Tuesday, June 26, 2012

First official day in the books!

Hello again folks!

I write at a very late hour, as it's been quite a long day. I started my internship this morning at 8am sharp, and I'm just now about to go to bed. I apologize for lack of enthusiasm in some parts of this post, as I am quite tired. But, here's the gist of what my day looked like!

I started my morning by making my way across the Yaquina Bay bridge and finding the ODFW office for the first time. Funny enough, the ODFW office is located off of Alder Street in kinda-central Newport, just off Highway 101. Not that that's funny, the funny part is that it's located on the top floor of Newport's Pig 'N Pancake restaurant. You'd think that ODFW, especially down here in the center of all the action near the coast, would have a much bigger establishment. Definitely not the case, but I think that it reflects one of many things. I think one of the biggest things it reflects is that, at least in this district, a huge office isn't exactly necessary, and might not even be practical. They have everything they need, packed into one neatly packed space. Maybe not so neatly packed in some cubicles, but they make great use of the space that they have.

Immediately upon entering the office as I'm greeted by Christine Clapp, the mid-coast region's Salmon Trout Enhancement Program (STEP) biologist and my supervisor for this summer, I don't recognize much that would make one think it's not just your typical office. Cubicles upon cubicles fill the room - with your standard desktop computers, filing cabinets, coffee mugs, printer paper, binders, and the like. But after paying a bit more attention, you realize that you are definitely not in your standard office. Waders hang from the sides of the cubicles, untied wading boots sit idly next to desk chairs; a shelving unit is filled with all sorts of technology used for tracking or performing some kind of science that is foreign to my eyes. A large skirted fishing jig hangs from the ceiling and dangles right above the head of where one of the bottomfish fish biologist sits every day, a very interesting office ornament. A "Thank you" card hangs outside the cubicle of one ODFW worker, filled with the signatures of several first graders from a local elementary school that got the chance to have an educational field day of sorts with the department. Upon entering one corner of cubicles (where the intern desk of yours truly resides), one worker (Derek Wilson, the assistant district fish biologist) has two mounts of animals that he has taken himself in the field - one a incredibly beautiful white haired sheep mount, and the other a mount of antlers from a moose he has taken (from Alaska). His office is filled with framed photos of deer and pictures of him with his kids. Immediately it's easy to see that these workers have their hearts in the right place - and that it won't be hard for me to relate to any of them. They are passionate in their jobs because they live the other side of their jobs in their downtime.

The cloudy, rainy Monday morning starts off as any typical Monday would in the ODFW office, as we start the day with a morning meeting in the office of Bob Buckman, the Mid-Coast District fish biologist, and my actual boss. I get the chance to introduce myself, and everyone else explains their agendas for the week and what everyone's doing. After some chit chat, around a quarter to 9 we meet in the break room to have a meeting with several ODFW volunteers - older fishermen who are very passionate about fishing and want to give back and help ODFW in any way that they can. Most are from local fishing clubs in the nearby Newport area, and some commute from quite a ways to help out. Around 9:30, we have to take off because we have "official business" - it's time to run the Siletz River fish trap.

I try on a pair of baggy, yet comfortable, work waders and a set of boots, and we are off. Today I get to work with Evan, a ODFW Fisheries Technician who graduated from Oregon State in 2006 and was hired on by ODFW in 2008, and has worked for them ever since. He will be my side kick for most of my internship days as he will be helping me run the fish trap during the peak run, and for the next couple of weeks until I get my feet wet a bit. As for his journey in F&W, he had to hop around for a bit to find a spot where he was able to settle, but he has since landed in the fisheries tech position with the Mid-Coast district and he loves it. He says that his favorite part of the job is that while there are some things he gets to do year round (seining, operating fish traps, etc.), there is also another part of the job where you have to be very flexible and willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that whatever needs to get done will get done. On this job, if something breaks - you don't necessarily buy a new one. You use what tools are given to you, and you try to fix it first. A big part of his job detail is to operate and maintain whatever equipment he uses - so if a net gets a hole in it, he fixes it. If the generator operating the hydraulic lift that carries the gigantic bucket of water used to transport live adult steelhead from the fish trap to the aerated tank in the work truck breaks, he tears it apart and does whatever repairs needed to be done. If there's something that needs to be built for a project, he builds it by hand. The ODFW shed, located across the river relatively close to Hatfield, has a myriad of tools, work saws, welder, and other assorted equipment necessary to complete most necessary jobs, and Evan has full permission to use whatever he needs. He's essentially the district's handyman.

