Category Archives: Conservation

Great American Outdoors Act Going to the President

President Trump signed it after this was posted.

Jim Shepherd
from The Fishing Wire

“We’re pretty confident we easily have the votes,” one outdoor organization’s CEO told me, adding, “it’s curious that it’s mostly western Republicans who don’t like the LWCF. Gulf States members – again primarily R’s- don’t think they get enough of a local deal since the money comes from offshore oil and gas, the fiscal conservatives will all vote no.”

To me that conversation didn’t sound negative, but it was a realistic view of what should and did happen. Shortly after our conversation, the U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly (310 to 107) to finally approve the Great American Outdoors Act.

Passage means that after ten years of work, President Trump’s signature is all that lies between the continued decline of our national public lands and the allocation of sufficient federal funds to repair most of the critically shaky infrastructure that supports those precious public lands.

Technically, H.R. 7092 “establishes the National Parks and Public Land Legacy Restoration Fund to support deferred maintenance projects on federal lands.”It also makes funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) permanent. The net/net is that the National Park Service, the Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Indian Education will get the funding for projects that have been deferred due to a shortage of funds.

As I’ve written before, it required ten years of legislative work by conservation groups, and represents a huge step toward taking care of our public lands going forward.In fact, I’ve learned that before some pretty strong lobbying President Trump was set to strip virtually all funding from the LWCF. That was before he met with conservation leaders and Congressional proponents.

They were successful in showing him the measure wasn’t just important, it was crucial.

In response, the President tweeted this on March 3: “I am calling on Congress to send me a Bill that fully and permanently funds the LWCF and restores our National Parks. When I sign it into law it will be HISTORIC for all our beautiful public lands.”He’s not the slightest bit disinclined to sign the bill. And that is one tweet that’s not any overstatement. Permanent funding means managers can finally create workable budgets, based on the assumption that the monies will be there.

In praising the passage, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said “In March, President Trump called on Congress to stop kicking the can down the road, fix the aging infrastructure at our national parks and permanently fund conservation projects through the Land and Water Conservation Fund. He accomplished what previous Presidents have failed to do for decades, despite their lip service commitment to funding public land improvements.”

It is truly one of the most non-partisan measures to pass Congress in some time.

Last year, the National Park Service had 327 million visitors. They generated an economic impact estimated at $41 billion dollars. That supported 340,000 jobs. Granted, COVID-19 severely reduced visitation for the past few months, but as we all realize, the outdoors remains one of the safest options for everything from recreation to solitude.

Soon, the more than 5,500 miles of paved roads, 17,000 miles of trails and 24,000 buildings that comprise our National Parks can get some much-needed repair, making them even more alluring -and safe- for visitors.

And as the National Park traffic increases, businesses nearby see increases in traffic as well. It’s an economic engine that benefits everyone.

But we all know being outside cures a lot of the problems with our insides, don’t we?

We’ll keep you posted.

Submerged Aquatic Vegetation

Vegetation in the water makes fish heaven. Will Parson/Chesapeake Bay Program

Measuring Atlantic Bluefin Tuna With a Drone

Drone image of Atlantic bluefin tuna in ‘soldier’ school formation off Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Measuring Bluefin Tuna
This novel use of drones is a promising way to remotely monitor these hard-to-see fish.
From NOAA Fisheries
from The Fishing Wire

Researchers have used an unmanned aerial system (or drone) to gather data on schooling juvenile Atlantic bluefin tuna in the Gulf of Maine. This pilot study tested whether a drone could keep up with the tuna while also taking photographs that captured physical details of this fast-moving fish. The drone was equipped with a high-resolution digital still image camera. Results show that drones can capture images of both individual fish and schools. They may be a useful tool for remotely monitoring behavior and body conditions of the elusive fish.

