Winter is upon us here in the Northwest. The crisp, clear days of early October have given way to the rainstorms of November. With the rain comes high water; and this week we saw plenty of both.
The first rains in mid-October brought the water level at Walterville up from summer lows of 1,100 cubic feet per second. We saw a first spike of 4,000cfs on October 16, which corresponded with the first batch of tagged/released fish. We saw a few mild throughout late October and early November which kept the water from receding too much. Our flows in early November were surprisingly consistent with around 3,000cfs from Nov. 4th to Nov. 20th. The week of Thanksgiving brought us three large systems in a row, with over 10 inches of rain falling in the foothills near our study section. The river rose rapidly to a crest of about 18,000cfs.
We braved the high flows on Saturday 11/24 to see what sort of fish movement we’d see with the water level having settled down to about 10,000cfs on the Walterville gauge (11,200/5.0′ at Vida). It was a surprisingly easy row given the water level, though a very quick trip from Hendricks to Bellinger. We were not able to stop to pinpoint many of the fish. However, we found 13 of the 20 fish despite the conditions.
We also located Sonya for the first time since her release on 10/21. She had likely moved into one of the inaccessible side channels, but is now sitting only a few hundred feet from where she was released. We have now located 19 of our 20 fish, with the exception of Dixie, who was released at the top of the study section and may have moved upstream of our launch point.
Several fish moved this week with the high water, with moves from Sven (River mile 19.3 to RM 20.5) and Dasha (RM 19.9 to RM 20.3). We also suspect that Harvey and Ole went downstream past Bellinger (RM 19.0) from their previous locations.
See who’s where with Follow Our Fish!