300 plus coho today!!!

[Straydog]

Thanks to a cooperative effort by the Middle Rogue Watershed Council, Middle Rogue Chapter of NW Steelheaders, So. Oregon Fly Fishers, ODFW, BLM and several non group affiliated volunteers, we planted over 300 Coho carcasses in Taylor Creek today.

Taylor Creek is a trib. of the Rogue that enters the mainstream a few miles above Galice.

A great day with good people!! :cheers:

[skein]

Man, do I feel out of the loop. What is the function of planting carcasses? I'm clueless on this one. graemlins/1zhelp.gif

Skein

[KingFisher85]

They are put in the creeks and rivers for nutrients and the baby smolt salmon/steelhead eat them.

[ 12-07-2002, 10:00 PM: Message edited by: KingFisher85 ]

[Straydog]

"......Historically, migrating Salmon have provided our watersheds with ocean derived nutrients such as Nitrogen and Phosphorus. These are key elements in the health of the entire food chain and play very heavily into the very foundation of this food chain, Macro-invertebrates, commonly known as “bugs”.

As Salmon returns have declined, so has the placing or replacing of these essential nutrients to our watershed. Invertebrate populations are a key element in the overall strategy of restoring and preserving the health of our watershed.

A good, healthy source of bugs is essential to the health and success of baby fish at the very critical time of birth and shortly there after. With out this source of nutrition, these baby fish do not receive the energy needed to survive.

We can add fish to our streams through various hatchery and hatchbox programs but without a nutrient base in place to sustain these fish, our results will likely continue to fall short of restoring sustainable naturally producing fish populations.

A primary element of the highly successful Keogh River project
in British Columbia has been the seeding of the river with inorganic compressed cubes containing Nitrogen and Phosphorus.

The State of Oregon currently has a Memorandum of Agreement with the Department of Environmental Quality, which gives them the approval to plant Salmon carcasses in our area. This MOA does not cover inorganic cubes such as those being used in British Columbia.

The issue of approval from DEQ as well as the costs involved in obtaining the nutrient cubes is something the projects committee as well as the ODFW will likely be pursuing in the future.

There is also work being done by one Oregon firm to explore the possibility of producing an organic compressed Salmon cube in a similar fashion.

In the meantime, we have the ability to place, at virtually no cost, hatchery produced Salmon carcasses that will be collected, frozen and stored at the Cole Rivers Fish Hatchery in cooperation with their staff.

Volunteers and ODFW staff manually place the carcasses in streams during the months of November, December and January.

We looked at which streams had the most viable habitat at this time based on stream data collected from ODFW. After identifying which streams are home to significant amounts of habitat we then considered the logistics of the particular stream. Was landowner access likely to be a problem? Are there many homes with pets and children in a particular habitat reach that may lead to problems created by an influx of Salmon carcasses? Will possible drifting or floating of carcasses be an issue in a particular area?

After weighing these factors we decided on Taylor Creek to focus our efforts........... "

Straydog

[ 12-07-2002, 10:15 PM: Message edited by: Straydog ]

[KingFisher85]

Very well said Straydog graemlins/applause.gif

[brshooter]

Straydog,
Thank you, and the other volunteers, for stepping up and helping out with this very important project.
I volunteered four days down at the N.F. Nehalem Hatchery last month helping with the spawning of coho. After we spawned the necessary number of fish, all remaining fish in the trap were bonked for nutrient enrichment. Another volunteer group came and dumped the surplus fish in various rivers and streams. We had to cut the snouts off all of the surplus fish so that the biologist doing counts and studies could identify the if it was a naturally spawned fish or a surplus fish that had been dumped.

[Snapshot]

Traydog adn Birdshooter are heros in my book. WE all need to put a little back into what we take out of and you guys set a great example. If all the general public could be as concerned as we all are, our fishery would improve greatly. Thanks again guys, whenever you need a boat ride I'm willing to do a little payback in the Clack.

*Fish only bite wet hooks*

[skein]

Thanks for the explanation and the effort! Looks like I'd better get involved.

Skein

[Point-of-Sale Clerk]

Straydog

The firm is Bio-Oregon with regards to the organic compressed Salmon cubes.

I am interested in what you know about the DEQ and this “projects committee” you mentioned?

What was your limitation on the number of carcasses per mile?

DEQ is still not allowing placement in TMDL limited streams correct?

*** Clerk

[Straydog]

***,

The explanation I posted of the carcass seeding was a cut and paste of an article I wrote for our Watershed Council newsletter last year when we did the same thing. The reference to the projects committee is in regards to our Watershed Council Projects Committee, not DEQ.

We worked with ODFW and Chuck Fushtich (sp?)was the Bio in charge this year.

I don't know the answers to your other questions. My job is to coordinate the project for the Watershed Council....... the legalities and science are left up to ODFW, we just place the fish. :smile:

[ 12-09-2002, 07:14 AM: Message edited by: Straydog ]

[tag-a-long]

:cheers: graemlins/applause.gif

[snowball]

very similar artical i found------
Watershed Restoration Techniques

Off-Channel Habitats

Off-Channel habitats such as ground-water channels, surface-water channels, ponds (including beaver ponds), alcoves and side channels provide over-wintering areas and a refuge for fish during floods times as well as low flow times. Coho juveniles, in particular, thrive in the slack-water environments.

Large Woody Debris

Whole trees, logs, rootwads and log jams are a natural and important structural component of any forest stream. Large woody debris (LWD) usually enters a stream as fallen trees from the undercutting of banks, windthrow and slope failures. LWD abundance has diminished due to past logging of streambanks and stream clearance practices. Adding LWD in the form of logs and log structures provides stability to the channel, stores gravel (for spawning) and holds spawned-out carcasses (for nutrients). In addition, these structures create pools, cover and complex habitats which fish prefer.

Nutrient Replacement or Fertilization

Because of the fast-flushing rate and the underlying bedrock geology, BC's coastal lakes and streams are naturally nutrient-poor. Recent studies have shown that spawned salmon carcasses supply watersheds with ocean-derived nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus. These are necessary to maintain ecosystem productivity. Diminished size of salmon runs have caused a steady decline of nutrients. To offset this deficiency, slow-release nutrient briquettes developed especially for the Watershed Restoration Program have been used in the Keogh River producing significant results. The nutrient replacement program is being tested in other BC watersheds. These inexpensive briquettes will provide a temporary supply of nutrients, at very low concentrations (3 parts per billion) until salmon stocks rebuild and the ecosystem recovers to its historical, more productive state.

[Mr. Shannon O'Brien]

Good job citing, giving credit to the info Snowball.

Congrats on your fish chucking excursion. I'm a native Oregonian and have lived their for many decades. When I moved up here to Alaska I thought it was neat to see the carcasses get tossed back in after cleaning them at the strategically placed fish cleaning stations. I wish Oregon would adopt that on selected waterways.

Shannon

[steelheadslayer]

Hey guys, you are providing a much needed resource by planting carcasses in watersheds. But, anyone could possibly do this. My neighbor volunteers at numerous hatcheries in this area and has started a planting program bu using the hatcheries rigs in a volunteer program. I had the pleasure of helping out with this last month. If you want to get involved with something like this, get ahold of a hatchery near you and ask them about it. Let me tell you, chucking carcasses that may be up to a week old sitting in boxes is no picnic. Take the stench of the rotting carcasses you are finding in these low water conditions right now and multiply it tenfold, whew graemlins/berry.gif . My hats off to any and all people who are involved in this type of program. :cheers:

[ 12-09-2002, 04:04 PM: Message edited by: steelheadslayer ]