SEIFF is holding their regular monthly meeting on March 11 at 7PM. The meeting will be held at the Portneuf River Outfitters fly shop at 257 North Main St. in Old Town Pocatello.
Mr. David Teuscher, Fisheries Biologist for the F & G Southeast Region will be presenting his annual "State of the Fish and Water" for the 2010 season. If you have specific questions on a lake or river come and ask in person.
Mr. Matt Woodard from the Idaho Falls Trout Unlimited office will also have some important proposals concerning habitat restoration on Lane and Diamond Creeks.
Meetings are open to the public and there is no admission charge.
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Thought I would bump this in case anyone was interested and wanted a reminder.
If anyone from BFT goes would you take notes for me? I can't go this time. Wish I could.
It has always been a good meeting as F & G goes over how the local southeast Idaho waters are doing and what F&Gs plans and concerns are.
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I don't know if anyone is interested, but here are some notes from this meeting.
State of the Waters presentation by Dave Teuscher
We have 55% of the normal snowpack and about 68% of the normal precipitation for this year, but most of the large reservoirs are full. The ground water supply is good so most of the larger waters will be OK for this year. The smaller reservoirs may be drawn down, and Chesterfield is questionable. Blackfoot reservoir is also only about 50%. Next year may be problematic if we don't get a better snow pack to recharge things.
American Falls is doing well and can be expected to produce some more large fish this year. He expects that the state record will be matched or broken there again.
Edson Pond information was updated. Everything is on track to get the main part of this project finished in the coming year. It will be good to have a community fishery in Pocatello. The plans sure look great.
He has received a number of complaints from anglers at Chesterfield that the fish are smaller and the bigger fish seem to be gone. They are investigating possibilities.
They have been doing more patrolling at Daniels. There have been 63 tickets written there this year. Only 2 of those were for using bait.
The fish kill at Treasureton in 2008 has still damaged that fishery. More fish were stocked but their age class hasn’t shown up in the catches. They feel that most of the restocked fish were removed by cormorants and pelicans.
Because of the bird problems most of the small reservoirs in Southeast Idaho won’t be stocked until late in May instead of early April. They are timing the stockings to avoid the main flocks of birds that are migrating through the area.
Because of the severe bird problems at Blackfoot reservoir, it has been stocked late in the fall with larger fish. This are now seeing some improvement to the fishery there.
Pelicans that are nesting on the islands in Blackfoot Res. are really taking a toll on the native cutthroat runs in both the Blackfoot drainage and the South Fork of the Snake tributaries. Of 800 fish tagged at the Blackfoot fish trap, 300 tags showed up on the islands. Some tags found were also from the South Fork. The pelican population has grown to over 3,000. Each eats at least 3 pounds of fish per day. Fish and Game have fenced and netted off some areas of the island to reduce the nesting there. They are actively pursuing other solutions.
The Fish Haven Creek off of Bear Lake has had its projects completed successfully. Fish screens and stream improvements were built in 5 diversion dam areas. One long stream containment that restricted the stream flow was removed and replaced with a larger more natural streambed area. Native Bonneville Cutthroat from Bear Lake were replanted in the stream, and they can now return and ascend the creek to spawn. This has been a massive, but very important project to reopen this tributary to spawning.
Angler Report Cards are available in the yellow boxes at many of the main fishing accesses in Southeast Idaho. Please, fill these out and help improve our fisheries. Creel surveys and other methods of assessing the fisheries are very expensive. If more anglers will fill out the report cards on their trip it will save Fish and Game a lot of money that can be used elsewhere, and they will have a better idea of how to improve the fishing.
Questions on individual fisheries were also answered.
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Very interesting report. Thanks for posting it.
Windriver
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