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...
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...
