rogerdodger
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after visiting the dam yesterday, we took a hike to where the Siltcoos river meets the ocean. as a result, to quote one of my favorite movies, 'I am depressed'.
here is what I have observed as of Oct20 after visiting the lake almost daily since late September, plus the dam and river bar:
the lake is being held at 'full pond' by the dam. along the sides of the fish ladder the water is right to the top, any higher and it would be pouring over there, so the lake is full, cannot be held any higher.
although a handful of coho have been seen splashing in the lower river, we have seen and caught none in the lake (10 fishing outings on the lake) with the same being reported by everyone we have spoken to.
the river is barely flowing into the ocean, the water that is flowing spreads quickly as it meets the surf. at least a dozen seals were in the surf just off the river, with another dozen to the south and another dozen to the north. I did observe a few (4) coho ride a wave in beside the river and try to get over into the flow but they all failed and shot back out in shallow surf as the wave pulled back, in all cases several seals converged on their location as they reached deeper water...in the 30minutes I was at the bar, no fish made it into the river.
so while the dam does in fact have a 'ladder' which appears easy to pass through, if the coho cannot get into the river and are being slaughtered by seals and probably sea lions, well that seems to make the problem the dam, it is not letting enough water pass through it.
here is my 2 minute video: http://youtu.be/EnjwgrPyx4M
at this point I am totally wizzed OFF, we have tens of thousands of coho swarming up the Siuslaw river but once we tagged 2, that was it. for almost 2 weeks now, since filling our coho tags, we basically stopped fishing the Siuslaw, not because we didn't want to catch more chinooks but to avoid causing unnecessary harm to any coho that would need to be released. But now we face a real dilemma: the wild coho rules allow us each to each tag 3 more coho in Siltcoos. But should we? Where is the run? Will it be a weak run this year? or perhaps being decimated by predators while waiting for some idiot to open a dam? how many Siltcoos coho have just decided to go up the Siuslaw instead or stay in the ocean an extra year? (do coho do that? waiting to hear back from a fisheries biologist on those questions)...
unless we see a huge coho run soon come pouring into Siltcoos, I am going to have a very difficult time harvesting any of those fish. and this after releasing coho in the Siuslaw and avoiding fishing due to an overwhelming numbers of coho moving through...roger
here is what I have observed as of Oct20 after visiting the lake almost daily since late September, plus the dam and river bar:
the lake is being held at 'full pond' by the dam. along the sides of the fish ladder the water is right to the top, any higher and it would be pouring over there, so the lake is full, cannot be held any higher.
although a handful of coho have been seen splashing in the lower river, we have seen and caught none in the lake (10 fishing outings on the lake) with the same being reported by everyone we have spoken to.
the river is barely flowing into the ocean, the water that is flowing spreads quickly as it meets the surf. at least a dozen seals were in the surf just off the river, with another dozen to the south and another dozen to the north. I did observe a few (4) coho ride a wave in beside the river and try to get over into the flow but they all failed and shot back out in shallow surf as the wave pulled back, in all cases several seals converged on their location as they reached deeper water...in the 30minutes I was at the bar, no fish made it into the river.
so while the dam does in fact have a 'ladder' which appears easy to pass through, if the coho cannot get into the river and are being slaughtered by seals and probably sea lions, well that seems to make the problem the dam, it is not letting enough water pass through it.
here is my 2 minute video: http://youtu.be/EnjwgrPyx4M
at this point I am totally wizzed OFF, we have tens of thousands of coho swarming up the Siuslaw river but once we tagged 2, that was it. for almost 2 weeks now, since filling our coho tags, we basically stopped fishing the Siuslaw, not because we didn't want to catch more chinooks but to avoid causing unnecessary harm to any coho that would need to be released. But now we face a real dilemma: the wild coho rules allow us each to each tag 3 more coho in Siltcoos. But should we? Where is the run? Will it be a weak run this year? or perhaps being decimated by predators while waiting for some idiot to open a dam? how many Siltcoos coho have just decided to go up the Siuslaw instead or stay in the ocean an extra year? (do coho do that? waiting to hear back from a fisheries biologist on those questions)...
unless we see a huge coho run soon come pouring into Siltcoos, I am going to have a very difficult time harvesting any of those fish. and this after releasing coho in the Siuslaw and avoiding fishing due to an overwhelming numbers of coho moving through...roger
