Salmon Season Has Begun - Word on the Street Version...

I look forward to seeing what the future has in store... thanks for your input.

3) When you are counting smolt that are returning to the sea, how many days a week do you sample, what is your average return, and what statistical analysis are applied to account for all the factors that can end up in a dead fish throughout its lifecycle.
4) How accurate would you say your fish counts are? The NMFS go out and try to count rockfish every year, by taking bottom trawls, doing line transects over reefs, and doing surface trawls for juvenile fish and are constantly having to refine their science after finding that they have disproved themselves.

Brendan,
I'll answer a couple for you:
3. There's a lot of different stuff in this question but I'll give it a try.  In this area, creeks and rivers are usually trapped (sampled does not describe this type of effort) for smolts for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week from March until the middle of June and these traps are checked a minimum of once a day, during peak migration twice a day.  These efforts are usually very accurate and time consuming to say the least and will get you an estimate of smolts leaving the system you are trapping.  Average return?  Can't get that until you get an accurate count  or estimate of returning adults.  Good salmonid return rates are 1-3%, most are alot less than that.  The last part of your question is sort of rehashing the first part.  

4.  These fish counts are very accurate but only tell part of the story of a salmon's lifecycle.  You absolutely cannot compare counting rockfish in the ocean and salmon in a river.

The reason for the decline of the slivers is that they are the easiest of the salmons to catch in the ocean.

I think you'll get plenty of rebuttals to that one - primarily that they spend a year in the stream and stream degradation/lack of water are beyond widespread and now just totally commonplace.  Coho and steelhead don't have a chance in many of the streams around here.  Mendo passes out the Eel's water so I guess the residents there don't need to pump all the water out of the local streams.  That's exactly what happens up here.  A very wet year is the only time you have something resembling "healthy" salmonid runs up here, and that's not referring to numbers, just the basics of water and gravel.

The kings are a very tough fish. I fish for them when i was a kid in San Jose. There where good runs up some of those so called destroyed rivers right along hwy 101 through the middle of San Jose. Steelhead ran right up to the IMB plant in South San Jose and spawned in the little culvert where IBM was pumping out polluted ground water. These are very tough fish. What really hurt the San Jose runs is when the press found out about them and they got in TV. Every bum with a ptich fork had salmon dinner for a couple of years.

the Russian has always had a good run of kings since i first moved up here in 92. It was just kept very secret. It wasnt until that huge run of 5k fish that the local paper wrote a story about the "Return of the Salmon". A couple of the old timers i take diving with me tell me of fishing for the kings in the 70's in the russian. Except for last year the runs of kings and steelhead has been very strong on the Russian, maybe your counts where down but there where lots of kings on the beds and I had no problem catching lots of steelhead.

The Eel has a huge problem with an invasive species eating all the salmon and steelhead smolts and eggs. They are of course the squawfish. I dive the Eel for crawfish all the time and the river is loaded with these predators, every hole has a school of gravid females just waiting for a smolt snack. I am suprised that any smolts make it to the ocean.

In August i got a premit from NOAA and DFG to spear squawfish for a couple of days to see how spooky the fish are, someone said that you can only get one before they stay away. I showed DFG how to bait the squawfish and how one can kill a bunch of them. I suggested that they offer a bounty of a few dollars per adult fish and let a couple of hundred selected professional hunters make a living for a few years as they wipe them out. I will let you know what happens, DFG enforcement is holding up the show.

4) How accurate would you say your fish counts are? The NMFS go out and try to count rockfish every year, by taking bottom trawls, doing line transects over reefs, and doing surface trawls for juvenile fish and are constantly having to refine their science after finding that they have disproved themselves.

Brendan,
I'll answer a couple for you:

4.  These fish counts are very accurate but only tell part of the story of a salmon's lifecycle.  You absolutely cannot compare counting rockfish in the ocean and salmon in a river.

