Monday, July 16, 2012

Week Four on the horizon

Hello again my fellow readers!

Here I sit on the the eve of Week Four, and it's hard for me to believe that it's been 3 full weeks past already in the summer. The last time I wrote to you, I had just finished my first week since starting with ODFW.

As I'm sure you all expect by now, most of what I've done since has been a lot of the same - more running the fish trap on the Siletz River, which has been crazy, by the way. In the last week alone I think we handled somewhere around 500 fish total. Which is a LOT of fish. At this point in the run, we are receiving more fish then we know what to really do with. We recycle them as much as possible, but given how much the water temperature has risen in the last 2 weeks because of the hot weather we've had, the water temperature is reaching the point where it becomes severely stressful on the fish. Steelhead prefer water below 60 degrees, and the river last week was right around the lower 60's. Because of this, we've decided to send a lot of our hatchery fish to foodshare. Last week we interacted with both the Food Share of Lincoln County and the Siletz Tribe food share organizations to send the less unfortunate home happy with a delicious steelhead dinner. On one of those days, we even had two spring chinook salmon to give away because we received two springers that made it to our trap that weren't supposed to be there. Hatchery adipose fin-clipped spring chinook are not released in the Siletz River, so we were quite surprised to find them in the trap.

Alongside doing my typical adult fish trap operation, I was also able to get quite a bit of new experience in the last 2 weeks, and I'm excited to share a few photos that document that!

While in my last post I told you about visiting the Mill Creek juvenile fish trap on the Yaquina River, I was excited to hear that I had the chance to visit the Tenmile Creek juvenile fish trap. Tenmile Creek is a creek that runs directly to the ocean south of Yachats, Oregon, and gets a run of wild fall chinook and coho salmon, and wild winter steelhead. Previously I had never been further south on the Oregon coast than Waldport, so it was quite a fun drive down.


Here it is, the Tenmile Creek juvenile fish trap - known as a Rotary Screw trap. You actually have to go through specific safety training before you can be certified to even be on the trap. It is quite a dangerous piece of equipment, so it is completely understandable.



A bit of an unexpected find! A Pacific lamprey adult that made its way into the trap. This is not uncommon for this stream.

Tenmile Creek, looking downstream towards the ocean. It's pretty awesome that the ocean is just a couple of bends downstream.



Upstream of the screw trap. You can see the entirety of the Tenmile Creek flow is diverted straight into the trap so that it has a very high percentage chance of catching juvenile fish moving downstream.





Ashley, a experimental biological aide, using a dipnet to catch juvenile salmonids to work with from the screw trap's livewell.


There they all are!


The screw trap, raised up. There is a winch that can raise or lower the trap so that it fishes deeper or shallower in the water column. 


The work station for measuring and working with juveniles.




The adult Pacific lamprey, off the charts!


Pretty awesome, when you put him in the water and put your hand near his gill holes, you can feel the water pushing out almost like a water jet. 

On the morning of the fourth of July, me and Evan decided it was best to spend the first part of the holiday chasing chrome tails on the river that we've been working on for the last 2 weeks. Safe to say, Evan got a few pleasant surprises!

Evan's first hatchery summer steelhead of the morning, a nice 7 pound hen.

The Upper Siletz Gorge, a small runoff creek flowing in.

Looking downstream.

Looking upstream.

Evan's second fish is on!

Evan was so jazzed about being hooked up, he just stood there as the fish took off upriver. "Better go catch him!" I said, and Evan eventually took off upriver after him.

A chrome fourth of July, with plenty of fireworks!

Evan's second fish, with the Siletz in the background.

With a successful day of fishing for Evan over by 7:30AM, I continued on to try and find a fish for myself, but to no avail. I went home and was pleasantly surprised that evening with a 20 minute firework show shot from Yaquina Bay. It was quite a show!



July 6th, if you look close enough front and center, you can see a full Bald Eagle and the head of another poking out just above the cliffside.

That weekend was the first weekend I had to work, but the events that came along with it were great. The first event that Saturday was a Depoe Bay Coho fin-clipping "party", as Christine likes to call it. These coho are released into a reservoir located on a portion of North Depoe Bay Creek, where they will leave of their own volition in about  7-10 months, and go to the ocean to mature and will eventually return as adults. We gathered a group of about 20 volunteers to help clip 17,000 juvenile coho adipose fins.Quite the task! 


