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

More water to the Eel more squawfish.

More water to the Eel more squawfish.

POST HOC ERGO PROPTER HOC (after this therefore because of this)
That's a fool's logic Ocean 314

More water to the Eel more squawfish.

Squawfish are indigenous to the Sacramento system, are they not?  The fact is, with more water they wouldn't be as much of a factor.

The Eel is a small river compared to the Sac and its tributarys. The Eel has deep holes and the shallow riffles until you get to the main stem.
The deep holes are full of squawfish just waiting for a snack of anykind to come swimming by. While the Sac and tributarys are big rivers, very wide and have plenty of places for the salmon to get by the predators. Also in the Sac system the stripers keep the numbers of squawfish way down. In the Eel nothing eats the squawfish but other squawfish, the big females i speared where well over ten lbs and these size fish are numerous and in every deep spot in the Eel.

But if there's more water flowing down the Eel, the temp would be inherently cooler, right?
As opposed to a lack of water and insufficient flows, which results in warmer temps.
And that seems to be the gasoline that's fueling the squawfish-fire...the water is warm enough to provide the squaws with ideal conditions (not-so-ideal for salmonids). So I'm not sure that more water would automatically equal more squawfish.

There's a tributary to the Salinas River called the Arroyo Seco River, and it is completely overrun w/squawfish...makes me sick to my stomach to see those things stacked on top of each other in a prime hole. Over-pumping/diversion of water has led to reduced flows, which leads to very warm water, which provides perfect conditions for squawfish to thrive. It's actually quite sad.

The Eel water has been pumped into Lake Mendocino since the 50's when the dam was built. I have talked to old timers who have fished and lived next to eel river for many years. They have all said the same thing, the eel river was laoded with steelhead and salmon until the 1980's. This is when the squawfish invasion took off. Even during the extreme low water years in the 70's they all said the river was loaded with fish. The water was so low then that a couple of old timers said that the salmon would crawl over the rapids.
Now several other factors also played into the decline of the fish. One was the advances in fishing tecnology. The sonar (fish finding ) tecnology advanced to the point where a commerical fisherman could fnd indentify and catch every fish in the sea. And guided drift boats lined up almost back to back, every fishable day during the steelhead season doing major damage. The big runs of kings  on the Russian came in the late 90's after F&G seriously cut back the commercial salmon fisherman. Before that it was around 500 fish in the upper river spawning beds.
But its real easy to see the steep decline of fish right after the squawfish took over.

To understand just how tough a fish a salmon and steelhead is just think what the rivers where like during the gold rush. During the height of the logging. These rivers where full of silt, loaded with garbage completely destroyed by todays standards yet the salmon survived, enough so that the loggers refused to work if they where not fed something different then salmon.
Go take a look at Coyote Creek/river in San jose. Its mud bottom all the way yet there was a run of several hundred kings every year until it got in TV.

Good points ocean314.
But I think it was the Guadalupe River that was featured in the Merc and on TV that got pitchforked by hobos. But they probably do the same on Coyote Ck too. There was an article in the SLO daily paper about some hobos who got cited for eating an adult steelhead from one of the local criks down there....half the article comments were pro-bo, sadly. 

You are right i was already in ukiah and was visiting my mom when i saw it on TV. I almost cried, i would fish for steelhead at where the feeder creek from IBM merged with the Gaudalupe and then fish coyote for kings from about Snell to that first park where the river ran behind it. the bums pictched forked both river to death.
Believe it or not i was hunting dove until 81 at alamden expy and curtner av at that old dairy. I used to ride my bike as a kid down curtner av from merdian with a shotgun in a case strapped to my back with a backpack full of shells. In those days there was still orchards...

San Jose tangent?!  

It's quite ironic really.  I lived on south 11th street near San Carlos and SJSU in the early to mid 70's.  I was too young to make it out to the outer reaches where a kid with a shotgun might be hunting.  Right there on that block it already seemed like a big city to me.  That block - the 3 lane one-way street with apartment houses and Victorians - is probably nearly the same now 35 years later...

ocean_314 - I like that you persisted with your replies here and shared some memories.

I lived in San Jose again - S. 5th near the SJSU Science building - for most of 92 - 94, and the Gaudalupe Salmon story made the news then too.   

In 1970 i had a summer job cutting cotts at almaden rd and foxworthy. Only job a 12 year old could get during the summer besides mowing lawns. That was the worst job in the world..i went back to mowing lawns!
San Jose where i live was paradise for a kid, kind of like Ukiah is now. Fishing and hunting close, withing walking or biking distance.

I just saw this viedo. This is the Trinty or mad river. Notice all the steelhead smolts. On the Eel i have never seen one smolt. The schools of squawfish are as thick as the thickest schools of fish in this viedo in every hole with at least 3 to 6 big 10lb gravid females in every hole i have dove.

The first part of the video is footage of Chinook salmon smolts, then adult steelhead then some nice footage of a coastal cutthroat trout.

The first part of the video is footage of Chinook salmon smolts, then adult steelhead then some nice footage of a coastal cutthroat trout.

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

Dang bluefin, you have some good eyes! I didn't even catch that those were Chinook until you said something and I rewatched. I'm glad you're in the field IDing fish!

As far as what I'm working on now, I'm tracking tuna, billfish, and sharks with various satellite and conventional tags and analyzing movement patterns/migrations. Just got back from tagging makos, blues, threshers, mola mola, and a hammerhead. That hammerhead was only 3 miles off SD! Pretty amazing warm water year. Lots of makos out there this year, not so many blues. Still trying to get the yellowtail fishing from a kayak dialed. I haven't been out in weeks since I was at sea and sliced my foot to the tendon on the reef at Tourmaline before that which knocked me out for awhile.

Thanks, Slayride, working with coho in the Russian forces you to become a fish ID expert.

Sounds like a dream job, next thing your going to tell me is that your on the Shogun fishing for the fish to tag.  Did I hit the nail on the head?  Any room for a "NOAA researcher"?