A new Utah law that would allow sporting and environmental groups to purchase instream flows from irrigators in order to protect fish habitat has again seen the light of day.  The Instream Flow to Protect Trout Habitat bill passed in the state Senate last year but failed in the House.  New provisions which address concerns about hydropower generation and Endangered Species Act restrictions have garnered more support for the bill, and it’s expected to pass this year.  The bill is modeled after a successful existing program in Montana. 

With the passing of this law, fishing organizations could purchase water rights from irrigators, meaning that water would be left in the stream instead of being used to water crops, providing more and better habitat for trout during critical low-flow periods.  The bill is being praised by a wide audience and has the support of many conservationists, recreationists and farmers. 

Read the Salt Lake Tribune article here

There’s nothing like a little habitat destruction to ruin an otherwise great day of stream fishing. 

Pictured above is what’s left of a section of stream that I caught dozens of fish in this past year.  Now, it’s nothing but a wide, shallow run with no cover or other fish habitat remaining.  The landowner took a bulldozer in the stream and completely obliterated this stretch, pushing all of the stream material into large banks at the stream’s edge.

I’m assuming that whoever decided to do this to the stream intended to prevent bank erosion in a camping area, and may not have realized the damage they were doing to the stream by destroying trout habitat.  This stretch once had contained undercut banks, a nice deep pool, and numerous rocks and trees used for cover and holding habitat by trout. 

It’s now just a wide, shallow stretch of gravel, and I was unable to locate any fish in the area.

It’s hard to believe that activities like this are still going on in the 21st century.  We should know better.  We’re spending millions of dollars to work on stream restoration and some yahoo can go into a stream with a dozer for a couple of hours and completely ruin a great stretch of trout stream. 

I spoke to a local biologist about the situation, and it sounds like Utah state law doesn’t give them much leverage to stop things like this from happening.  Still, I think there should be better communication between landowners and biologists concerning fish habitat.

I’d like to think that if the landowners were aware of the damage they were doing, they would voluntarily take measures to preserve trout habitat, but that remains to be seen. 

Over the years, trout and salmon enthusiasts have developed a better understanding of the importance of large woody debris in stream systems.  Logs and other large wood are important because they create cover and pool habitat for fish, and also trap gravel that is used by spawning fish.  Past research has shown that fish populations are often limited by lack of pool and cover habitats, and some research I have worked on is showing the potential for spawning gravel to limit stream trout populations in some areas. 

In some systems wood is naturally limited by ecosystem conditions, but in other areas, conditions associated with human disturbance (such as bulldozing streams for log drives, or clearcutting riparian areas) have caused unnaturally low levels of wood recruitment in streams.   

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is taking an innovative (and expensive) approach to restoring woody debris in streams, using a helicopter lift and transport logs into the water. 

Read more here

The state of Colorado will soon add water temperature standards to pre-existing standards of toxic pollutants.  Water temperature is very important for fish survival, and triggers the timing of fish spawning and other activities.  The state hopes that restrictions to activities that affect water temperature, including diverting water and reducing stream shading, will ultimately protect native trout species.

See the story here

Wild populations of native brook trout have been on the decline in many parts of the eastern United States for decades.  While some strongholds for the species exist, particularly in northern Maine, and restoration efforts such as those in the Smoky Mountains have been successful, wild brook trout remain imperiled or even nonexistent in many parts of their native range.

Because of the rarity of native brook trout waters in much of the East, state conservation programs have been working hard at restoring the species and protecting habitat in special wild trout waters.

One such water has been known to Pennsylvania angler Mark Rinehamer for decades, but his recent concerns for one of the area’s few remaining wild brook trout creeks caused him to contact Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission biologists to take a look at the creek.

And it turns out that the Commission biologists took an interest in this creek, and plan to make it part of their Cooperative Habitat Improvement Program. 

Check out the story here. 

And if you know of a particular area that may be important for fish conservation, or looks like it might be impaired, be sure to contact your local fisheries biologist.  These guys often have so much water to keep track of, and this results in some waters being overlooked at times.  Good communication between anglers and fisheries professionals is often key to preserving our valuable fish resources.

A recent story in USA Today describes a controversy between recreational gold miners and fisheries conservationists in the state of California.  The debate has been sparked by a bill in the California state Assembly that would allow wildife managers to ban gold dredging in sensitive rivers and streams, in order to protect salmon.  I felt the story was fairly well written, and explains the views from both sides of the issue.

See the story here

Coming from an area with no gold mining history, I’ve often pondered what it might be like to get out in search for gold.  I got my chance when I moved out West, and decided I would try the recreational mining myself.

At first, when I heard about gold dredging, bad images instantly came to mind.  I thought about entire stream bottoms being sucked away, banks being eroded, and fish habitat being destroyed in the process.  These were all things that bothered me, because while I had a strong desire to search for gold, I was a fish geek…….and didn’t want to see fish populations being affected in pursuit of this intriguing yet obscure sport.

You might be surprised to find that over time, this fish geek changed his mind about recreational gold dredging.

I should provide a little background on recreational gold dredging.  This type of dredging is most often performed by an individual clad in wetsuit and diving gear, who kneels at the river bottom and holds a suction hose, which pulls gravel and sand from the riverbed up through the hose and across a sluice box setting on top of pontoons at the water surface.  As gravel and water flows over the sluice box, heavier materials such as gold are caught in the riffles of the sluice, and later sorted out by the miner.  The suction through the hose is powered by a small generator which sits on the pontoons, and the sand and gravel flowing through the sluice box usually settle back to the river bottom between a few feet and a few hundred feet downstream of their origin. 

