by Scott | Feb 25, 2013 | News, Radio Telemetry Pilot Study, Tracking Updates
As you’ve probably noticed, we’ve refreshed our website. Our goal is to provide you with easy access to the latest news about our McKenzie River trout studies – the Five-Year Mark & Recapture Study (2010 – 2014) and the Radio Telemetry Pilot Study (2012 – 2013). Don’t worry, all of the fun stuff is still here – including Meet Our Fish! and Follow Our Fish! We also encourage you to visit and befriend our flagship fish, Floyd, on Facebook. This past weekend’s weather put a damper on tracking plans, but expect more in the upcoming week! We are also planning some aerial surveys in the near future, which should shed light on a few of our missing fish....
by Scott | Feb 25, 2013 | News, Radio Telemetry Pilot Study
Our first radio-tagged rainbow trout, nicknamed “Radio,” was tagged on October 14, 2012, at River Mile 20.0, by Arlen Thomason, Steve Brehm, and ODFW’s Jeff Ziller. Learn more about “Radio” or track him through our online tracking applet “Follow Our Fish!” Surgery Summary (courtesy Arlen Thomason) Lots of big October caddis were about, and while fishing a large dry fly (Michael T. Williams’ “Percolator”), Stevie hooked into a dandy redside that went airborne and then ripped line off his reel as it headed downstream in a fast current. After a considerable battle, we netted his 16″ beauty. We put it in a cooler of river water and phoned Jeff Ziller to come over and perform the surgical honors later in the evening. In the meantime, we kept “Radio” (as Stevie affectionately dubbed his new friend) in good shape by changing her (his?) water every half hour, while we continued pursuit of its brethren. We hooked several more trout, but only one rainbow which appeared big enough to radio tag; and alas, I lost that one when it jumped one last time and spit the hook at my feet. After the Beavers game was over (of course) Jeff and his son Dan arrived via jet sled, bearing the surgical kit and the know-how. Here are a few shots of the tagging operation, which was quite interesting to see. The first step was to move Radio from my cooler to Jeff’s, which contained fresh water spiked with an anesthetic that prepared the fish for surgery. When the fish was calm and compliant, Jeff used a scalpel to make a small incision into...
by Scott | Feb 18, 2013 | News, Radio Telemetry Pilot Study, Tracking Updates
We did more car tracking this weekend – on Friday, two of our volunteers took off upriver in search of Floyd and others who had perhaps escaped our initial study section. They again located Floyd (#014) and Stanley (#011). Floyd’s tag was giving off a very strong signal, very near the bank. Suspicious. While I was standing by the highway trying to pinpoint the location of 014, Jeff and Kelly came by and stopped to help. The signal was so strong (signal strength ~200 at gain of 30) that we wondered whether it was actually in the water. On the bank was a tall tree that would be a perfect osprey perch, and the blackberry vines below it were covered in bird droppings. The signal seemed to be strongest in those blackberries. We searched there for a while but it was like a needle in a haystack, and we didn’t find a tag. We can go back and look again when we have work gloves and boots to sort through the briars; a metal detector would come in handy if anybody has one. We can’t rule out the possibility that the tag is in the water just off the bank, but it didn’t look like good trout holding water. Two other volunteers went up on Saturday to try to pinpoint Floyd’s location. The volunteers were able to determine that Floyd was indeed in the water. As you can see in the attached video, the signal is coming from calm water in Leaburg Lake. The pile of logs directly in the center of the frame is the likely resting spot...
by Scott | Feb 9, 2013 | News, Radio Telemetry Pilot Study, Tracking Updates
After the past two weeks of tracking, we expected to have to hunt a bit to find our AWOL fish. On 2/9, we took the car for a drive up the McKenzie Highway with a roof-mounted antenna. We located two fish, #011 at river mile 28.6 (about 4.5 miles upstream from our study section) and… Floyd…#014… Good ol’ Floyd decided to skip town and run almost 20 miles up the McKenzie. He was found in front of Ike’s Pizza at river mile 40.0! Wow. With three fish still missing, our search radius just expanded substantially. Floyd apparently had some downtime after grabbing pizza at Ike’s, and is now...
by Scott | Feb 1, 2013 | News, Radio Telemetry Pilot Study
We ran downstream this week, covering almost 16 miles of water from Bellinger Landing (RM 19.0) to Armitage Park (RM 3.5). We found five of our fish; three in the immediate vicinity of the Bellinger ramp. Two others (Sven and Mike S.) have taken up residence at RM 17.3. The combination of last week’s jet sled trip and this week’s drift have covered the majority of the Lower McKenzie. In total, we’ve searched from RM 3.5 up to RM 27.0. As you can see above, our fish are evenly dispersed in a relatively narrow band of river between RM 17.3 and RM 22.6. Despite our recent searches, we’ve got five fish who are AWOL: 009 “Gil” – last seen 11/16 at RM 20.6 011 “Stanley” – last seen 11/30 at RM 22.3 014 “Finn” – last seen 11/24 at RM 22.6 015 “Dixie” – never located 020 “Harvey” – last seen 11/30 at RM 19.1 So where are they? The suspicion on the street is they’re tucked into side channels and/or locations (crevices?) which make getting a radio signal difficult. We have acquired a new receiver which may make detection easier, and plan to cover the area above the study section next week (week of...
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...