Individual fish lengths and widths, and the distance between fish near the sea surface, were measured to less than a centimeter of precision. We used an APH-22, a battery-powered, six-rotor drone. The pilot study was conducted in the Atlantic bluefin tuna’s foraging grounds northeast of Cape Cod in the southern Gulf of Maine.Mike Jech about to launch the APH-22 from the bow of the F/V Lily. Photo @2015 Eric Schwartz.“Multi-rotor unmanned aerial systems won’t replace shipboard surveys or the reliance on manned aircraft to cover a large area,” said Mike Jech, an acoustics researcher at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and lead author of the study.

“They have a limited flight range due to battery power and can only collect data in bursts. Despite some limitations, they will be invaluable for collecting remote high-resolution images that can provide data at the accuracy and precision needed by managers for growth and ecosystem models of Atlantic bluefin tuna.”Results from the APH-22 study were published in March 2020 in theJournal of Unmanned Vehicle Systems.

Researchers conducted their work in 2015. They then compared their study results to values in published data collected in the same general area. They also compared it to recreational landings data collected through NOAA Fisheries’ Marine Recreational Information Program.

Taking up the Bluefin Tuna Sampling ChallengeAtlantic bluefin tuna is a commercially and ecologically important fish. The population size in the western Atlantic Ocean is unknown. Fishery managers need biological data about this population, but it is hard to get. Highly migratory species like Atlantic bluefin tuna often move faster than the vessels trying to sample them. The tuna are distributed across large areas, and can be found from the sea surface to hundreds of feet deep. Sampling with traditional gear — nets and trawls — is ineffective. Acoustical methods are useful but limited to sampling directly below a seagoing vessel with echosounders or within range of horizontal sonar.

It is also difficult to estimate the number of tuna in a school from an airplane. Both fish availability and perception biases introduced by observers can affect results. Estimates of abundance and size of individuals within a school are hard to independently verify. Taking precision measurements of animals that are in constant motion near the surface proved easier with a drone that is lightweight, portable, and agile in flight. It can carry a high-quality digital still camera, and be deployed quickly from a small fishing boat.

Short flight times limit a drone’s ability to survey large areas. However, they can provide two-dimensional images of the shape of a fish school and data to count specific individuals just below the ocean surface.New Capacity for Bluefin Tuna Monitoring The APH-22 system has been tested and evaluated for measuring other marine animals. It’s been used in a number of environments — from Antarctica to the Pacific Ocean — prior to its use in the northwest Atlantic Ocean. Previous studies estimated the abundance and size of penguins and leopard seals, and the size and identity of individual killer whales. Hexacopter image of a school of Atlantic bluefin tuna taken northeast of Provincetown, Massachusetts in the southern Gulf of Maine.

“The platform is ideal for accurately measuring fish length, width, and the distance between individuals in a school when you apply calibration settings and performance measures,” Jech said. “We were able to locate the hexacopter in three-dimensional space and monitor its orientation to obtain images with a resolution that allowed us to make measurements of individual fish.”

As new unmanned aerial systems are developed, their use to remotely survey Atlantic bluefin tuna and other animals at the sea surface will evolve. It may minimize the reliance on manned aircraft or supplement shipboard surveys.

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas governs tuna fishing. It is entrusted to monitor and manage tuna and tuna-like species in the Atlantic Ocean and adjacent seas. NOAA Fisheries manages the Atlantic bluefin tuna fishery in the United States. We set regulations for the U.S. fishery based on conservation and management recommendations from the international commission.

For more information, contact Shelley Dawicki

NOAA Fisheries Now More Responsive to Needs of Recreational Anglers

Russell Dunn, National Policy Advisor for Recreational Fisheries, with a nice rainbow runner caught off Ft. Pierce, Florida.

Russ Dunn
from The Fishing Wire

Read a new leadership message from Russ Dunn, National Policy Advisor for Recreational Fisheries, in honor of National Fishing and Boating Week.

