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Steelheaders can start getting their gear together now for what could be one of the better seasons of recent years.
About 165,000 steelhead have crossed Bonneville Dam through September 5, higher than the 111,000 steelhead that crossed by this date last year, and close to the 10-year average. Also by September 5, the cumulative steelhead counts at Lower Granite Dam were the highest since 1985.
Cooler water temperatures this year have kept the fish proceeding up the river system. Steelhead often run into warmer water and hold up before swimming all the way back to Idaho a situation called a thermal block early in the fall. In too many seasons, this thermal block frustrates anglers who lose good fishing days and fish as well because some steelhead never make it past the warm water.
More than 10,000 fish have passed Lower Granite dam this year compared to fewer than 2,000 fish as of this date in 1998 and the fiveyear average of about 5,700. Currently, the Snake River is only two degrees warmer than the Columbia River and Idahobound steelhead arriving at the confluence quickly migrate upstream.
When they get to Idaho, cooler water temperatures in the Clearwater River may attract the steelhead destined for the Snake, Salmon and Grand Ronde rivers, and they may wander into the Clearwater River for some time. Wandering is common among adult steelhead because, although the big fish arrive in the fall, they will not spawn until next spring.
Steelhead season in Idaho opened September 1 and the bag, possession and season limits are 2, 4 and 10 respectively. The Clearwater River is open for catch-and-release only through October 14 and the catch-and-keep season will start October 15.
Fish and Game’s Website Wins Again
The Internet website of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game has again taken first place in the annual competition of the Association for Conservation Information (ACI.)
ACI is the nationwide organization of communication professionals in fish, wildlife and natural resource management agencies and groups throughout the United States and Canada.
Fish and Game’s website has been chosen the best agency/group site in North America in two of the last four years. The selection was made on the basis of content, effective communication, reaching the target audience, services that save user time, being a useful and current resource, appearance, navigation, use of technology and meeting the needs of users. The Idaho site received 548 of a possible 600 points against other agencies that spend far more on their sites, such as Texas and Missouri.
Fish and Game Information Chief Pat Cudmore calls the award “a reflection of the quality achieved by web page designer Jennifer Astorquia and the management team with which she works.”
At the Fish and Game site, a visitor can review hunting and fishing rule books, find out controlled hunt draw results, copy news releases, get information on Citizens Against Poaching, fishing and harvest reports, hunter education information, as well as online resident and nonresident license purchase and “nearly everything else the department produces,” according to Cudmore. “The goal is to provide for the public electronically anything they would request or need if they came in the door of an F&G office. It’s a terrific savings in printing, copying and mailing costs as well as doing an effective job of serving the public.”
Fish and Game’s website currently serves over 1,800 user sessions per day and can be visited at http://www.state.id.us/fishgame
Seven Sockeye Have Returned
The tally of sockeye returning to the Stanley Basin this year has grown to seven.
Six males made it back to the Sawtooth Hatchery from the Pacific by the end of August. The seventh fish arrived September 3. Fisheries biologists are not certain of the sex of the seventh fish and are doing a genetic evaluation to determine whether it is male or female. Some male sockeye early in the run have not yet developed the obvious characteristics of the salmon ready to spawn.
All of the returning sockeye so far are among the first ever to return after rearing in the captive breeding program. One sockeye, a wild male, came back last year. Since 1991, 23 sockeye have returned. All of those fish, until the latest arrivals, were born in Redfish Lake.
The adult sockeye have been placed in a holding vat at the hatchery where they will remain while biologists wait to see how many more will arrive. All the arrivals show a marked ventral fin, clipped adipose fin and a coded-wire tag which identifies them as having been among the 40,000 juvenile sockeye released into the Salmon River below Sawtooth Hatchery in May, 1998. At the same time, 20,000 juveniles were released at Redfish Lake Creek.
The fin-clips identify these adults as being second generation progeny of two female and six male sockeye which returned to Idaho in 1993. These fish, including the one that has returned all the way home, spent only one winter in the ocean rather than the typical two years at sea.
To minimize the risks in captive breeding of these endangered salmon, captive broodstocks are reared at Eagle Hatchery in Idaho, operated by Fish and Game, and at the National Marine Fisheries Service site at Manchester in Washington state. Progeny of these broodstocks are released into waters of the Stanley Basin.
Uploaded: 9/10/1999
Uploaded: 9/10/1999