Check out the camera at Bonneville, there are a bunch of fish going through. four or five at a time. Watched it a lot in the past and never seen as many as I saw today the short time I was watching.
www.nwp.usace.army.mil/op/b/fishcam.asp
[signature]
Thanks for the link to that website, pretty cool!
[signature]
Ya I was wondering when somebody was going to say something about that. they are just under 1,000 chinook per day so there is a few of them mixed in, and actually a few coho as well, but they are mostly all steelhead. 18,671 on the 11th, and 8200 or something the day before that! Did some quick calculations off the cuff: of the 26,900 steelhead that passed bonne on those 2 days 11% of them were headed for the salmon river basin and 1% of them were headed for the clearwater. Plus, of all the chinook that have crossed since 8/1, 94% of them are headed to the snake river mainstem or tribs!
[signature]
How do they know where the fish are headed?
I saw a lamprey come by one evening. He sucked onto the glass and was there for three frames. I wonder if a sturgeon would fit in there?
Nice link. Thanks.
[signature]
www.fpc.org
this shows the fish that have pit tags that have gone over the damn and shows what hatchery they came from.
[signature]
look at the size of this wild one.
[signature]
That is a big solid fish, but look at the size of this one!!!
[signature]
both big wild fish
check the colour on this one havnt seen one that shows this well. a coho if i am identifing them right... hard to tell... for me anyways let me know if i am wrong
[signature]
I think its just a chinook bud. From the looks of things, nearly all the coho should be the same age/size as A -run steelhead or jack chinook. Plus I don't think the cohos should be colored up yet. I've just been looking at some of the coho PIT tag data, and there are a few coho that should be the same age/size as B-run steelies or cookie cutter 4 year old chinook - they all seem to be headed to the Naches River or the upper Yakima. But I could be wrong about any of this. I don't really know alot about coho.
[signature]
I realy wasnt sure, i just thought the flash of red was like a coho and couldnt see spots on the tail but at the very tip. good looking fish either way.
[signature]
The Bonneville Dam fish camera is a cool way to see the fish coming to Idaho: however, the link below will tell you the numbers that have crossed each dam. This year so far the numbers of steelhead are double the 10 year average. Watch the Salmon river for tremendous fishing this fall.
[url "http://www.cbr.washington.edu/dart/adult.html"]http://www.cbr.washington.edu/dart/adult.html[/url]
[signature]
shhh.. dont jinx it. we heard talk of huge chinnook numbers this summer and though it ended up above average it was no were near the projected.
[signature]
it says this on the bonn camera site
April 1 was the start of the 2009 fish passage season and the fish counters returned to work and began counting again. They are counting fish from 5 AM to 9 PM each day. They will count fish until the end of the fish passage season, at the end of the day on October 31.
does this mean any fish after those hours dont get counted?
[signature]
that's a good question. I think they might videotape the after hours passage and count it later. At least I know they use video counts during the winter. But I just looked at 8:00 this morning, and yesterday's count was already posted, so it is doubtful they had already watched and counted last nights video.
[signature]
Those coho could be heading for Idaho, not the Yakima or Naches. I know, coho became extinct in 1995 in Idaho (and hardly anyone seemed to notice) but some people might not be aware that the Nez Perce tribe has revived the runs. They selected a coho with similar migration conditions, and introduced them several years ago. The new Idaho run is moderately successful and is growing every year. It is now being counted in the thousands, not hundreds, and they return not only to the hatchery, but the tribe has them spawning in the Clearwater and several creeks that feed into the Clearwater. We should be grateful to the Nez Perce for doing something that no one else seemed interested in. We should also remember that this is necessary because the traditional coho runs collapsed almost overnight. Mike
[signature]
Not bad Mike, I'm moving you up to guru status. Any idea when they revived them? When I started fishing the Clearwater in fall 1997 a few of the regulars were saying that those gnarly looking salmon that were limping around the edges were coho, but nobody has said much about them since. Okay, I just looked it up and it looks like only 85 coho over LG in 97, so it's doubtful that's what they were. But 3800 in '04 and 3400 last year, that's pretty impressive. I'm happy to see them and the sockeye recovering, even if we don't get to fish for them. I think it's neat just to have them in there.