We hop in the beast of a Ford F250 Super Duty work truck that has a large aerated tank built into the bed. This tank is used for the transport of live adult hatchery summer steelhead that we would later be using to recycle downstream to give sport anglers a second opportunity at catching and retaining these fish. I am a bit unsure of exactly what percentage of these fish actually get caught, but it seems to be a fair number of them. Any fish that return to the trap a second time (easily identifiable by a red floy tag that is inserted right behind the dorsal fin for any steelhead that was previously trapped) is bonked on the head with a iron mallet. Depending on the condition of the fish, they are then either transported to food share (We work with the Lincoln Co. food share as well as the food share for the Siletz Indian tribes) or used for stream nutrient enrichment. Their carcasses are laid in the riparian zone in or around streams to allow the rich nutrients from the fish to recycle back into the ecosystem.

After meeting up with Corby, a fellow local fishing club member and Siletz River fishing fanatic (one that I'm told "hasn't missed a Monday fish recycling in 10 years"), we make our way up the windy Siletz River highway. Past the town of Siletz, and up into the hills a bit, we pass by Moonshine Park and eventually find ourselves on a gravelly, dirt road. The road is owned and operated by a private logging outfit that logs during the weekdays (closing access to the upper stretches of the Siletz gorge), but allows access on the weekends for fisherman. As we pass the gate leading to the upper gorge, we see plenty of fisherman parked just outside of it, likely a dozen rigs, maybe more. Fishing must be picking up. Corby and Evan had gone out the day before, and Evan picked up his first summer steelhead ever. Fish are definitely moving into the system in decent numbers, and after the day was over, I'd get a decent idea of just how many.

We drove 13 miles up the windy gorge road, filled with potholes and exquisite views of logged hillsides. It would have been quite the spectacle to see what this gorge looked like 50 years ago, before most of the logging was done in this area. Even with some rather large blank spots, the hillside was beautiful in it's own right. Driving up the gorge road, Evan uses a CB radio to let anyone in the area know that he is driving upriver. He does this every 1/2 mile advance, as logging trucks have a bad habit of sneaking up on you when you are least expecting it. Even when riding in this beast of a Ford Super Duty, you have the feeling that you would stand no chance against a fully loaded logging semi-truck, driving 30 miles an hour down the road with typically a steep cliff meeting parallel to you on one side. Not exactly my idea of a way to go out!

Eventually we came to a little side road that went parallel off the main road and downhill. Corby unlocks the gate, and we make our way down to the hydraulic lift structure. Evan backs the truck underneath, close enough to where it will be easy to load fish into the tank. He climbs up a series of ladders that lead to a generator that powers the hydraulic lift. After turning it on, he climbs down and uses a controller to lift a very large steel "bucket" up, and then down and across the Siletz River. After it gets down far enough, he lowers it down slowly into the fish trap. We make our way down a steep wooden incline, and we cross high above the river by a hand-operated 2-man cable car, made possible by the generous force of gravity. As we cross, I get a beautiful view of the Siletz gorge down below the trap, and the pristine high-quality spawning habitat that is the prime target for wild fish waiting for us in the trap.

After getting across we take a moment to prepare our gear, which surprisingly isn't much at all. Two nets, a tally board with several rows and columns made into it, pencil, small envelopes for taking genetic sampling, and a red floy tag gun (effectively just like a clothing tag you'd find on a shirt at a clothing store). Down below in the fish trap, a metal mallet and a hole punch are found for bonking ripe hatchery fish and for hole-punching native fish, respectively. We hole punch any native fish we find with a upper caudal (tail) fin punch (does no harm to the fish itself) so that if the fish were to swim downstream and return to the trap, we know it isn't a stranger. After getting some well-worn gloves on, it's time to finally get to the real work.