I spoke to a number of recreational dredgers in my search for gold in central Idaho, partially because of my concern for the fish.  One of the most surprising responses to my questions about the effects on fish was that these guys routinely have fish swimming all around them while they dredge!  Dredging stirs up bottom materials, which contain aquatic insects, so the fish gather around the dredge hole to feed, and the fish don’t have any problem avoiding entrainment into the suction hose either.  Oftentimes these dredge holes (which are around throughout the summer, until being filled back in the spring during high water flows) provide habitat for fish during the warm summer months as well. 

Another one of my surprises was the relatively small area that can be dredged by a single person over time, and the incredible resiliency of the river to return to its former state.  The vast majority of dredge holes are filled up after spring flows, and gravel in the river redistributes itself so that most of the time, a year later, you can’t even tell an area was dredged. 

While the word dredging often conjures up disturbing images in people’s minds, if you take a look at the research, surprisingly little effects on fish populations can be found.  This came as a huge surprise for me, since I figured that dredging must be harmful to fish.  Take a look at the literature on the following web page: Suction Dredging and the Environment.  Granted, this page is run by a mining supply company, so any paper stating that suction dredging is harmful might be left out, but I would challenge you to look up all available literature on suction dredging.  I’m confident that an overwhelming majority of the studies fail to show an effect. 

That being said, I failed to mention that I am speaking of suction dredging done under typical conditions during specific seasons (the current status quo in most areas).  I would be foolish to say that suction dredging doesn’t have an effect on spawning redds, or fish eggs that are incubating in the gravel, since dredging effectively removes the gravel, and would likely destroy eggs sucked up from redds.  In streams where fish spawn in the spring, dredging is usually limited to specific seasons (I believe it begins June 1st in many areas, for example), to allow for incubating eggs to hatch and for fry to swim out of the gravel and into the water column, where they can avoid disturbance.  If dredging only begins after fish hatch from the gravel, and ends before redds are constructed, I am not convinced that it has any significant effect on fish populations or habitat.  The incredible dynamics of stream systems involve the flushing of sediments downstream during high flows, which redistributes gravel, and in my opinion, likely masks the effects of dredging.   Furthermore, many areas lack the redisribution of gravel downstream due to the changing flow patterns resulting from dams.  In some cases, dredging can help loosen the gravel and make it easier for trout and salmon to dig spawning redds. 

If you’ve read this blog before, you know that I don’t like regulations that aren’t based on science.  I would encourage anyone who has an interest to read up on recreational suction gold dredging.  Go beyond the opinion pieces from special interest groups, and look at the primary, peer reviewed literature.  I think the facts will show that a common sense approach to recreational gold dredging, with seasonal protections for fish, promotes economic well being and recreation, and does not pose a threat to fish populations. 

A couple of days ago, I linked to a Minnesota story about the destruction to a state fish hatchery caused by area flooding.  Apparently, human infrastructure wasn’t the only thing affected by the flooding.  Reports are showing that the flooding severely affected many trout streams, washing fish downstream, and widening stream banks and filling of holes that were once used by fish.  Wide, shallow streams are almost never good trout producers.  Let’s hope, for the anglers’ sake, that the damage wasn’t as bad as it appears.

See the story here

In a related story, storms in Summit County, Colorado appear to have killed a large number of fish in the Snake River.  Officials are unsure whether or not the fish died as a result of toxic inputs to the stream resulting from mining, or an incredibly high sediment load.

Story here

A local Wisconsin newspaper has a story on stream improvement being conducted by the U.S. Forest Service, Trout Unlimited, and Wisconsin DNR.  The Deerskin River, a class 1 trout stream, was used to transport logs to mills in the early 1900’s, and had a number of dams constructed on it, in addition to other habitat changes making it less suitable for trout.  Periodic habitat enhancement has been ongoing since the 1960’s.

See the story here

One of the stream improvement activities that puzzles me is the removal of alders.  Apparently, it is believed that alder branches are redirecting stream flow, which is widening the banks, so workers are removing these alders and instead placing brush piles in strategic locations.  I can’t speak from too much experience, but as far as I know, alders are almost always good for a stream.  They provide shade to the stream, which keeps the water cool and protects fish from predators from above.  I’ve always considered alders as important to maintaining a diverse stream flow regime.  If anything, they keep the banks stable, and redirect flow in a way that causes sinuosity in a stream, which almost always means more and better stream habitat, including pools and undercut banks.  Maybe the nature of this specific stream requires alder removal to accomplish restoration goals, but I would have to see alder removal work first hand before believing it actually does a stream any good. 

If you have experience with such activities as part of stream restoration, please contact me or post in the comments section.  I’d definitely like to hear more.

See the details of two fish ladder improvements at dams on Oregon’s Schooner Creek.  The projects should help more trout and salmon access stream habitat above the dams.

Remember the story about a road closure in a Washington wilderness area due to bull trout presence? 

Well a similar story has shown up in the news recently with some controversy over whether or not the National Park Service should re-build a severely flooded section of the Carbon Road, which usually sees about 100,000 visitors each year.

See the story here