Anglers motoring a boat in California’s Sacramento Delta at sunrise. Photo: NOAA Fisheries/Jeremy NotchMore than 10 years ago, NOAA officially launched the National Recreational Fisheries Initiative with the opening of the National Saltwater Recreational Fisheries Summit on April 16-17, 2010. Days prior to the Summit, ESPN published a column musing about the demise of recreational fishing as we knew it. The Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded just three days later. Bookended by these events, the first national Summit opened a challenging long-term dialogue. It produced a very clear message: marine recreational fishermen had long-held frustrations with federal fisheries management they wanted addressed.

We left that first Summit understanding the need for institutional change, active public engagement, and the value of public-private partnerships. And we responded by changing the way we thought about recreational fisheries from top to bottom. We expanded agency planning, focus, and accountability around recreational fisheries through a series of detailed regional and national action plans between 2010 and 2019. And, we codified our new approach in the groundbreaking Saltwater Recreational Fisheries Policy in 2014.

Since 2010, active engagement and partnership with the recreational community has become deeply ingrained in agency culture. From quadrennial national summits to annual roundtable discussions in every part of the country, the agency works to stay current and connected. We have funded recreational fishermen to research and address many on-the-water priorities such as barotrauma and release mortality, marine debris, habitat restoration, and fish migration. We are working to educate the next generation of anglers, captains, and guides. We accomplish this by supporting programs as varied as the Marine Resource Education Program and the Bristol Bay Fly Fishing Academy.

In 2019, we reached another milestone when we signed a formal Memorandum of Agreement with leading recreational fishing community members at the Miami Boat Show. The MOA established a formal framework for communication and collaboration on mutually beneficial projects. They will advance our goals of supporting and promoting sustainable saltwaterrecreational fisheries for the benefit of the nation.

This year we established a new collaborative partnershipwith Bonnier Corporation—publisher of Saltwater Sportsman and Sport Fishing magazines—to promote sustainable recreational fishing.

Over the past 10 years NOAA Fisheries has accomplished quite a lot with the recreational fishing community, but we know our work is not done. We will continue to support sustainable saltwater recreational fishing now and years into the future for the benefit of the nation.

Which brings us to today. COVID-19 has upended life and business across the country and the world. This includes recreational anglers, for-hire operators, and the businesses that depend on them. In April and May, the agency worked quickly to allocate the CARES Act funds appropriated by the Congress and we will continue working to understand its impacts. As we collectively navigate the uncharted waters created by the COVID-19 virus, know that we do so together.

This National Fishing and Boating Week, let’s all rededicate ourselves to working together and facilitating a safe return of the American public to the water and fishing. So go grab your rod! I hope to see you out on the water soon.
Russ Dunn
National Policy Advisor for Recreational Fisheries

What Are Cicadas?

You may hear a humming sound when near woods this spring and early summer. What is often called locusts locally are actually cicadas and there are a variety of them. Some come out of the ground and transform into adults every year, other groups emerge every five, seven, 13 and 17 years.

The most talked about are the “17-year locusts,” a big group that comes out every 17 years in huge numbers and are named “Brood IX.” This year as many as 1.5 million adults may emerge per acre in some areas.

Female Cicadas lay their eggs on woody parts of trees and bushes. When the eggs hatch, the nymphs go into the ground and grow, eating plant roots. They grow for the years for their species, emerge from the ground, then climb up a tree or bush a few feet and come out of their shell, developing wings.

Males “sing” by rubbing membranes on their body making the sound we hear that attracts females. After they mate, the cycle starts over.

My grandfather died when I was six years old, but I vaguely remember his small farm. A tiny field was surrounded by pine trees, and whenever I visited, I would go out there and find Cicada husks clinging to the bark and collect them. Sometimes I found a one or two, other times dozens.

I have found the husks around Griffin, too. At the hunting club and on my land, if I look carefully, I can find them. The light brown husks are hard to see on the bark but they do stick out a little to help spot them.