I'd have to disagree on the accuracy of salmon counts. They are ok in certain situations but generally there's quite a bit of inaccuracy. Smolt trapping can work well but all you need is a wet spring and accuracy is pretty much out the window. Spawner surveys have all kinds of issues: subjectivity in redd ID, double-counting of fish, a lack of information on how many redds are built by each female, how many fish a redd accounts for, crappy statistical methods for dealing with counts, etc. etc. Counting juvenile fish has its own inaccuracies not to mention the fish have a long, long way to go to make it to the spawning run so without good estimates of parr to smolt survival and/or ocean survival, how useful are they? However, it certainly is easier to get a handle on fish numbers in a small river than it is for ocean species like rockfish. Talk about a big black box! I think Brendan has the right idea about all of us just trying to keep ourselves educated and informed on the fisheries we partake in. There is decent information out there to make informed decisions and use common sense. That way, we can form our own opinions of how and what we should fish for. Brendan, you have some great questions - lots of writing to try and answer and some I think the jury is still out. If I get a bit of time in the near future, I'll try to send you a few links since you seem interested.

Abking, good point. I highly doubt that the coho's big problem is that they are too easy to catch when compared to Chinook. Habitat issues and ocean conditions have way more to do with it. Coho have generally smaller populations than Chinook in CA, generally live in smaller streams, and there hasn't been the massive hatchery production that has kept the Chinook population high.

Ocean_314, I'd be wary about considering squawfish eradication as the silver bullet in saving the Eel populations as well. I'm all for getting as many of them out of there as possible. If you're good at it, slay as many as you can. Just don't expect that to solve all the problems.

Sean, you really think steelhead shouldn't be listed in Sonoma County? They are nowhere near where they were even in the recent past. The Russian is so steeped in steelheading history - just tapping into that historical information without considering any science whatsoever tells me that the Russian has been hosed. The Russian and the Eel were arguably the greatest steelhead rivers on the West Coast. Yeah, there are quite a few wandering homeless spam hatchery fish to catch, sure. But wild fish? They are in bad shape. When it comes to wild steelhead and the current number of anglers fishing for them across their range in general, I don't believe that there are any populations that can handle wild fish harvest, with or without a hatchery present. The only places left where you can even legally keep a wild steelhead in the lower 48 is the Smith (horrible past 2 seasons and heavier harvest of wild fish every year without any data to make informed decisions) and the Olympic Peninsula in WA. Even up there things have been declining as the pressure has increased dramatically. Quite a few folks are pushing to stop wild steelhead harvest these days including many great angler groups (Wild Steelhead Coalition for example). It's getting to the point where OP anglers are boycotting guides who allow the killing of wild steelhead. I'd like to see the same start happening on the Smith. We should all beware of shifting baseline syndrome, especially those of us that are fisheries biologists. I, at least, have higher expectations.

Everyone that likes to fish for steelhead should check out Rivers of a Lost Coast, great documentary that's making the rounds right now and chronicles the decline of our great North Coast rivers. They're showing it at the Sportsmen's Club in Duncans Mills Oct. 17th. You can get tickets at King's in Guerneville. It's a good picture of "what was".

SlayRide u got your stuff wired tight!!! from the fishes mouth!!! and I say that not disrespectfuly... great run down on whats goin on... I grew up on the russian and it's far from what it used to be...and the eel... I think us hard core fishermen are longing for the "old west" days!!! way freaking long gone...but yet we try..great thread Abking!!! I love the info we get packed in just a few posts...

I agree, Sledge.  Good info exchange and no personal attacks.

Slayride,
When I gave the answer to #4 above I was talking about smolt trapping without trying to get into all the intricacies of it.  Big rains during the spring might create bigger error bars but smolt trapping is still accurate if you look at results over a number of years.  You still get a very informed idea of how many fish make it out of a stream, hence when I said they were accurate.  And yes counting adults is harder and less accurate, but on smaller streams can be fairly accurate, like studies going on out in Ft. Bragg monitoring coho and steelhead.  How useful?  Depends on what you want to know, but when you start these efforts you start to get good sense of populations and what are the limiting factors affecting the fish in the watersheds monitored.   These efforts are still much more useful than word of mouth through the years based on what fisherman or residents of these streams say and then that making it into literature like the number 50,000 steelhead for the Russian which was a number out of hat that is still used today.

I generally don't agree with your scale of quite a bit of inaccuracy across the board, its misleading.

