The Caddis Fly: Oregon Fly Fishing Blog

By now the state media has spread the word the ODFW Coastal Multi-Species Conservation and Management Plan (CMP) was approved. However, what was not in most press releases: The harvesting of winter steelhead in the Umpqua Basin was REMOVED from the plan! Hmmm? Wonder how it happened?

Seems like a few people sent the message to the ODFW commission in support of no harvest! The stack of public input (emails) at the meeting was about 1″ thick. A significant amount of the emails were in support of no harvest. Say what we wish about ODFW, they listened, and acted to the public outcry about harvesting winter steelhead on the Umpqua. So that’s the good news and now…the not so good news…

The ODFW will be seeking revenue to help close a projected $32 million dollar shortfall in the 2015-17 budgets.

All possible options are being evaluated from increasing license and tag fees, cutting staff, and asking for more money from the state general fund. The commission has a tough job ahead to implement the CMP plan while facing budgetary challenges.

One of the key presentations during the meeting was the request for the “monitoring budget” to be approved for the CMP plan. We shall see what lies ahead. Meanwhile, every time we release one those winter Umpqua steelhead, smile a little wider!

LV

In typical agency fashion, ODFW is hosting a weekday event wherein working folks need to try to take a day off to support their interest in protecting wild fish in the Coastal Management Plan. There is a place for written public comments listed below, but if you’ve ever been through one of these, the thing that actually matters is in-person appeals.

So why attend? Although it’s not included in the Coastal Management Plan, we expect a large vocal contingent to attend requesting the plan be amended to include harvest of wild Umpqua winter steelhead. Here is some info from North Umpqua guide Mark Stangeland’s blog:

Please attend if you can to support the current no-kill regulation. If you can’t attend, please send an email odfw.commission@state.or.us or letter to the Commission opposing any harvest of wild steelhead on the Umpqua River.

Your message can be very simple. You can also include any of the following issues to support your position, but it’s important to get the basic message across: No harvest of wild steelhead in the Umpqua Basin.

1. This is the last, best wild steelhead run in the United States, a world-famous fishery characterized by uniquely large fish as recognized in the CMP. Sound management requires caution with such a resource.

2. ODFW relies on their 2004 Biological Assessment to support harvest. Based on admittedly sketchy data, they estimate a run of 30,000 – 35,000 wild steelhead with over half coming from mainstem Umpqua River tributaries. Neither ODFW nor BLM can identify the tributaries with sufficient high quality rearing habitat to produce the half-million smolts needed for this estimated return (and it likely doesn’t exist).

3. Pending Federal legislation would transfer management of O&C lands currently administered by BLM to state control, under the provisions of Oregon’s Forest Practices Act. This will result in additional deterioration of fish habitat in mainstem Umpqua River tributaries

4. Climate change will have a disproportionately high impact on the upper Umpqua Basin for both flow levels and temperatures. As the only Cascade Mountains rivers in the CMP, the Umpqua headwaters depend on snowpack for summer flows, and snowpack is diminishing – note the recent news articles about record low snowpack in Crater Lake, the source for much of the North Umpqua summertime flows.

5. Given the budgetary problems ODFW is facing, they cannot identify the current state of wild steelhead or adequately monitor impacts from harvest combined with these other factors. This isn’t the time to increase pressure on the best wild run in the US.

Meeting info below:

COASTAL MULTI-SPECIES CONSERVATION AND MANAGEMENT PLAN

The Commission Draft Coastal Multi-Species Conservation and Management Plan (CMP) was presented to the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission (OFWC) at its April 25, 2014 meeting in North Bend. Thank you to all who testified in that public hearing. The CMP and your input were favorably received by the OFWC.

The final draft CMP is being presented to the OFWC for approval on June 6, 2014 at ODFW Headquarters in Salem. Public testimony will again be heard as part of this agenda item, which we expect to be taken up most likely after 10:00 AM (please note that agenda items are subject to change and we cannot provide a time-certain). Details on this meeting can be found on the OFWC website. The final draft CMP and Executive Summary will also be posted by 5:00 PM on May 28 at: http://www.dfw.state.or.us/fish/CRP/coastal_multispecies.asp. In addition to testifying at the Commission meeting, written public comments can be submitted prior to the meeting to: ODFW.CoastalPlan@state.or.us, odfw.commission@state.or.us, or Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission, 4034 Fairview Industrial Drive SE, Salem, OR 97302.

The Stellaria Building
150 Shelton Mcmurphey Blvd., Eugene, OR 97401
Large community room

Monday June 2nd at 6PM, The McKenzie-Upper Willamette Chapter of Trout Unlimited will hold its monthly board meeting in the small community Room of the Stellaria Building, 150 Shelton Mcmurphey Blvd.,Eugene, OR 97401.

At 7PM, there will be a presentation entitled “Trout Unlimited in Oregon: Partnerships with the US Forest Service to preserve native trout habitat.” presented by Dean Finnerty, SW Oregon Organizer for TU. This meeting will be in the large community room of the Stellaria Building. The public is welcome to attend.

See you there!

Dear Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and Jeff Ziller:

I am writing today to thank you very much for your participation in the McKenzie River Trout Study. Your efforts along with volunteer anglers have improved a section of river immensely in just four seasons. The McKenzie River from Hendricks Park to Belinger Boat landing has been the site of the study. Four years ago that section of river was a sliver of what it is today. Fish populations and fish size have improved mightily!

Thanks Very Much ODFW and Jeff Ziller!

What caused this improvement in fishing and fish population in the section of river? Two key management policies that were implemented by our local biologist Jeff Ziller. The removal of stocked trout in the section and the elimination of bait fishing. How do we know the management has been successful? There is a breadth of evidence on the McKenzie River Trout Study website and I have seen the 2013 data (soon to be released). The data is convincing and the angling in this section is now some of the best on the lower McKenzie.

Here is a preliminary statement from Dave Thomas one of the key data analysts on the population study.

Recalling that there haven’t been any previous longitudinal studies of wild trout population numbers in response to removal of hatchery trout competitors; at least we can’t find anything like this in the published literature. So given that caveat, I was pleased and a little surprised and pleased that our estimates of the population in the study section showed a >50% increase in 4 years. Generally, population estimates in moving waters are pretty imprecise but an increase of this size, and particularly where the increases were persistent over 4 years is unlikely to be caused by sampling error. The next question is what does this mean for anglers? We’ve looked at this very closely and found that the catch per trip or per hour of angling on the study section has about doubled (e.g. increased a 100%). If there are a lot more fish in the water this is what you might expect, but it’s gratifying to see that the fishing can improve this quickly. Finally, we asked the question of whether this “improvement of conditions” could be explained by the angling participants just getting better at extracting wild trout from the river rather than their being more trout to catch? To answer this question we segmented the results of anglers with substantial experience in fishing the study section and those with less. The results were that both groups showed increased productivity across the years, so we conclude that the study results can not be explained by increasing skill levels of the participating anglers.

More thanks go to Jeff and ODFW for new stocking protocol on The Middle Fork of the Willamette River above Hills Creek for the 2014 season. This year the MFW above Hills Creek will not be stocked. Instead hatchery fish will be stocked in Hills Creek Reservoir. Moving these fish to more accessible water for more anglers is a great move in my opinion. Additionally fishing will be restricted to flies and lures in the Middle Fork above Hills Creek. If you are in favor of the policies mentioned above it never hurts to let our local ODFW office know they are moving in the right direction.

Springfield Field Office
3150 E Main Street
Springfield, OR 97478-5800
Tel: 541-726-3515 Fax: 541-726-2505

CD