Whiskey Creek Fly Fishing » Conservation

River Why coming soon to San Francisco

WhiskeyCreek — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 02:43:14 +0000

The River Why is coming to San Francisco, Wednesday, June 23, at the Presidio.

Trout on Tap

WhiskeyCreek — Tue, 25 May 2010 02:30:17 +0000

This is interesting. Nestle is planning a bottled water plant, for spring water, in Oregon. These always result in battles between those that want to protect the resources, and those that want to use the resources or want a job. This battle was recently fought in McCloud, CA which resulted in Nestle backing out.

Now, they are trying a new tactic. First, pull the spring water out of the spring to bottle it, then replace it with tap water for the fish.

OK, go click that link and read the article. Go ahead, I’ll still be here.

This doesn’t pass the “what the what?” test. Yes, they will be spending millions of dollars, and hire dozens of people, to pump water out of a river, and pump the same amount of tap water back in.

Can’t they just put “mineral spring” tasting minerals into the tap water and call it good?

Eat Well and Save the Fish

WhiskeyCreek — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 12:46:48 +0000

My arm was twisted into participating in the company Earth Day events. Sustainable fishing was the mandate. I ran through the possibilities: catch and release fishing, wild and native fish restoration, conservation of fishing habitat, and other topics. Since the vast majority of folks at work don’t fish, but most eat fish, I ended up talking about sustainable fish. Plus, with the help of Seafood Watch, I was able to snag some hand-outs and a pretty cool demo of their iPhone app. (I used an iPad for the demo, and in reality, the iPad had as much, if not more interest than sustainable fishing)

Change you can’t believe in

WhiskeyCreek — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 05:20:47 +0000

When you have a good thing, any event that changes the status quo makes us nervous. A change appears to be coming to the management of Idaho’s Harriman State Park. Of course, I don’t need to inform you kind readers that the Henry’s Fork flows through Harriman State Park, and this is the storied section of the river.

The state agency that oversees Harriman state park may be “reorganized”, which puts a lot of uncertainty in the park. According to the press release from the Henry’s Fork Foundation:

Idaho Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter has proposed the elimination of general funding for the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation (IDPR) as part of the 2010 state budget. The elimination of IDPR potentially means the loss of public access to state parks and facilities all over Idaho, including the world-famous Harriman State Park in Fremont County.

…According to State sources, the Governor has recommended that responsibility for park maintenance be transferred to the Idaho Department of Lands, with a goal of continuing to operate state parks.

This may be a rational reorganization of the management team that operates the Idaho state parks. These are tough times economically, which reduces state income, and rational organizations adapt to live in their means.

But then again, bureaucrats are making these decisions. Bureaucrats tend to base decisions to protect the bureaucracy, not little things like reason, wild trout, angler access, and preserving nature for future generations.

Damn straight that anyone who visits that slice of heaven known as “The Ranch” has the right to be concerned.

Its time to break out that hope.

Raise a glass of Kendall Jackson

WhiskeyCreek — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:59:22 +0000

DSC05785, Kendall-Jackson Wine Center, Santa Rosa, California, USA, originally uploaded by jimg944.

The Kendall Jackson winery has figured out how to keep their wine production clean with less water. They will be saving 6 million gallons of water.

This means there are 6 million gallons of water more for the Salmon & Steelhead of the Russian River.

Three Cheers!

Mmmm… Wild Salmon

WhiskeyCreek — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 11:18:05 +0000

I’m a fan of Alton Brown, and he is a fan of wild salmon. Sit back and enjoy the Good Eats episode “Gills Gone Wild” and learn a thing or two about cooking salmon.

He also argues the case of Wild v. Farmed from a foodie perspective. No mention of sea lice.

Now that’s Good Eats

Some good news at Caples Lake

WhiskeyCreek — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 05:18:54 +0000

Last year, the dam that forms Caples lake was in need of repair. So, the lake level was drawn down. I was lucky enough to participate in a multi-organization coalition that helped rescue some of the fish and relocate them to other nearby lakes. We moved about 5000 fish out of this lake, including a dozen that weighed double-digits.