Here is a picture of the stand, ready to go. Unfortunately the event was so busy that I wasn't able to snap too many photos.

On Sunday we had our Family fishing event out at the Illahee fish hatchery near the town of Logsden. This event had around 60-70 kids show up throughout the day, where they were able to catch a limit of 3 rainbow trout from a small stocked pond, as well as get educated on how to fish. We provided the gear and bait, and even processed the fish for most people to take home. All free. It was my first time ever having any real mass public education on fishing, and overall I'd have to say that it went very well. 

Most of what I did for the day was run a game called "backyard bass", which is a casting game designed for kids and adults of all ages to perfect their casting technique. It was fun watching the kids come and go throughout the day and giving them pointers on how to cast. Not only that, some of the kids started at the backyard bass game, and then went on to fish - and you could visibly see their progress throughout the course of the day.

This little guy certainly made my day. He couldn't be past the age of 3 or 4. After helping him catch 3 fish, his first fish ever, I got to teach him how to cast. Here he is, doing it on his own! I certainly felt proud.


Here's a whole family, getting into the backyard bass game. Fun for everyone!


Everyone across the pond, looking to get into some hungry trout.

Overall, a very successful weekend with ODFW, gaining new experiences left and right. I'm very excited to write these new additions to my resume at the end of the month!

In the adult fish trap, one thing we look for in the fish is whether the fish have any recognizable marks on them. On this poor hatchery steelhead, you can see that he likely just barely escaped a gillnet. Gillnetting is not allowed in the ocean or river in this area, so we try to keep an eye out for suspicious activity. You can tell this is a net mark because the mark (missing scales) goes around both sides of the fish.




You can see the marks are on both sides of the fish.

One day last week, we spent the morning and afternoon in the Alsea Bay, doing a cleanup of a dock that had washed into the bay from the previous winter. During a period of extreme high flow, a dock upriver from Alsea Bay washed ashore, and had been degrading since. Styrofoam and treated wood were an unusual sight for the assistant district fish biologist, Derek Wilson, who walks along the Alsea Bay quite frequently. When he saw the aftermath of the flood, he called ODFW to arms to help clean it up. It took us a good portion of the day, taking several cartloads full of wood debris and Styrofoam back to the trucks so we could dispose of it properly.

Here's the group with some totes loaded with treated wood we tore apart from the dock. From left to right: Me, Evan, Derek, and Harry - a ODFW volunteer who lives nearby as well.


Here's Harry, about to use some smoke bombs to take out a bee's nest that had formed under the dock since it's arrival. 


Smoking the bees out! Not just any ordinary bees, either... Yellowjackets. The best kind, right?


Here's Christine Clapp, STEP biologist, using her recently-learned new skills with the chainsaw. She spent a a day up in Tillamook a week or two ago taking a one day chainsaw course. She was very jazzed about being able to tear this dock a new one!


Messing with the bees... she didn't get stung, though!


Here's the majority of what we were able to clean up - two truckloads full, and we had to come back for the rest. A job well done!


That evening, I decided to relax by doing so the one way I know how - fishing the high slack on the south jetty.


A great way to spend the afternoon!


The power of the sun, at 7:30PM. Still high and bright in the sky.



Unfortunately, no fish for me. But it was still a great way to spend the evening.


One day after work I decided to go try and get some fishing bait of my own. One of the perks of living literally on the bay is that you are so close to so many great things. Crabbing, fishing the jetty, and even getting to pump your own sandshrimp for bait.


Using a shrimp gun, you walk out to where the water line meets the sand, and look for little holes. These holes are made by sandshrimp, who dig tunnels under the sand to get around. Using the suction from the gun, you can pump the shrimp right out of the sand for the taking.


The day's catch. The photo is a little blurry, but I had around 2 dozen shrimp collected for about a hour and a half worth of work. This bay makes me work hard for them!


The Yaquina Bay, right behind Hatfield Marine Science Center, where I live.

On Sunday evening, I got a text message from a good friend of mine, Matt, who was out in the big blue pond  all day chasing Albacore Tuna, the tuna that you typically find canned in the grocery store. Albacore come closer to shore as the ocean warms up in the summer, which makes them the target of sport fishermen all up and down the coast of the Pacific Northwest.