Slayride,
When I gave the answer to #4 above I was talking about smolt trapping without trying to get into all the intricacies of it.  Big rains during the spring might create bigger error bars but smolt trapping is still accurate if you look at results over a number of years.  You still get a very informed idea of how many fish make it out of a stream, hence when I said they were accurate.  And yes counting adults is harder and less accurate, but on smaller streams can be fairly accurate, like studies going on out in Ft. Bragg monitoring coho and steelhead.  How useful?  Depends on what you want to know, but when you start these efforts you start to get good sense of populations and what are the limiting factors affecting the fish in the watersheds monitored.   These efforts are still much more useful than word of mouth through the years based on what fisherman or residents of these streams say and then that making it into literature like the number 50,000 steelhead for the Russian which was a number out of hat that is still used today.

I generally don't agree with your scale of quite a bit of inaccuracy across the board, its misleading.

I don't think it's all that misleading so agree to disagree on that part I guess. I used to do some of those coho and steelhead surveys out in Ft. Bragg area and they aren't that accurate for detecting trends in the small populations out there. Some of the guys that do them like to think they are. They even like to pretend they can tell a coho redd from a steelhead redd every time they see one and no fish are around. Yeah, right. They certainly are no where near accurate for steelhead. Hell, you hardly even see any adult steelhead during most of the season. For coho, they're ok and definitely useful but during a big water year with turbid conditions, surveying is tough. I agree with everything else you're saying. We definitely need to monitor and continue to try and improve the survey methods. I just don't think the surveys are that accurate, especially when we're talking about tiny populations. The difference between 400 spawners and 500 spawners is a really big difference when trying to track any trends in the population, but the difference in those 2 numbers could be error rather than reality.

When it comes to smolt trapping, it depends on the stream as well. Screw traps are NOT accurate. Plain and simple. Pipe traps do well if you have a small stream that cooperates.

1) What, if anything, happens when a hatchery and wild fish cross breed? Are their genetic codes absolutely the same, or are we producing some sort of genetically mutated salmon having either positive attributes that result in a higher survival rate or genetically weakened salmon that are weaker, more susceptible to disease etc.. I have seen where genetic abnormalities occur from crossbreeding, and an unstable genetic can occur unless backcrossed over for a few lifecycles... I guess that could potentially occur if successive generations of wild/hatchery crossed fish return to their tributary to produce babies. It would be really interesting to monitor this one into the future...
2) When a wild fish is taken from the wild to harvest its roe for a hatchery from, lets say, the Eel River, is that genetic code then reintroduced as a blanket strain to all of the Eel Rivers tributaries?...

Thankyou for your time!

Hey Brendan, I'm done with work now so I'll give the 1st 2 a shot. Bluefin covered the last 2.

1. Survival goes down. The best recent paper discussing this question is:

Genetic Effects of Captive Breeding Cause a Rapid, Cumulative Fitness Decline in the Wild

by
Hitoshi Araki, Becky Cooper, Michael S. Blouin

Here's the abstract to get you the gist. If you want the entire thing, I can email or mail it to you.

"Captive breeding is used to supplement populations of many species that are declining in the wild. The suitability of and long-term species survival from such programs remain largely untested, however. We measured lifetime reproductive success of the first two generations of steelhead trout that were reared in captivity and bred in the wild after they were released. By reconstructing a three-generation pedigree with microsatellite markers, we show that genetic effects of domestication reduce subsequent reproductive capabilities by ~40% per captive-reared generation when fish are moved to natural environments. These results suggest that even a few generations of domestication may have negative effects on natural reproduction in the wild and that the repeated use of captive-reared parents to supplement wild populations should be carefully reconsidered."

2. The quick answer is: many times, yes. However, the Eel doesn't have hatchery production anymore. Your question in more general terms really depends on the river, the state, etc. and it's definitely changing as hatchery reform policy makes its way down the pipes. In Washington, hatcheries are everywhere and fish have been moved all over the place. Most hatchery summer and winter steelhead up there across the entire state originally came from a single river (summer sthd are Skamania strain from the Washougal River and winter sthd are all from Chambers Creek, a small trib to Puget Sound)! As a CA example, coho from the egg collecting station (finally closed) on the Noyo River have been moved all over the state and the Mad River Hatchery has raised fish in the past for stocking and spreading disease elsewhere. These days, there are definitely more "conservation hatcheries" where they try their best to mimic wild conditions and only use broodstock from within the basin. This could be theoretically better but there ARE issues and some people believe these types of hatcheries should only be used as an absolute last resort for populations that are on the brink, myself included. We just don't know everything about salmonids that we need to in order to safely produce fish. To think we do is pretty arrogant in my opinion. Each river's populations have adapted to local conditions over geologic time frames. Think of it like this - the magic of a hatchery is you can increase the survival of eggs by creating a perfect environment without predators, flow changes, etc. In the wild, eggs in the gravel might have ~20% or lower survival whereas in a hatchery survival is up above 90% You only need a handful of individuals in a hatchery to make thousands of juveniles that are all closely related. Therefore, if you have 10,000 juvenile hatchery fish for example, the genetic diversity is much less than it would be in 10,000 juvenile wild fish because many more parents were needed to make the wild fish. When natural conditions do something unfavorable that affects fish (ocean conditions the last few years), the wild ones are in a better position to have survivors since there are different genetics floating around. When the hatchery fish are affected, many more will be toast. The Sac is almost all hatchery Chinook these days. If the majority of the Sac fish were wild, who knows? They may have fared much better and we might have had a salmon season this year.

