by Scott | Feb 1, 2013 | Pages
Welcome to the home of the Lower McKenzie Wild Trout Population Study!
by Scott | Jan 19, 2013 | News, Radio Telemetry Pilot Study, Tracking Updates
Due to technical issues with our receiving equipment as well as a prolonged stretch of cold weather and high water, we took the month of December off from tracking our fish. On 1/18, several intrepid trackers ran a jet sled through several miles of river (RM 18.6 to 25.5) , locating 12 of our fish. It’s a mystery as to where the other eight have run off to. It is definitely possible that the fish are in the study section, yet tucked away in side channels inaccessible to the larger boat. Dasha, as seen above, makes us wonder what the winter range is for our fish. She spent several weeks within the same half-mile stretch, and then recently headed downstream a couple of miles. We will get a better idea of the movement of some of the other fish in the next week when we plan to float some of the areas outside the intial study...
by Scott | Nov 30, 2012 | News, Radio Telemetry Pilot Study, Tracking Updates
Despite more high water, our trackers were able to locate 12 fish. We witnessed several large movements – Stanley, 007, and Sven each moved over a mile since a week ago. See who’s where with Follow Our Fish! This week, we focus on “Stanley” – released on 10/13/2012 at River Mile 20.0. Over the past month and a half, Stanley has remained within our study section, but he’s been on the move! Recommend watching the video in fullscreen, and set to 720p...
by Scott | Nov 25, 2012 | News, Radio Telemetry Pilot Study, Tracking Updates
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...
by Scott | Nov 18, 2012 | News, Radio Telemetry Pilot Study
We drifted from Hendricks Bridge (RM 24.1) to Hayden Bridge (RM 14.7) on Friday, and located 17 of the 20 tagged fish. Missing this week were Sonya, Dixie, and Radio. We likely missed Radio near RM 21.0, since he has been ranging around here the past few weeks, and it’s a tough location to track fish due to multiple channels and obstructions. We also suspect that we may have found Sonya near RM 17.2 in a side channel, though we did not get a firm fix on her. None of our fish had moved much since last week. Eeyore was the big mover, dropping out of the hole at RM 22.6 into a section of very fast water at RM 22.3. Others were within 1/10 of a mile of their previous locations. We did find Mike S. for the second week in a row near RM 17.3. A high water event is due for Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday. We’ll see what this does with our fish and fish movement. For now, you can see who is where with Follow Our Fish! ...
