TU’s national leadership event for teens, the TU Teen Summit, is heading back to Montana once again June 28-July 2, 2023. The Summit is where an awesome group of like-minded fishy high schoolers gather to share ideas, brainstorm ways to get youth involved with TU, complete a fisheries service project, take educational tours, and host a set of cool guest speakers. Oh, and we also do a bit of fishing at the Summit as well! To find out more, visit www.tu.org/teensummit This year’s deadline for applications is February 28th.
Applications are now being accepted at over 25 TU summer fly fishing camps and academies (www.tu.org/camps). Know a teen who either loves to fish or is eager to break into the sport? Have them head over to the website to see if there is a camp nearby. Each state-level experience is different as is each camp’s schedule and favorite streams to fish. Some teens attend multiple camps and get to know volunteers, chapters, and conservation issues in different regions. Directors and staff are eager to chat about what they will be doing in 2023 and why every young angler should come to Trout Camp this summer.
Salmon can now access 4 times more spawning area than they have for decades.
Since the 1930’s, a water-diversion dam about two miles east of downtown Lincoln has been a major problem for the salmon that swim up Auburn Ravine to spawn every fall and winter. In wet years, on average, 7 to 10 percent were able to get over that dam to reach good spawning areas upstream. In dryer years, none made it.
It was called the Hemphill Dam – probably named after a prominent Lincoln resident, Wallace Hemphill, who led various irrigation projects in the area around Lincoln in the 1920’s and 30’s.
The good news is that this dam has been removed. The site is now called the Hemphill Fish Passage Project. The salmon now have access to about eight miles of streambed. And they are using it!
Read More with HemphillDam.pdf
The Yellowstone Fly Fishing Volunteer Program (YFFVP) is a collaborative effort by the National Park Service and Yellowstone Forever that utilizes “fly fishing for science” as a way to aid park biologists in their efforts to identify, maintain, enhance, and restore native fish populations within Yellowstone National Park. Each year, volunteers, directed by fisheries biologists and led by the program’s coordinator, hike into Yellowstone’s rivers, creeks, lakes and ponds to sample and record data about the fish populations that reside within them. This “sampling” is conducted by fly fishing.
The 2023 Yellowstone Fly Fishing Volunteer Program will be conducted from July 24 through September 1. Work will be primarily focused on the Lamar River and Slough Creek, but Yellowstone Lake and other waterways may also be included.
See the Yellowstone Fly Fishing Volunteer Program web site to learn more and volunteer. But hurry, volunteers accepted on a first come and lottery basis. Selection for 2023 will occur about January 1, 2023.
GMO aquaculture plant regularly:
Regularly discharges high levels of ammonia into the surrounding watershed and violates environmental regulations;
Keeps its GE fish growing in toxicological water contaminated with unsafe levels of fiberglass particles, ammonia, and decaying corpses of the GE fish who could not survive such inhumane conditions;
Has had instances of aerosolized hydrochloric acid contaminating the facility along with improper handling of other caustic chemicals and disregarding basic worker safety;
Has routine containment breaches and disposes of their mortalities in easily accessible outdoor dumpsters where wild animals scavenge, risking potentially bringing GE fish into the nearby effluent.
AquaBounty’s behavior isn’t surprising. Their actions follow how Big Food companies operate in the U.S. food system; for-profit and at the cost of people and the environment. It is imperative to put the truth about AquaBounty practices in the light, as the impact of their product is of grave concern for water and wild Salmon - both life-giving elements in river and ocean ecosystems globally.
Stream restoration projects require a variety of tools and tactics. Sometimes you use a trowel, and sometimes a bulldozer.
In trout and salmon streams where water quality or habitat are highly degraded, you are more likely to need the latter. But when you bring in the heavy machinery, what happens to the fish living in that section of the stream?
Often, the project manager is required to relocate as many of the resident fish as is possible before the work begins. The goal is to cause as little harm as possible to the fish and to ensure that none remain in a stream channel that has had its flow diverted, as was recently necessary for the Faith Valley Restoration Project.
As holiday visitors vacated the Stanislaus National Forest at the conclusion of the long Fourth of July weekend, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (CDFW) Heritage and Wild Trout Program moved in.
Four team members from the statewide program – Environmental Scientist Allison Scott, scientific aids Aaron Sturtevant and Stew Sloan, along with new program leader Farhat Bajjaliya – set up camp within the border region of Alpine and Stanislaus counties in the northern reaches of the Eastern Sierra.
Monitoring in 2022 occurred in the first two weeks of September and Steve Schwartzbach participated as a volunteer from trout unlimited in the first day’s monitoring on the south Fork of the American River at 30 Milestone road. If you will recall, the first week of September was a week when a vast dome of high pressure settled over California producing record high daily temperatures. It seemed like a good day to be on a river, however ankle deep was not the best depth for working in hip waders
Fish species recovered during our first pass it seemed to me included primarily Rainbow trout, and Sacramento Suckers. While the complete results of the 2022 survey are not yet available we have the 2017 report results to compare. That report showed that the South Fork American below the project 184 diversion was the richest site in rainbow trout with 3,589 trout per mile estimated and 33.9 pounds of rainbow trout per surface acre. Data for other sites are as follows: Alder Creek (1,810 trout/mile and 74.6 lbs/SA), Silver Fork (1207,and 19.7) Pyramid Creek (1,479 and 6.5), Echo Creek (354 and 11.8) and last was Caples creek which had zero Rainbow Trout.
On Wednesday, September 7, 2022, members of the El Dorado Chapter of Trout Unlimited (EDTU) met with Eldorado National Forest (ENF) biologists and their interns at a restoration project in Calf Pasture Meadow. Our goal was to relocate trout from an unnamed tributary downstream to Bassi Creek. The stream was to be impacted by the meadow restoration.
ENF fish biologist, Maura Santora, handled the electro-shocker for the first segment of the project, followed by ENF fish biologist Jeff Mabe, swapping places with her. Soon the interns had an opportunity to handle the electro-shocker.
As you can see, the narrow tributary was clogged with willows which inhibited the use of nets to capture the stunned trout. The path to the trout had to be cleared by the interns using loppers to open the waterway. Later, a sawyer was called in to expedite the clearing. The team developed a bucket brigade to carry the fish downstream to the main part of the Bassi Creek and refill the homer buckets with fresh water. The team worked for roughly 6 hours to relocate these brook trout.
There was still approximately 100 yards of the tributary to shock which was left for the next day. The interns did a great job of handling all aspects of this fish rescue. The team had relocated roughly 60 small brook trout.
Work on the Calf Pasture Meadow Restoration Project began on Wednesday, August 31st and will continue for 4 to 5 weeks to restore approximately 30 acres of degraded meadow habitat. Calf Pasture is located in the Van Vleck and Tells Creek area on the Pacific Ranger District and was acquired by the Eldorado National Forest in 1984. The meadow is highly degraded due to the effects of intensive logging and grazing dating back to the 1800s and from trail incision along the Red Peak Trail.
"Partnerships with American Rivers, and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, along with help from a number of volunteer organizations are making it possible to get this important restoration work done," said Forest Supervisor Jeff Marsolais.
The project goals include:
-Restoring approximately 30 acres of degraded meadow habitat to benefit aquatic- and meadow-dependent species.
-Increasing water storage capacity and restoring meadow-floodplain connectivity.
-Reducing stream water temperature and increasing stream base flows and moderating peak flows.
-Reducing conifer encroachment in the meadow.