A few years ago I was fishing Lake Sinclair and we could hear the Cicadas singing in the woods. The surface of the water was covered with dead bugs. Their bodies were reddish brown and were everywhere.

After fishing about three hours without a bite, I finally decided to “match the hatch” and tied on a red worm. I immediately started catching bass. The bass were feeding on the dead Cicadas that had died in the water and fell to the bottom and were so focused on that food source any other color did not attract them.

Carp are usually hard to catch on artificial bait, but during the Cicada hatch they come to the top and eat floating bugs. You can tie a fly that looks like the dead Cicada and catch them on a fly rod, about the only time you can do that.

This year the reason there are so many Cicadas is the 13 and 17 Cicadas cycles are matching, so both groups are coming out at the same time.

Listen for the humming sound and know that is just one of amazing parts of nature’s life cycle.

Manta Ray Conservation and Best Cobia Fishing Practices

Photo: Cobia swimming with a manta ray. Credit: Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission

Manta Rays and Cobia
from The Fishing Wire

Cobia frequently follow giant manta rays in their migrations, and fishermen targeting the cobia sometimes accidentally hook the rays. Here’s a Q&A from NOAA Fisheries with two well-known Florida skippers on the process and on protecting the relatively rare rays.

As cobia season gets underway in the Southeast U.S., NOAA Fisheries reached out to one of our best resources: our fishermen. We wanted to find out what they do or recommend to fish for cobia while protecting threatened giant manta rays. Understanding the challenges fishermen face helps NOAA biologists and fishery managers find a way to protect threatened and endangered species and still offer fishing opportunities.

Captain Butch Constable and Captain Ira Laks both helped us answer the following questions. Capt. Constable has been fishing offshore in Jupiter, Florida for more than 45 years. Capt. Laks has been a charter captain and commercial fisherman out of Palm Beach, Jupiter, and the Treasure Coast for more than 30 years. Both fishermen observe individual giant manta rays along the beaches of southeast FloridaWe appreciate the input these captains provided when we asked questions about cobia fishing. What time of year do you typically see manta rays arrive along Florida’s east coast?

Capt. Constable: The manta rays used to show up in March, sometimes as early as February in cold weather years, and stay through May. Manta rays would move up the coast as water warmed. However, now there are no manta rays any more off of Jupiter in the early springtime. Warmer water temps have caused a shift in species and now the giant manta rays seem to stay further north. These days no mantas seem to be found in the spring south of Hobe Sound. I discovered another large ray, the Roughtail stingray, often has cobia swimming alongside so I look for them when sight casting.

Capt. Laks: Most of the sight casting for cobia from Jupiter south is done around big sharks. The challenge with that kind of fishing is keeping a hooked cobia away from the shark so that it does not get eaten.

What are some of the best fishing techniques you use when fishing for cobia around manta rays?

Capt. Constable: The best advice is to practice and really have good casting skills from behind and to the side of manta ray. Do not cast in front of the manta ray. That way you can make a bad cast or two and reel in and recast without spooking the fish or hooking the ray.

Capt. Laks: I like to come up slowly and from behind on either side of the manta and keep as much distance as possible to make a good cast. My best approach is with the winds behind me and the angler. That allows for a longer cast and it’s less likely to spook the manta with the boat. It also allows for several attempts in order to make that perfect cast to catch the cobia and not hook the ray. Are there any specific tackle or lures you would recommend to reduce foul hooking manta rays but still are effective at catching cobia?

Capt. Constable: Single hooks! No reason to fish any sort of treble hook. Safer for angler when unhooking, safer for reducing snagging the ray. It would be good if a single hook series of baits and lures came out promoting cobia fishing in a responsible way. Also, anglers should use an oversize landing net and not a gaff for most cobia. Safer for fishermen and for cobia if kept or released.

Capt. Laks: I specialize in live bait fishing and use only single hooks. Treble hooks are not necessary when live bait fishing for cobia. A single hook reduces the chance of snagging a manta ray if a bad cast is made in front of the ray.

