FIsh that come back home

[MichaelHarris]

I normally use my drift boat and float rivers in Montana for trout but recently I bought a power boat and rigged it for steelhead fishing. This may sound like a fishing post but it isn't. What I found interesting is that all the dams along the Snake river, where I live, keep counts of the incoming sea-run trout(steelhead).

Watching the numbers move up the Snake to the dam I live near, Lower Granite is sort of exciting. Seeing the numbers increase every day is sort of cool. Here is a link to the counts: http://www.fpc.org/currentdaily/7day-ytd_Adults.htm

Four dams upriver they are coming over at around 10,000 a day, for my area it's still in the hundreds. About two weeks if the weather maintains the current trend we should see some of those fish. The Snake is pretty well dammed up but every dam has a great ladder system for the fish, you can even go to the dams and watch the fish come up the ladders.

I do only catch and release fishing, some keep one hatchery fish, all wild go back, no questions. The Native Americans get to keep fish, it's always been their heritage. I see so many fisherman complain about that. I just tell them, "if you want to eat a steelhead buy one from the tribe, you get a meal, they feed a family."


Michael Harris

[cherokeeprogressive]

1. I live on the banks of a man--made lake that has no replenishment source other than rain/snow runoff

The only fish in the lake are there because the California Dept. of Fish and Game planted them. Some, such as bluegill, catfish, bass, crappie, and a few others reproduce in the lake. Trout, having no stream or river to spawn in, have to be planted. Every trout in the lake is there because the state planted them (thanks to the fact that at sometime in the past, someone tossed a pregnant asian carp into the lake).

Fishermen/women here can tell a planted trout not only by the fact that it's fins are underdeveloped (due to the fact that they're raised in such close proximity in pens, and nip at each other's fins), but that the flesh is white rather than the normal pink of native trout.

After a couple of years though, the trout in the lake take on the appearance/behavior of native trout. Their tail fins finally grow to that beautiful fan, and their flesh is a nice salmon color. We call those fish "hold-overs". Planted fish are normally caught and released (by the locals anyway, the tourists will keep anything they can pull out of the water, including carp) so that they can grow and become "hold-overs".

On the subject of catch and release, I've fished for King Salmon in the Puget Sound at Deception Pass on the north end of Whidbey Island with barbless hooks and had no problem with it whatsoever.

Fishing for Rainbows in Big Bear Lake is three hours of boredom (three in the morning and three in the late afternoon), punctuated by five minutes of sheer terror/excitement (if you're lucky and you drag your lure/worm within a couple feet of their noses).

Fish on, friend.

[MichaelHarris]

2. Thanks!

My new thing is trying to catch a sturgeon. There are some huge ones in the Snake river. I've tried only three times so far, not sure I'm doing it right. I drive around in my boat, look for a deep hole and drop down some stinky bait. No luck so far.

[cherokeeprogressive]

3. You'll hook that big one sooner or later. I've never been a big fan of sturgeon though.

I've always thought of them as bottom feeders. The do however, search for crustaceans, mollusks, and lamprey on occasion. I guess that in some way qualifies them as predators.

But hey, some people diss catfish because of the misguided notion that they only eat carrion found on the bottom of lakes and rivers, in the mud. One way to tell the difference from a true bottom feeder and a predator is the position of it's mouth. Carp have their mouth on the bottom of their heads, and catfish have their mouths in front.

My dad has an old picture of two of my great-uncles holding a catfish by it's gills. They're holding it over their heads, and it's tail is curled on the ground. They caught it by hand, in the Missouri river, NOODLING.