He scored a payload of 63 albacore, and sent me a message asking me to meet him down at the Newport marina (literally a 2 minute drive from my house), and to bring a knife and a cooler. When I arrived, he was at the cleaning station with his other crew mates, making their way through these very large and tasty fish - processing them for the trip home. I helped "cark" a few for him, and then carked one for myself, which I got to take home. A very generous offer from him, which I greatly appreciated! 


Here's me, carking my first Albacore ever. Shortly after, I taught my friend Jenn, who was with me during this event, how to cark a tuna for the first time as well. Surprisingly, it wasn't as difficult as it looked! And you can retain a LOT of the meat from each fish, which is a great reward for catching them.

Now I have plenty of Albacore in the freezer, and tuna bellies for fishing bait. I was even able to make a delicious lunch for myself today from one tuna loin.

This is bacon-wrapped albacore tuna, which was marinated in teriyaki sauce for about an hour. It came out absolutely delicious!


Now that I've been here in Newport for three weeks, and have a bit of experience of what it's like being down here... I can truthfully say: It is a place of great bounty, and a place where in order to truthfully enjoy the experience - one must take advantage of all that is offered. I think that with the first three weeks down, I'm on the right path. Now I just have to hook a steelhead, a halibut, a tuna, and some more rockfish, hopefully. Maybe go crab? I'm sure that the next few weeks will be even more adventurous!
Thank you so much for reading, and I am HOPING that the next post I make will include pictures of adult fish that we work with once I can get a hold of my coworker's waterproof camera. I know I keep saying that, but I'm going to truly pester said person about it this week. Up this week is juvenile Chinook seining, where we will hit 4 different estuaries (Siletz, Yaquina, Alsea, and Siuslaw) in 4 days. Stay tuned! I've heard this is one of the more labor intensive parts of the internship, so I might not get back to you guys for another week. But stay tuned, as I'm sure there will be plenty of excitement to see. 

Until then, tight lines - and take care! See you all soon.






Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Picking up speed (and not slowing down!)

(Yaquina Bay Bridge, on the morning of the 27th of June, 2012)

Hello fellow readers!

I write to you as my first week in Newport has come to an end, and a new week begins. A long, but fulfilling week it has been.

The last I wrote to you, I had finished my second day with ODFW. Since, I had three more long days of work. More of the same for the most part, which was good. I am slowly but surely getting the hang of the regular role that I will play for the summer.

On Wednesday, I went up to the Siletz Falls fish trap to help Evan with some minor repairs and maintenance.   The repair work we did involved: Tightening the cable handrails that were slightly loosened during the very high surge of water we had back in the winter, adjusting the cable car cable, fixing some of the cover plating that covers part of the fish ladder near the trap (the plating covers the top portion, which helps keep unwanted visitors out, both human and otherwise), and attempting to use a ladder to adjust the cable to the hydraulic lift. I say "attempted" because we couldn't find a safe footing to raise a 24' extension ladder up to the adjustment nut. Alas, another time for that fix.

While we were up there, I was able to take advantage of some of the beautiful weather we had and take a few photos. Unfortunately I am still scared out of my mind to take the uber expensive smart phone over the cable car, but as soon as I can afford a waterproof camera I will take more photos of the trap itself and some of the fish I get to handle.

Here are a few pics I took!

Heading up the gorge road of the Siletz basin, with the river flowing southwest in the bottom center of the photo. 
A photo of the hydraulic lift structure, with the Ford Super Duty parked underneath for scale. It's a pretty decently sized structure.
This is a photo of the other side of the hydraulic lift structure. A gas-powered generator is inside, which is what gives the lift power. You can see where the cables come in and out at the top of the photo.



A crappy photo showing where the cables coming down from the lift. These cables lift the container that we use to transport hatchery fish for recycling up and down from the trap. It's quite a ride for the recycled fish!

This is the walkway down to the cable car. That's right... no trespassing! ODFW employees only! ;) For real, though. We ran into the Lincoln County Forest Patrol deputy, and he said that last weekend he caught a couple of young adults up at the trap, and one was trying to cross the cable down to the trap hand-over-hand (the cable car we use is locked with several locks to prevent unwanted visitors). A very poor, uneducated decision, considering the drop is about 50 feet to a swift, cold river with a bunch of large boulders. If the fall didn't kill them, there's no way they'd be able to escape the impending whitewater that leads to several steep waterfalls. The kid is lucky he got away with just a warning. He didn't have any fishing poles and didn't seem to intend to take any fish, so the officer didn't feel the need to go any further.