If a manta ray becomes foul hooked or snagged, what can fishermen do to reduce injury and trailing line?

Capt. Constable: I recommend moving the boat in front of the ray, reeling up the line and trying to pull the lure gently from that direction. The hook will often pull out of the fish and not leave the lure or trailing line. If not cut the line as close to the ray as possible.

Capt. Laks: I like to position the boat and move carefully as close as possible to the manta. Then I cut the line so as to leave the minimum amount of trailing line as possible.

Have you ever seen a hooked manta ray or a manta ray showing evidence of vessel interactions (e.g., prop scars or cuts)?

Capt. Constable: I have seen a few lures and jigs in rays but cannot recall prop scars or major injuries.

Capt. Laks: I have seen a few with larger scars but not sure the cause of those injuries.

What are some best practices for safe maneuvering your vessel around manta rays?

Capt. Constable: I believe approaching slowly and carefully from behind so that it allows the captain to position the boat in a safe way and not spook the ray or the fish. This gives anglers the time to set up their cast and when the fish is hooked, it will usually swim away from the ray at first. Cobia will sometimes try to return to the ray but if the boat is behind, you can often hold the fish away from the ray and land the fish safely and determine its size.

Capt. Laks: Do not set up in front of the ray. I recommend staying a distance away to allow the manta to stay calm and act normally. I can then set up to fish for cobia from behind and to the side of the animal.

Capt. Laks: I also wanted to remind anglers that just seeing one of these large and amazing creatures is a thrill all by itself. It is a fortunate part of an amazing day of fishing and the overall fishing experience.

Idaho’s Fish Marking Program Has Come a Long Way

By Braden Buttars and Joe DuPont, Idaho DFG
from The Fishing Wire

You set the hook and immediately your rod doubles over and there is no doubt you have hooked a big one (salmon or steelhead – you pick). Line starts peeling from your reel and you hold on for the ride. After some intense moments of thinking you may have lost the fish and some spectacular jumps, your buddy finally slips a net under the fish.

After a shout for joy, what is the first thing you say? How many of you said, “Is it clipped”? I suspect many of you did seeing a clipped adipose fin distinguishes a hatchery fish from a protected wild fish telling anglers it is legal to harvest. Many of us take it for granted that hatchery fish have a clipped adipose fin, but have you ever wondered what it takes to make this happen?

Joe DuPontThe Idaho fish marking program started in 1975 with a small group of people directed to tag salmon and steelhead raised in Idaho’s hatcheries. Their primary objective was to insert tiny pieces of wire, known as coded-wire tags, into the snouts of over one million salmon and steelhead. Each of these tagged fish also needed their adipose fin clipped to signify it contained a coded-wire tag. The recovery of these coded- wire tags would then help us evaluate how Idaho hatcheries contributed to fisheries in the Columbia River and ocean.

Northwest Marine TechnologyIdaho’s fish-marking program has changed dramatically since 1975. In 1984 the fish-marking program was directed to remove the adipose fin from more than 9 million Idaho hatchery steelhead so that anglers could distinguish hatchery fish from wild fish. This required a small army of people equipped with scissors working 40 hours a week for about three months to accomplish this task.

Once, to meet a deadline at Dworshak Hatchery in 1987, over 130 different temporaries were hired to keep four marking trailers operating 16 hours a day to remove the adipose fins from almost 3 million steelhead in 10 days. By the early 1990s, almost all hatchery Chinook Salmon released in Idaho were fin clipped, and hundreds of thousands of PIT tags were being injected into smolts to help answer specific research questions and provide managers real-time data to better manage fisheries.

It got to the point that Idaho’s fish marking program could not accomplish this alone and Federal Agencies also began to help. Despite this, Idaho’s fish marking program clipped and tagged approximately 11 million juvenile salmon and steelhead each year. All this work was done by hand requiring a dedicated force of temporarily.

