So we're here on the Salmon River. This is a rotary screw trap. This is one of four that
we're running this year. This year we're doing the Salmon River, Still
Creek, Clear Fork of the Sandy, and the Lost Creek. Since 1992 we've done Still Creek
every year so this is one that we keep in place always every year and the others rotate around.
These are outgoing smolts so they're on their
way. They're juvenile 1, 2, or 3 year old fish on their way out to the ocean.
This is volutionarily spinning them into this live well where we catch them and they stay
in here. We check the trap every single morning and
if we know that there's going to be a lot of fish we'll come and check later in the
afternoon just to make sure it's not too full. We also, in conjunction
with ODFW in the Fall, do spawning surveys with the adult fish that are coming in.
And so by using both of them we can get really good population estimates on our streams here
on Mt. Hood. We're trying to catch as many coho and steelhead
as possible. We mark 25 of each of the target species and then we take them upstream. We
mark them with a special paint that stays on between one and two weeks;
we mark 25 each of the taget species, we'll take them upstream a quarter mile and then
we try to recapture them in this smolt trap. And then by determining our efficiency
of how well we're catching the fish in the smolt trap, we can then extrapolate an overall
population estimate for both steelhead and coho. Okay, we have a coho smolt,
110 mm, 16.7 grams, give him a bath, check the mark. The mark is good. Right back into
the cold, fresh water. The mark is good.
The historic populations in these streamswere much larger than they are now.Of course humans, and dams, and all, a few other things,
water quality has hurt these populations overall. So, first off, we'd like to see the populations
get back to historic numbers. We're definitely out here trying to help the populations. And
the overall goal would be to have people be able to fish for
these fish and take them home. But we're also here just to revive these populations and
to keep them going. Any species we don't want to become endangered and go away.
Everybody remembers when they were kids, especially people who live here, that there was a bunch
of fish spawning at their house, and we work really hard at it.
I would like to just say, we are seeing results, and just in the few years that Josh has been
here he's already seeing an increase in populations. So, it's backing up
our initiative to do this habitat restoration. To me it matters because we're making a difference.
What we're doing matters: we're rehabilitating thee streams and bringing the populations
back up so people do have the chance to catch fish
and there are fish for the future. I grew up in Michigan and I fished a little
bit on the lakes around my house. Then I moved to Montana and one day I was driving up along
the stream, and it was a beautiful sunny day, and I saw this guy standing in the middle
of the river fly fishing. And it was gorgeous! I mean, it was straight from, "A River Runs
Through It." You know, he had his dog with him. And so I was
like, "I want to learn how to fly fish." So I started to learn how to fly fish and I really
got into fish, and I really, really loved it. A I heard that populations, you know,
that it's harder to catch fish than it used to be. You know
all those fish stories and big stringers of fish so I really got into wanting to help
the populations out. It's hard sometimes to see what we're doing
and how it's helping, but you can see it in the numbers. So why we're doing these outgoing
smolt studies and monitoring, is because if you're not monitoring
than you won't really know what's happening. And then some day you'll ask, "What happened
to that fish?" And if we didn't pay attention to it, we'd never know.