[OneLastCast]

If we get the rain that is being predicted then the fish traps will be scattered by the high water. I would imagine that ODFW is dismantling the weirs right now so they won't be littering the banks with them in a couple of days. I can't see ODFW using this technique for steelhead.

OneLastCast