In 2002 Idaho began to automate the fish marking program allowing more fish to be processed with less error. The first AutoFish Trailer was purchased in 2002. In 2004 Idaho purchased two additional AutoFish Trailers and two more were purchased in 2014. With this new technology, the Idaho Fish-Marking Program is now able to processes around 17 million salmon and steelhead from 9 Idaho hatcheries that contribute to major salmon and steelhead fisheries throughout Idaho and the Pacific Northwest.

Now that Idaho’s fish marking program has been using automated trailers for 18 years, they have refined this process to where most fish never need to be touched by a person. To make this happen, the automated trailers are parked right next to the raceways where the fish are being raised. This allows the fish to be directly pumped from the raceway, run through the marking trailers where their adipose fins are clipped and coded-wire tags are injected, and then discharged back to a nearby raceway with no direct human contact.

The first time you step into one of these marking trailer is seems more like you are entering a high tech computer facility than a place where fish are being marked. These automated trailers have the ability to sort individual fish by size using video imaging so that the right size fish goes into the right machine. This is required because each machine is programmed precisely to handle certain sized fish. Once a fish is sorted into the right machine, it gently clamps the fish in place and in a fraction of a second it can insert a coded-wire tag, clip its adipose fin, and confirm that the adipose fin was removed adequately. All this is accomplished without removing the fish from the water or using any type of anesthetic which reduces stress on the fish.

For more detail on how this process click on this video link fish marking video.
Roger Phillips

Because of this technology, we now have an accurate count of all clipped hatchery fish at each hatchery and how these fish were marked or tagged. The application of these technologies allows fisheries managers to evaluate, track, and manage fish to provide for the protection and recovery of wild fish, while maximizing commercial and sport use of hatchery fish.

In case you were wondering, in 2019, Idaho’s Fish-Marking Program was responsible for marking 16.35 million juvenile fish (10.7 million salmon and 5.65 million steelhead) as well as manually inserting 398,443 PIT tags across 9 anadromous fish hatcheries managed by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

Removing Billfish from the Water: Don’t Do It!

Don’t Remove Billfish from the Water

Anglers love hero shots with their fish, especially if it’s their first one. Of all the billfish species, sailfish lend themselves particularly well to this type of photo, since they’re usually small enough to lift up, have particularly gorgeous colors and that massive sail to hold out like a giant flag.

But don’t do it! Removing any billfish species from the water, even for a few moments for a photo, is illegal, both in Costa Rica and the United States. Studies have shown that by scraping the fish over the gunwale of the boat, we are actually harming internal organs and removing the fish’s protective slime layer that acts as a barrier coat against harmful diseases, parasites and infections. Even though you intend to release the fish, by removing it from the water you may have just signed its death warrant instead.

Here are a few things you can do to still get a great photo of your catch. First, be ready with the camera. Few things are more frustrating for your captain or mate than having the fish ready at boatside while someone fumbles for a camera deep inside a duffle bag or backpack. Be ready! Take a few shots during the fight, with the angler grinning from ear to ear.

Once the fish is ready for release and the leader has been cut, the angler can don a pair of gloves, lean over the side and hold the fish by the bill and the sail as it’s revived alongside the boat. The cameraperson should lean out over the side and shoot back toward the angler and the fish. After a few moments, the fish is ready for a healthy release.

Another option: the extended selfie stick and GoPro. Many crews are now using this setup to shoot wide-angle shots back at the boat and anglers. It’s simply a GoPro set on camera mode to shoot every second or so after the shutter is activated. It’s mounted to a long pole that’s held out away from the boat, and the images it reveals are usually very memorable.

Video is a third way to remember the fight. Using that same GoPro, mount it to either a fixed mount on the boat or just hold it in your hand to capture a full video of the fight and the release. All smartphones have a video capability these days as well.So really, the need to remove a marlin or sailfish from the water just isn’t there. Be smart, keep them in the water where they belong.