What I actually meant about the Yakima and Naches though, is that's where the big coho seem to be headed this year. . . at least what I've seen so far.
[signature]
Oh, yeah, I'm sure you're right. I also agree with you that, even if we never get to wet a line for sockeye or coho, just the fact that they are out there and that we can observe them on their redds is good enough. More importantly, that the next generations can experience this. Kudos to the Nez Perce. Don't you wonder why it has been kept off the radar, when so much has (rightly so) been written about the sockeye. Mike
[signature]
the coho actualy became extinct in 1987 here is some good stuff on them. the nez pearce are doing some great stuff with them, i am curious if they will ever do something like this up by stanley in valley creek i have heard they use to be thick in there
Snake River coho are just one of the 106 runs of Columbia River Basin anadromous fish that became extinct over time. But the story of these fish is unique because their extinction occurred recently and almost nothing was done to stop it.
In 1986, five years before petitions would be filed to add Snake River Chinook and sockeye salmon to the federal endangered species list, a single adult Snake River coho salmon crossed Lower Granite Dam on its futile return to spawn. With none of the news media fanfare that would accompany the 1991 Endangered Species Act petitions, in fact in a year when 6,895 spring Chinook, 3,934 summer Chinook, 449 fall Chinook and 15 sockeye crossed the dam, a single coho returning to spawn somewhere in one of the lower Snake River tributaries that once ran thick with them was virtually unnoticed. But with no mate, there would be no spawning. A single coho had returned in 1985, as well, but in 1987 the count was zero, and it would remain zero until 1997.
No more Snake River coho.
In 1995, the Nez Perce Tribe of Idaho began a reintroduction program by releasing into the Clearwater River Basin 630,000 coho fry reared in Mitchell Act hatcheries in the lower Columbia River. The program has been moderately successful. Coho are known to be opportunistic, prolific spawners, and the first adult returns were noted at Lower Granite Dam in 1997, a total of 85 fish. The number of returning adults grew steadily. In 2000, a total of 891 adults and 36 jacks were counted, a smolt-to-adult return ratio of less than one-tenth of one percent compared to the number of juveniles that had been released, a rate that scientists consider low. The count at Lower Granite topped 1,000 fish for the first time in 2003, and was more than 3,000 in 2004 and more than 2,000 in 2005. Jack counts have increased, as well, consistently topping 100 fish per year. In 2006, for example, a total of 263 jacks were counted at Lower Granite, the highest since 460 were counted in 1976. The 2006 adult count was lower than in recent years — 1,141 — but the trend remains upward.
The returns are not spectacular, but the fish aren’t failing, either. This is good news for an important salmon population that was swept under the rug and then revived, at least in the native habitat if not with native fish.
[url "http://www.nwcouncil.org/history/Extinction.asp"]http://www.nwcouncil.org/history/Extinction.asp[/url]
i read and posted a couple great links about this project this spring. maybe i will go search for them a bit. but yes and awsome program. Keep in mind every time you see an indian snagging, netting, harpooning a fish that if it wasnt for some of there projects. there may not be any fish or any of the awarness.
[signature]
Ya, kudos to the Nez Perce for their restoration work, I am truly grateful. Although I am a bit leary that they may have harvested too many chinook on the Rapid River this year though. I would like to see their harvest totals posted somewhere like ours are. There's no way on earth, that we should have only trapped 2060 hatchery adults at the Rapid River Hatchery this year - as it stands now, it looks like we are a little over 300 hatchery adults short of the collective broodstock goals at the Rapid River/Clearwater/Dworshak Hatcheries.
Also (not having anything to do with the tribes) I'm a little concerned that we have only trapped 545 sockeye with 1215 over LG. It seems like they trapped nearly all of the 909 that crossed LG last year.
[signature]