Cowlitz Smelt - A little Info From WDFW 2/18

[Born to be Wild]

Talked with Olaf Langness yesterday by telephone at the Vancouver WDFW office about smelt and the current situation.

Olaf works with “mainstem projects” for example the pike minnow and smelt projects.
There are a lot of unknowns about smelt and not much revenue available for studying them due to no special license and accompanying revenues.

Run timing for the Cowlitz run of smelt usually starts around early to mid February and peaks early March.
Some years they don’t materialize until early March.

This years run was predicted to be a good one and there is no reason to panic yet as mid February is not late by any means.

They had good indicators off of Vancouver Island, which they know a good portion are Columbia River smelt.
There were also other good indicators including shrimp trawlers off the Columbia River,etc.

There is no reason to believe the smelt went to other more favorable locations to spawn, as they haven’t been seen in the Sandy, Kalama, Lewis, Elocoman, Grays or other rivers.
Olaf might have even mentioned Tillamook as a place they have shown up in the past.

I believe Olaf said they could spawn in the main stem Columbia also but there is no reason to believe they are there either.
Even though the main stem Columbia is a very large body of water, there are not the signs that the smelt are in the system.
Some of these signs include seeing them at the prop wash of large ships.

Olaf seemed optimistic that the smelt would yet show in good numbers as the predictors were good and they haven’t shown elsewhere yet.

I hope he is right and I believe they will indeed be here within a couple weeks.

I have seen the same concerns with salmonids in the past where they forgot to look at a calendar and returned a week or two late.
I can recall the winter’s returning right around Christmas about 6 or 7 years ago and everyone was biting there nails.
But they finally showed!

My disclaimer is I did not quote Olaf in any of this info and I am not a very good note taker.
But I think for the most part it is fairly accurate.

Hope this helps.

Dano

[Big TULE]

Thanks for the info Dan, i have been out of town for the last few days, and was wondering if i could get some. But i guess thay havn't really shown up yet...

[fishnbus]

Hey Dano - thanks for the nice scoop. News like this always seems to help meld patience with anticipation. Kinda like waiting for springers, a few being caught throughtout the system but its still early. :whazzup: Who was it, Carly Simon, that sang "Anticipation"? Time to go and replay that one. Your info is appreciated. [img]graemlins/applause.gif[/img] Dennis

[Kevin Newell]

Thanks for the update! It's appreciated!

[wiser]

These vacuum packed 2003 smelt might be turning to gold too???

[ 02-19-2004, 07:20 PM: Message edited by: Wiser? ]

[Sore Back]

Thanks Dano. Guess we will just wait a while. The fall chinook run into Tillamook bay was also a bit late last fall.

Sore Back

[AnchorManagement]

Hey thanks Dan, excellent info, I know I've been tying to check on the smelt run almost daily, I have a big empty hole in my freezer where they need to go.