Courtesy The Presidential Flamingo Fishing Rodeo, Joan Vernon: www.preschallenge.com

Barging Juvenile Salmon and Steelhead through the Columbia and Snake Rivers

Note: I found this especially interesting! Ronnie

It is thought that fish may miss critical migration cues in the barges that they would otherwise pick up during in-river migrations.

By Allison Lebeda, Joe DuPont, Lance Hebdon, and Jonathan Ebel.
Idaho Fish & Game
from The Fishing Wire

Barging Juvenile Salmon and Steelhead through the Columbia and Snake Rivers does not work as well as natural migration.

Juvenile salmon and steelhead born in Idaho waters must swim hundreds of miles and navigate a network of eight dams before they can reach the Pacific Ocean. Migrating through the mainstem hydrosystem can be one of the more daunting obstacles these young fish must face.

These fish, which we commonly refer to as “smolts” can pass through a dam in one of three ways.

First, they can be swept through the turbines, where the water forces large blades to rotate at high speeds.

Second, a series of screens can guide smolts away from the turbines where they will be routed through channels and pipes around the dam. We call this the juvenile bypass system.

Third, they can be carried over one of the dam’s spillways where they will plunge over a hundred feet into turbulent waters below.

Thanks to recent changes in the operations of the dams, most smolts pass over the spillway. The diagram above depicts the three passage routes that smolts can use to pass dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers.

NOAA Fisheries
In the late 1970s, poor adult returns of salmon and steelhead prompted the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (from hereafter referred to as “the Corps”) to develop a fourth method of passing large numbers of juvenile fish past the Snake and Columbia River dams: barging.

Initially, two barges were available to transport juvenile fish, but gradually more barges were added, and by 1981, the barging program had the ability to barge large numbers of fish on a daily basis. Today, between 15 and 22 million smolts are collected from the juvenile bypass systems at Lower Granite, Little Goose, and Lower Monumental dams and placed in one of eight available barges.

Barging typically occurs from late April through July, and transports smolts through the hydropower system until they are eventually released below Bonneville Dam. Collection and transportation, known as the Juvenile Transport Program, is a considerable collaborative effort by the Corps with private, federal, and state agencies. Each barging trip lasts two days and covers nearly 300 river miles, but is ultimately faster than the migration for fish that must pass through the dams on their own power.

At first glance, barging juvenile salmon and steelhead through the hydropower system seems the obvious solution to increase adult returns. Immediate survival of barged juveniles is nearly 98% compared to the 40-60% survival rate often experienced by smolts that must make the full journey past the dams in-river.

Barging was the dominant method of passing smolts through the hydrosystem from 1981 through 2006 when 60-100% of smolts passing the dams were put on barges. However, with increased spill over the dams, the addition of surface spillway weirs, and upgrades to existing juvenile bypass systems, the relative benefits of barging have declined in recent years. The proportion of smolts put on barges now ranges from 10-50% of the run as a result of increased spill over the dams and the consequent decrease in fish entering the juvenile bypass systems.

Despite high survival of barged smolts to the release site downstream of Bonneville Dam, transported fish often return at lower rates as adults than fish that migrated down the Snake and Columbia rivers on their own.

One explanation for this is multiple species of smolts are often confined in crowded conditions when being barged, which can increase stress and allow diseases to spread more easily between fish. Additionally, returning adults that were barged as smolts tend to migrate upstream slower, fall back over the dams more often, and stray more than fish that were not barged.

It is thought that fish may miss critical migration cues in the barges that they would otherwise pick up during in-river migrations.

Ongoing research using smolts tagged upstream of the hydrosystem and tagged at Lower Granite Dam has helped modify the barging program to improve survival of barged fish. Of fish that enter a juvenile bypass system, those that are subsequently transported tend to return as adults at higher rates than fish that are bypassed and returned to the river.