A somewhat complete picture of the Siletz Falls trap. Yeah, this is my office, folks. You can see the cables from the previous picture in the upper right of the picture, and the walkway to the bottom left that leads down to the cable car. Across the river, you can see posts with hand cables for secure walking down to the trap. The little headgate on the opposite side of the river just above the whitewater is actually the head of the trap, and the trap/fish ladder wraps behind the huge portion of concrete / the large boulders to the right of the picture.


Scale is definitely something to behold in this upper portion of the Siletz River. It's simply a beautiful place, and I'm glad I get the opportunity to work in such a beautiful setting.


Think fish can navigate through this boulder field, and jump this intense series of waterfalls? False. That is part of the reason why the fish ladder still exists today - it provides simple and easy passage for wild run steelhead and salmon to get past this nightmare, to access the several miles of upriver spawning habitat that they otherwise wouldn't be able to utilize.

This is an up-close and personal picture of the two-man cable car that we use to jet ourselves across the river so we can access the trap. The cable car is operated on a cable much like the hydraulic lift, but we use the force of gravity and our muscles to propel us across instead of a gas engine. It's a fun little ride we get to take every day we work at the trap.

Another picture of the cable car, showing a bit of the gravity involved that helps propel us across.

A bit of a better shot of the other side leading down to the trap.

As soon as I can, I'll put up pictures of the actual trap and what goes on inside when we do a recycle run. Stay tuned for that!

That afternoon, the tide seemed to be just right for the bay, so I went out for a bit of stroll out the south jetty. The bay and ocean outside was the calmest I have ever seen the Oregon ocean. Of course, I dragged the fishing rod along to see if I could get any rockfish to play. 



After a few hours, and a long walk out nearly to the end of the jetty, I found a few! Here is a beautiful black rockfish, or sea bass. I am told they make great fish tacos, but I let this one go to be caught another day.

The pelican-crap rocks: How you know you're in the right fishing area. Less than 50 yards from the jetty's end.




A blue rockfish, with the sun nearly setting. A great end to the day.


*********************************************************************************

On Thursday morning, I got to spend the first half of the morning on Mill Creek in the Yaquina River basin. A bit of background, first. Mill Creek is a tributary that gets returns of wild steelhead, coho, chinook, and chum salmon (closed to all fishing). Essentially, the creek meanders up less than a mile from tidewater until it gets to a splitting point. One way leads up the very long and elaborate fish ladder to the adult fish trap, and the other way leads about 75 yards upstream to three large culverts that sit at an angle, sending water downstream from the reservoir. The culverts pretty much prevent all fish passage, as they are way too long and don't provide the fish a place to rest on the way up. So the fish essentially all get diverted into the fish ladder, which means that for this particular stretch of creek, the biologists estimate that they get 100% of the returning fish to the adult trap. This is very important for the management of wild coastal Coho salmon who were listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1998. With the potential of such a high capture rate, biologists in the mid-coast district can tell what the relative population abundance is for the creek every year - and since the creek is very typical of most spawning creeks in the basin - it is a great "thermometer", so to speak, of how the native runs of coho are doing on the coast.

The reason why I got to visit Mill Creek on Thursday was for the purpose of visiting the incline-plane juvenile fish trap that is currently running on the creek. I'll use a few photos to illustrate:





Essentially, this trap is cleverly placed at a portion of the creek right below the fish ladder that will allow for capture of juvenile coho smolts, as well as other salmonid fry, like Chinook fry and trout fry. The trap is placed at a part of the stream that is on an inclined-plane, and is narrowed using material that helps to funnel the flow into a chute, which helps the trap be more effective by essentially concentrating the flow and forcing the fish into the trap. This trap is monitored by the Life Cycle Monitoring crew (LCM), a crew that looks at the life cycles of salmon from both the juvenile stage and the adult stage, depending on the time of year (early spring for juveniles, fall for the adults).

Hope, one of the EBA's (Experimental Biological Aide, pictured above), is one of the LCM crew members that runs, maintains, and monitors the trap on a weekly basis while it's up and running. They put the traps in during early spring and essentially run them until fish stop showing up in the trap. They essentially hike in the trap, piece by piece, and assemble it on site. When the sampling season is over, they break the trap down and haul it out to allow for adult fish passage. They have to make periodic visits everyday to make sure the trap is running flawlessly, and to collect the fish that it captures as well.