Good news coming from Caples, the fishing this year has been very good. The lake has responded well to replacement stocking this spring.

I hope they are healthy

WhiskeyCreek — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 13:16:35 +0000

Chile uses 350 times the antibiotics on their farmed salmon as does Norway. I don’t think this means that Chilean salmon is 350 times healthier than Norway salmon.

I don’t know about you, but I’ll be asking about the origin of those salmon filets next time I fire up the smoker. (yes, I’ll have to buy salmon, I live in California, and can’t afford an Alaska trip this year).

My smoked salmon recipe doesn’t include Florfenicol.

Wild Salmon Grilled on Cedar Plank, by woodleywonderworks on flickr

Shasta River Coho Restoration – The Nature Conversancy

WhiskeyCreek — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 01:52:47 +0000

Had a great day fishing the McCloud River Preserve the other day, part of the Nature Conservancy. Afterwards, while taking a rehydration break at the cabin, we ran into Christopher Babcock, one of the Field Scientist who keep the Preserve running. An actual River Keeper.

After chit-chat about fishing success (or lack thereof), weather, smoking regulations on the Preserve, and the like, he mentioned the recent grant that the Conservancy received to restore the Shasta River at Big Springs. This was recently written about at the Trout Underground.

You know when you are talking with someone, and that light goes off in their eyes when the topic turns to a topic where they are passionate? That happened. He lit up with energy and enthusiasm about the great opportunity that has come across, to restore the coho run on the Shasta River.

Watershed Institute of UC Davis staff work to monitor the river. The Watershed Institute is working in parternship with the Nature Conservancy. Photo Credit: Bridget Besaw

For years, agriculture operations have been slowly killing this river, and the baby salmon that call it home. The cool 55 degree water was being pumped out to irrigate plants, and the runoff returned at ambient temperature. This is fine for the plants, but it way too warm for the salmon fry. The river has also been used to irrigate the local cattle population. The cows walking in the river tend to flatten out cut banks and channels in the river, which also warms up the water.

Coho Salmon, photo credit: redakuma

Christopher described the strategy they are using to restore the coho salmon habitat:

Protect the riparian area with fencing to keep the cattle away.
Restore the channel, to allow deeper (and cooler) water to flow
Assist the repopulation of Coho Salmon

Build it and they will come: this works for crooked baseball players, but is pretty slow for salmon restoration. We mentioned the idea of introducing hatchery salmon to populate the river. Christopher schooled us on the genetics of hatchery fish, and instead shared his idea of introducing fertilized eggs to the ecosystem. This gives the Coho run a jump-start, but they still have to fight it out against nature to survive – so only the fittest return to fill the next generation gene pool.

That chat was a highlight of the day.

McCloud River at the Preserve

Here is how the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) describes the project:

This project will improve more than 11 miles of important salmon spawning and rearing habitat along the Shasta River and tributaries by supporting natural revegetation of 70 acres of the riparian zone and actively planting 20 riparian acres. Additional activities include creating structural improvements to allow for fish-friendly irrigation. These efforts will protect cold water springs, enhance cold water flows, and restore aquatic habitat critical for Chinook, steelhead, and threatened coho salmon in the Shasta River, which is the last major tributary before the mainstem Klamath River dams and crucial for salmonid restoration.

20 acres of riparian habitat restored, 70 additional acres enhanced, and 11.2 stream-miles improved for salmon

What a cool finish to a day on the water…

Hot Dam!

WhiskeyCreek — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 04:22:07 +0000

Thanks to a comment from Jim McCarthy, where he pointed to the WaterWatch web site, we have a cool video to watch where dams actually get blown up! The Water Watch organization is working to eliminate four dams on the Rouge river, with the goal to have the Rouge flow un-impeded for 157 miles.

Check out this video from January:

The video shows the staging for removal of the Savage Rapids dam, the #1 fish killer in Oregon. Here is a shot from the WaterWatch web site of the dam now. Looks like it won’t be killing too many fish in the future!

Three down, one to go!

Congratulations WaterWatch.