This is important because millions of smolts migrate past these dams this way each year. But, it is not as simple as one may think. The relative benefits barging provides to smolts varies by the timing of their migration, what species they are, their size, and whether they are a hatchery or wild fish. For example, endangered Snake River Sockeye Salmon do not benefit from barging in most situations. This may be because they are smaller, can be easily descaled through abrasion, and prefer uncrowded open-water habitats found in lakes.

Meanwhile, steelhead benefit from barging in many situations potentially because they are larger, more resilient, and prefer faster flowing habitats not found in reservoirs. Both these species migrate at the same time and are transported together. Unfortunately, there is no current way to separate the two species after they have entered the juvenile bypass systems and transport-destined raceways.

For smolts migrating later in the season, those that are barged tend to do better than those that aren’t. This is likely because later in the year, migration conditions tend to worsen for smolts as flows decrease and water clarity and temperature increase. These conditions increase their stress levels and increase predation on them.

When you consider all these things, it certainly adds complexity on evaluating whether a smolt should be barged or not. For now, managers have taken a spread-the-risk approach using barging in concert with improving in-river migration conditions.

In summary, although barging can increase the number of smolts that reach the ocean, transported fish often return at lower rates as adults than fish that migrate in-river. Under certain conditions, barging juvenile salmon and steelhead can lead to higher survival and higher return rates as adults. Migration timing, fish size, river conditions, and fish species are just some of the variables that play a role in whether barging can be beneficial or not.

Researchers with the multitude of cooperating agencies continue to learn from and modify the Juvenile Transport Program to best increase adult returns. Barging juveniles through the complex network of dams is not the sole solution to salmon and steelhead restoration, but it is one of multiple tools managers have that can aid in increasing juvenile survival and adult returns in some situations.

Do Big Bass Spawn Early?

On a more positive note, fishing is getting great.

As I left the campground at Lakepoint State Park a week ago last Monday, I stopped to talk to a fisherman loading his crappie trolling boat to go out. He was rigged with over a dozen rod holders for spider rigging. He said he had caught a few crappie the week before and it got much better over the weekend as the water level stabilized and the temperature warmed from the sun. And it cleared up a good bit. He expected to do even better that afternoon.

It was interesting that every fisherman I talked with had caught a lot of catfish. The high muddy water did not bother them. I caught an eight-pound blue cat on a shaky head worm on Thursday and several club members said they caught big cats fishing for bass.

Bass fishing was getting better every day, too. When I got home many of my “fazebook” friends were posting pictures of big bass they were catching. Bass were moving into the spawning areas and feeding. With schools out and many off work, a lot of folks are “Social Distancing” themselves by getting on the water and catching fish.

Now through mid-May is a great time to get on the water, anywhere from ponds and rivers to lakes and creeks. All species are feeding, and bass will start hitting topwater baits any day now. Most agree that is the most exciting way to catch them.

A few years ago I learned how early bass would hit topwater baits, earlier than I used to think. In an early March tournament, my partner and I had fished for about an hour without a bite. My front depthfinder did not show the water temperature. I ask him what temperature the back one showed. When he said “62” I said that was warm enough for topwater and picked up a popper. On my first cast to a dock with it, a five-pounder hit it. It was big fish for the tournament.

The most interesting thing about that fish was it looked like a female that had already spawned. That seems early, but I am slowly learning bass, especially the bigger ones, want to spawn as early as possible.

That is a survival thing. Many baitfish like shad spawn as soon as the water gets to 65 degrees, usually in early April. If bass spawn a few weeks earlier, their fry are big enough to eat the shad fry when they hatch, giving them a growth edge over the bass fry hatched in April fish that are too small to eat them. It also helps that the first week or two of their life the bass fry are not competing with the baby shad for plankton, the food both species eat after hatching. If a bass is stunted the first year of its life, it never grows to its potential.Nature is amazing!

About Fishing

Welcome To About Fishing