Located just outside Portland and a stone’s throw from the Willamette River in West Linn, OR, Royal Treatment Fly Shop offers a comprehensive inventory of fly fishing equipment from top brands, and serves as a community center for conservation-minded anglers from across the Portland metro area. Named after a steelhead fly that owner Joel La Follette dreamed up on the …
Science Friday: Why is your lateral line different than mine?
Most of us working on behalf of wild steelhead love our jobs. Still, after a long week we are ready to hit the water — and share some more Science Friday steelhead knowledge. This week we touch on a study conducted by Andrew Brown at the University of Washington, along with several co-authors. The paper is here: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0059162 …
Science Friday: When fish grow and die in California
Soquel Creek is a small stream flowing into Monterey Bay about 70 miles south of San Francisco and is home to a population of winter steelhead. A group of scientists published a paper in 2009 that looked into seasonal patterns of growth, survival and movement of age-0 and age-1+ juvenile steelhead within this small California watershed. Age-0 fish are …
In Support of a Hatchery Steelhead Program in the Upper Willamette
By Dean Finnerty, Wild Steelhead Initiative Director Trout Unlimited’s Wild Steelhead Initiative is all about increasing populations of wild steelhead across their native range. Why should we care so much about wild steelhead? There are several reasons, among them the fact that wild steelhead cost nothing to produce, they can be more aggressive towards the gear anglers use to …
Science Friday: Restoring the River Salmon: The Coho Return
Today we are re-publishing an excellent article by Dan Bottom on the remarkable against all odds recovery of Salmon River Coho. This article was originally written for and published by the Reflections program at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology near Otis on Oregon’s Salmon River. This article was submitted by Dan Bottom, a current Howard L. McKee …
TU Chapter Angler Science Assists ODFW
As we all know, shortfalls in funding for our fish and wildlife management agencies are an ongoing concern. Severe budget constraints play out in many ways that impact fisheries management and sometimes angling opportunity. TU and Wild Steelheaders United are working both on-the-ground and in the halls of state legislatures to address these funding challenges. One of the first important …
Steelhead 101: Using snorkel surveys to estimate adult steelhead escapement
Another week, another post on how scientists and fisheries managers measure steelhead escapement. Last week, we described redd counts and why they are an important tool. This week, we review snorkel surveys. Snorkel surveys entail divers swimming in the river and visually counting adult steelhead. Like redd counts, snorkel surveys do not cover an entire river, but rather break …
How many steelhead can you fit into a school?
It depends on how old and big they are. Over the past year we have talked extensively about the value of life history diversity in steelhead, and in particular, that a broader range in spawn timing – which results in a broader range of emergence for juveniles – can help ameliorate density-related impacts by spreading steelhead of various ages …
What happened to our Columbia River steelhead?
By now, you have probably heard steelhead returns to the Columbia are well below the most recent ten-year average. As a result, places like the Methow River will not be open to steelhead angling this fall. In short, that is a bummer. There has been much speculation about the causes for the decline and potential fear that changes …
Juvenile steelhead doing what it takes to become a smolt: You grow in summer, I’ll grow in winter
Another Friday, another blog post on the science of steelhead. We love this day of the week! Our topic this week is the growth of juvenile steelhead. Did you know that the growth rate of steelhead can vary depending on the season of the year? This variation in growth rate can be considerable. There are a number of reasons that …