A photo of the work station. You can see the buckets in the water are held up by a metal framing, and the buckets have rectangular holes with mesh covering the holes up to allow for water to cycle through when fish are being held.

Quite the catch today! A good mixture of smolts and fry.

When the fish are captured (using a small net and herding them around in the holding compartment), they are placed into a bucket with a Tricane mesylate/water solution, otherwise known as the anesthetic MS-222. We use a diluted solution that slows the fish's heart rate down and allows the fish to respire with ease while Hope does the biological work that she needs to do. This usually includes a fork length (snout to fork in the tail) measurement in millimeters, species identification, and a genetic sample (a sliver of the caudal fin is taken using a knife, which I'm told can grow back in as little as a week during the juvenile growth process). 

Night night, fishies! They look a LOT worse off then they really are.

A good mixture of some of the fish we got that day from the trap.


Two very good size Coho smolts. You can identify these guys by the forked tail, and the eye that is quite large. You are looking at a pair of federally protected, ESA-listed Coho teenagers! Rowdy little guys.


Now the fun part: can you name what species* of parr these are?



After the fish are all sampled, then they are released at different portions of the creek depending on what species they are. If they are Coho or steelhead, they are dropped above the trap, to get an idea of what fish are staying in the area above the trap and which ones are moving downstream to begin their journey to the ocean. Hope uses a special release contraption that allows her to separate the fish apart (keeping the smolts away from the fry, to prevent the bigger brothers picking on the little guys), and the release is set to a timer. This gives the fish plenty of time to recover, and typically they are released at sundown to allow them to maximize the cover of darkness to find ample hiding. Most Coho will remain in Mill Creek for at least a month or two more before heading out to the big blue.

All other fish are released downstream. 

Looks like a great workout to me!

The moss lining the fish ladder is home to other creatures. These guys would literally ball up in mating groups all up and down this fish ladder. It was a crazy sight to see!

After spending the morning with Hope checking out Mill Creek, I was then asked to do the oh-so-difficult job of driving a Toyota Prius up and down the coast, north and south of Newport, to put up flyers for the family fishing event that we are having on the 8th. I started my way up the coast, going first to Depoe Bay and stopping at every viable place I could find that would take a flyer and hopefully would attract newcomers to the sport of fishing. After getting told off by a Depoe Bay Chamber of Commerce office admin for being the cause behind getting the Depoe Bay Fireworks Show cancelled this year because of fireworks being a "bird harassment hazard" (it was actually the US Fish and Wildlife Service, not ODFW, as I would learn later from Derek), I left Depoe and eventually found my way back to Newport, where I ended the day. 

On Friday I returned to the Siletz fish trap and got to run it with another ODFW volunteer, and Derek (the assistant district fish biologist). We had a good push of fish, so we recycled some downstream, and made it back to the office in time for lunch. I spent the second half of the day putting up the remaining flyers for the fishing event, driving south to Waldport and making my way back up.

A photo of the Alsea Bay bridge, going through the town of Waldport on the right.




That's all I have for today folks, but more to come later in the week! I have the holiday off, and I think some steelhead fishing on the river I've recently fell in love with is in order. 


Coming up, I am going out to another type of juvenile fish trap tomorrow (called a rotary-screw trap), and later in the week I am assisting with the Family Fishing day out at the Siletz Tribe Illahee Fish Hatchery for kids age 2-17. If you have kids, or grandkids, who want to get into the sport of fishing, bring 'em out! You can hang out with me for the day, and all gear will be provided. Should be a great day.

Next week, I have my first round of estuary seining for juvenile Chinook, where we will be seining the Siletz, Yaquina, Alsea, and Siuslaw bays in 4 days! 



Thank you for being patient and waiting for my next post, and stay tuned for more next week. Until then, tight lines, and safe travels! 

Talk to you soon. ~Teddy


*Juvenile fish answers (from top to bottom): Trout parr (dark Parr (side) marks), Coho parr (irregular Parr marks), and Chinook parr (very faint Parr marks). The Chinook fry is a rarity for this time of the year, but was a exquisite fine nonetheless. There were also steelhead fry in the mix as well.