I start off by helping Corby with the netting. After we successfully capture a fish with the net, which is a pretty easy job when the fish are confined to a specific area like they are in this trap, Evan takes the fish out of the net and puts it into a wooden "fish holder' (effectively two pieces of wood in a "V" shape with a plastic covering over the top to prevent fish from flopping out of your hands while you work with them), and then takes the species, sex, and disposition of the fish. As stated earlier, if the fish is a hatchery summer steelhead that hasn't been previously tagged, it is then tagged with the red floy tag and put into the large metal "bucket" to be recycled downstream. If the fish is a wild summer, it is hole punched, and then carefully put above the trap so that it may pass upriver unimpeded the rest of the way to do it's thing. If the fish is a "re-run" (hatchery summer steelhead that was previously tagged), it is bonked and put aside for later transportation. In addition to the summer steelhead, we also received a spring chinook salmon in the trap as well. They are handled in the same manner as a wild steelhead, so they also get a hole punch in the upper caudal fin and passed upstream. Overall today we collected 41 hatchery steelhead to be recycled, 4 re-runs, 1 hatchery summer fish that was too colored to recycle, 2 wild fish, and one spring chinook.

After taking up each batch of fish one load at a time (the weight limit for the bucket is about 20 fish with water included, so we had to make a few runs), we successfully transported the fish into the aerated tank located in the truck bed. We were then able to shut the operation down, collect the re-runs, and head back down the gorge road. We dropped Corby off at the spot we picked him up at, and continued downstream to Old Mill boat launch. After backing down quite a precarious launch, we set up the tank with a feeding tube and raised the hatch, which allowed the summer steelhead to shoot out of the tank and back into the Siletz River to give the anglers another chance at hooking one of these prime fish. After watching them mill around for a few moments (I have to admit, it was quite entertaining watching them roll like salmon do in the deep holes in the fall), we made our way back to Newport and dropped off the collected fish to the food share. The worker was VERY happy to receive 5 beautiful summer steelhead, ready to go to a hungry table in the community. We then made our way back to the office, where we winded down the day with some data entry (important for looking back on later). Evan then gave me a quick tour of the ODFW shop shed, where they store all of their equipment that they use for their projects. After that, we went back to the office for one last meeting, where Christine gives me a heads up about some of the upcoming projects I will be helping her with in the month of July, including a couple of family fishing events sponsored by ODFW, as well as a seining project where we will be seining for juvenile chinook salmon in 4 different estuaries in 4 days.

Looking back on my first day, it was a day of extreme success. I learned that the ODFW is a hard working, extremely under appreciated group of individuals who work their tails off to do what they can to preserve fish stocks in the state of Oregon. They also have a very friendly atmosphere, and each employee enjoys what they are doing. It never seems to get too mundane, and they work in some remote settings that some people would likely feel sick to learn about (sick of jealousy of course). I was blown away quite a few times on my first day, and I am very excited to get my first paycheck so that I can afford to buy a waterproof camera. I would have taken more photos but I did not feel safe taking my $250 smart phone out of the truck. With fish slime, constant rain and river water all around me, I feel I made the right decision.

With further ado, I present a few pictures from the day before I go to rest and wake up to see what's next in store for me in my second day with the ODFW.

A crappy, yet somewhat telling photo of the Siletz Gorge, and the crazy logging activity that has been done on it quite recently. Older trees line the hilltop to the left, an empty patch lines the middle, and a patch of newer trees grows to the right. 

The ODFW Mid-Coast region office. Cleverly disguised as a popular breakfast restaurant.

My reward for the day, my very own ODFW hat! I'm told I have to give it back at the end of the summer. Apparently they don't want any impostors running around. That's okay, I plan on getting it as slimy as possible...

Ended the day with a jetty walk and a little bit of fishing. Haven't fished the jetty in quite a few years, and the rocks are still just as snaggy as I remembered.

Looking up into the Yaquina Bay, with the bridge quite far into the background.

Looking towards the North Jetty at sunset.

A rather large flock of pelicans fly over my head, as I try desperately to avoid being crapped on.

Looking on the ocean-side of the south jetty, wondering how long it's going to take before those nasty clouds reach me.

A setting sun breaking through the clouds and coloring up the sky.


A fishing vessel makes it's last tussle up the bay to return home.

And with that, I am on the way home, myself.

Thank you for reading! I will see you next time. Hopefully on Wednesday it will be a bit dryer, so I can get better photos of the fish trap area and part of the actual collection process. Stay tuned!

~Teddy

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