Slayride nice piece you wrote. Yes i know that other factors play in the decline of the salmon and steelhead on the Eel but the removal of the squawfish would go a long ways to restoring some the the numbers of fish. That said, I just presented my findings and recomendations to NOAA and F&G a couple of weeks ago..so we shall see what they do with it. The people i am talking to are much more concerned with the coming MLPA as they fish in the ocean.

I think a more telling study is to follow hatchery raised and released salmon and steelhead that are returning from the ocean and then spawning in the river. How do these eggs and fry do compared to wild returning fish. From what i have seen with the hatchery steelhead spawning in the Russian and the Kings spawing in the Feather, they both seem to lay lots of eggs just like the wild fish do.

Putting hatchery raised steelhead and salmon onto spawing beds without spending time in the ocean, is  just by common sense going to have fewer successes and weaker young.

...and just so everyone knows, CA and OR are not exempt from having had fish from a few basins trucked to almost every river in the state over the last 100 years.  These hatchery fish might not have "taken over" genetically in every river or for every species, but they have contributed to overall diminished genetic diversity, some places or species more than others.

I guess we'll agree to disagree on "accuracy."  I think its easier to monitor trends in tiny populations than trends in larger populations like steelhead in the Russian versus coho or Chinook in the Russian.  I work with a lot of those guys on the coast and think they do a great job with monitoring fish out there especially coho, which are on the brink for the local ESU.  Everyone who has ever monitored any fish species knows there are weather conditions which will hamper surveying or sampling, so you do your best, but that doesn't mean that just because you had one bad flow event that everything is inaccurate, thats what long term monitoring is all about.

Well enough about salmonids and to my first love, SoCal pelagics, what are you working on now.

To much water for the Russian not enough for the Eel.On my recent trip to the Klamath driving over the bridges on the Eel it was pathetic, then yesterday I had to go south, and see all that Eel water going down to feed the ever increasing growth. Earlier this summer I was watching the flows into Lake Mendo then I went to the flows  at Fort Seward and guess what there was more water flowing into Mendo than flowing in the main stem Eel. The Eel used to be a salmon factory. If you want more fish to count start by restoring the rivers to there natural flows I know this is oversimplified but, and maybe I will catch some crap.  If you do that maybe some of the other things will start to fall into place. This is a very complicated issue with a lot of differant viewpoints and this is just my opinion.  I know this might be a little off track of where the conversation was headed however it is something that has needed to be said.  Craig

To much water for the Russian not enough for the Eel.On my recent trip to the Klamath driving over the bridges on the Eel it was pathetic, then yesterday I had to go south, and see all that Eel water going down to feed the ever increasing growth. Earlier this summer I was watching the flows into Lake Mendo then I went to the flows  at Fort Seward and guess what there was more water flowing into Mendo than flowing in the main stem Eel. The Eel used to be a salmon factory. If you want more fish to count start by restoring the rivers to there natural flows I know this is oversimplified but, and maybe I will catch some crap.  If you do that maybe some of the other things will start to fall into place. This is a very complicated issue with a lot of differant viewpoints and this is just my opinion.  I know this might be a little off track of where the conversation was headed however it is something that has needed to be said.  Craig

Spot on, Craig.  Thanks for writing that.

I definitely feel like the Eel gets the shaft.  Talk about dams needing to be removed.  The mighty Eel in the summer is just pathetic.