Where Have the Fish Gone?: River Conditions Are Beautiful, but Fish Staying Away

By Justin Miller, Appeal-Democrat, Marysville, Calif.

Sep. 27–Chinook salmon numbers on the Feather and Sacramento rivers have declined drastically over the last five years, and the 2007 fall run is on pace to be the worst in possibly the last two decades.

“Most of it is anecdotal, but all of the indications are that we had one of the worst returns of salmon in probably the last two decades; returns from the ocean of adult fish is what we’re talking about,” said John Beuttler, the conservation director for the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance. “I don’t think anybody has done the science to understand for a certainty what the problem is, but I think that the odds on favorite is the terrible problems that the Delta food web has experienced over the last five or six years.”

Bob Boucke at Johnson’s Bait & Tackle in Yuba City echoed Beuttler’s statement.

“The ocean is not in bad condition, it has plenty of food, so I don’t know of any other reason,” Boucke said. “The only place that there’s a problem is the Delta. The Delta water is a mess. It’s pretty hard for the fingerlings to get through the Delta, live through the Delta and get to the ocean where there’s more food.”

But Aaron Zanocco, co-owner of the River Guide Service in Yuba City and a guide for the past 10 years, thinks the decline in numbers has to do with mismanagement of the system by the state Department of Fish and Game.

“There are a lot of factors, but in the Feather River system it’s real easy: The state wants them (the salmon) to go bye-bye,” Zanocco said.

Harry Morse, a public information officer with Fish and Game, said the fisheries department is doing everything it can to make sure the species is healthy.

“We find the Chinook resource extremely valuable and we’re doing our best to protect it and propagate it,” Morse said.

Biologists for the state agency were not available for comment.

Zanocco said from information he’s received, the Feather River Fish Hatchery in Oroville is only spawning eggs from spring-run fish.

“They cut out their fall run. They want those fish to spawn naturally,” Zanocco said.

Anna Kastner, manager at the Feather River hatchery, said she didn’t know where Zanocco was getting his information, but said it was false.

“We are using both (fall and spring run eggs),” Kastner said. “The fall run is the majority of our population. … We definitely use fall-run (eggs).”

However, the number of fish reaching the hatchery is down.

Kastner said the number of fish that came through the hatchery dropped by 6,000 from 2005 to 2006. Numbers for 2007 were not currently available.

“Last year we got 14,000 fish and the year before we got 20,000 fish,” Kastner said. “Even with a lesser number of fish, we still maintained our goals.”

So, if the hatchery is producing the same number of fingerlings despite a drop in the number of returning fish, where are all the salmon?

Several issues are in play, and at least as far as Zanocco is concerned, fishermen who are snagging — using techniques that don’t require an actual bite to hook the fish — have to take responsibility.

Snagging often results in the death of the fish even if returned to the river.

“What happened was, in the last six or eight years, guys (snagging) have annihilated the naturally spawning fish. That’s why they trimmed 15 days off the season. It was Fish and Game’s way to make up for what they screwed up on,” said Zanocco, referring to what he believes is a lack of regulation barring snag techniques.

“The point of the story is, they (Fish and Game) has allowed guys to annihilate all the naturally spawning fish.”

But Beuttler said the water conditions of the Delta and river systems are even a bigger issue. Many of the young fish are not even getting to the ocean.

“When the food web begins to have those types of problems, it really means that there is a strong likelihood that the food isn’t where it needs to be when it needs to be there to support other species,” Beuttler said.

Beuttler pointed out that the Delta smelt were on the edge of extinction this year, a good indication the food web is struggling.

Also, some salmon are lost in pumps that supply the California Aqueduct, Delta-Mendota Canal and large power plants.

Beuttler said efforts are put into place to save those fish, however, losses are inevitable.

“There are tremendous losses of fish when they are trucked to the lower Delta and dumped into the water,” he said. “It’s hard to believe that the estuary can withstand those obstacles and still produce at levels it produced 10 or 15 years ago.”

Some have blamed commercial ocean operations for the declining population in the river systems, but Beuttler said even those anglers are struggling.

“I know the ocean harvest this year is perhaps the lowest its been in several decades,” Beuttler said. “The final statistics aren’t in, so it’s hard to project.”

Beuttler said while the young salmon are struggling to get the ocean in the first place, once they are there, they face more environmental issues.

He said warmer water temperatures and other factors seriously impact the food supply.

“The fish have to get there first; that’s the first problem. Once they do get there, they really have to have the right kind of food in the right places. They have to have the upwellings and krill and all those things for small fish to find food to survive,” Beuttler said.

Appeal-Democrat sports reporter Justin Miller can be reached at 749-4796. E-mail him at jmiller@appealdemocrat.com

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Copyright (c) 2007, Appeal-Democrat, Marysville, Calif.

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