by Scott | Apr 8, 2013 | News, Radio Telemetry Pilot Study, Tracking Updates
An eventful week in tracking – we floated from Leaburg Dam (RM 40.0) all the way to Bellinger Landing (RM 19.0), in hopes of finding some of the missing trout. Unfortunately, after this mission, we’re still missing eight fish! Are they up tributaries? Hidden in side channels? Upstream past RM 40.0? There were several notable developments: Stanley at RM 28.7, is very much alive, and residing in a nice tailout full of March Brown mayflies. Waldo, after nearly six months of hanging within a couple hundred meters of his original release site, rocketed upstream from RM 20.4 to RM 24.9, in the course of six days. It appears that he journeyed under his own power, as he is in a deep run which suggests he’s still swimming. Lloyd, our new addition, continues to move upstream – tagged on 3/15 at RM 19.0, he first moved to RM 19.3 last week, and is now all the way up to RM 21.0. Chicago was located last week and seems to have gone missing this week. She is 22″ long so it’s unlikely that she fell victim to avian predation. Perhaps she had just tucked up under some brush or in a side channel. See who’s where with Follow Our Fish! We’re starting our 2013 Mark/Recapture season soon – kickoff meeting April 30th,...
by Scott | Apr 8, 2013 | Five Year Mark & Recapture Study, News, Radio Telemetry Pilot Study
McKenzie River Wild Trout Population Study 2012 Wrapup and 2013 Kickoff Meeting Tuesday, April 30th, 2013, 6:00PM Oregon Department of Forestry Conference Room, 3150 Main St., Springfield, OR 97478 (across from ODFW office) Mark your calendars and join us for the kickoff of the 2013 Lower McKenzie River Wild Trout Population Study! Dave Thomas will be presenting our 2012 end-of-season report, with maps and preliminary population estimates for the first three years of the study. Arlen Thomason and Scott Kinney will discuss the progress and ongoing findings from the Radio Telemetry Study. The 2013 Mark/Recapture (Floy-tagging) study season will begin on May 1st and continue through the end of June. For those of you who haven’t fished the study section lately, we’ve seen dramatic improvements in the fishing since our first season. In 2010, we averaged about 3 wild trout per trip; in 2011, about 6; and in 2012, we saw almost ten wild trout landed per trip! This spring is shaping up to be the best fishing in years, with low water, warm temperatures, good hatches, and limited snowpack. Whether you can spend one day or twenty on the water, we’d love to have your help! All volunteers for the 2013 season will need to have completed the ODFW Floy-tagging training. ODFW staff will be offering Floy-tagging training after the meeting for new volunteers and previous participants who want a refresher course. If you attended a training meeting in 2010, 2011, or 2012, attendance is not required. That’s not all! We’ll be awarding prizes for 2012, and discussing exciting new prizes for 2013! Please contact redside@mckenzietroutstudy.org or shannon.e.richardson@state.or.us if...
by Scott | Apr 3, 2013 | News, Radio Telemetry Pilot Study, Tracking Updates
Our trackers floated the initial release section (Hendricks-Bellinger) on 3/29, and found only nine of the original twenty fish. This next week, we plan to float from RM 40 (Leaburg Dam) to Deerhorn (RM 32), and perhaps down to Hendricks (RM 24) if time allows. We are still working on arranging flights as well. As you can see in the attached document, we’re missing several fish and plan to call in all our available tools to find them! Twenty fish and 40+ miles of river is a big challenge especially with our tags transmitting only two days a week. Most Recent Fish Locations – 040213 Lloyd, a 327mm (12.7″) rainbow trout, is standing in for Floyd for the remainder of the study. Floyd met an untimely death in Leaburg Pool at the hands of a cormorant. Floyd continues to serve as our Facebook spokesfish from beyond the grave. We decided to reuse the tag to add an extra fish to the study, versus allowing it to expire while sitting on a desk. Lloyd will not be considered in the data analysis for the study, as he was tagged at a different time of year than the 20 other fish. As always, you can follow our fish...
by Scott | Mar 30, 2013 | News, Radio Telemetry Pilot Study, Tracking Updates
Our trackers ran from Bellinger to Hayden last week, and from Deerhorn to Hendricks this past weekend. Only two fish were acquired; Stanley (011) near Deerhorn, where he has been for a few weeks, and Mike S. (017), downstream of Bellinger. We also relocated Floyd’s tag (video soon!) and reimplanted it in Lloyd (The Artist Formerly Known As Floyd). Watch how...
by Scott | Mar 12, 2013 | News, Radio Telemetry Pilot Study, Tracking Updates
We went out tracking on 3/9 from Hendricks to Hayden. We found 10 of the fish in this stretch, with nine still in the initial study section. We found Mike S. downstream past Bellinger, and Sonya‘s finally moved a bit too. The highlight, no doubt, was finding Radio in a tailout where he could be videotaped! Check him (and his new lady friend?) out below. Recommended viewing this fullscreen and 720p...
by Scott | Mar 4, 2013 | News, Radio Telemetry Pilot Study, Tracking Updates
From our weekend volunteers: “On Friday afternoon we floated from Deerhorn Landing to Walterville Landing (at the upper end of the canal) to get a better fix on 011. We took the north channel at the top of Goat Island, as the signal seemed considerably stronger in that direction. I did walk over to the south channel, and the signal was very weak over there. Proceeding down the north channel, the signal got steadily stronger for about 300 yards or so, peaking about half way between the top of the island and the first left bend (where the flow passes over a riffle into a deep pool). This puts it about directly across from Taylor’s Landing, but in the opposite channel.” “On Saturday we floated the [initial release] study section, Hendricks-Bellinger. We located just 9 fish there. Most of those were very close to their last previously known locations, too, for whatever that info is worth; but several had gone missing since the last trip there 4 weeks ago. That leaves 9 fish that we did not find this week: 004, 007, 008, 009, 015, 017, 018, 020, 021.” We did locate Wanda, Dasha, Rusty, Lenny, Chicago, Waldo, Finn, Radio, and Eeyore. Our list of AWOLs has grown. It’s time to find our missing fish (probably by air), but until then, you can track the known quantities online with Follow Our Fish! Radio Tag ID Fish Name River Mile Last Seen 15 Dixie 23.2 10/19/2012 20 Harvey 19.1 11/30/2012 18 Sven 17.2 1/26/2013 4 Nigel 22.1 2/1/2013 7 007 20.8 2/1/2013 21 Ole 19.1 2/1/2013 17 MikeS 17.3...
