Lending a helping hand to the salmon of Auburn Ravine

Like just about every other salmon stream in California, dams block much of the spawning habitat on the Auburn Ravine (this is the North Fork where I grew up).

Jack Sanchez wants to make the stream passable to salmon and steelhead and needs your help. Check it out:
Save Auburn Ravine Salmon and Steelhead

Stanislaus River Restoration Project Update

As you know, I was involved with the spawning gravel restoration work California’s Stanislaus River tis past fall. The Cliff’s Notes version is we rehabilitated a mile and a half stretch of river with 118,000 tons of gravel and close to 200 boulders to provide wild Chinook a place to spawn. We got the work done just in time for the fall run to begin and eagerly awaited the return of our fish to see how the liked their new diggs.

Well, California’s Chinook runs completely tanked this year and only 408 kings were counted at the weir on the lower Stanislaus (compared to 3,500 the season before). We saw a few fish in our stretch of river and some dug redds like the one in the photo above. Overall, however, there just weren’t enough kings in the system to get any solid feedback on our designs. A total bummer!! And the future doesn’t look a whole lot better at this point…

You can see all the before and after photos from the project here: Stanislaus River Restoration

Ventura River Steelhead: New lease on life with removal of Matilija Dam?

Ever since I stumbled upon this old photo of steelhead anglers who had a banner day on the Ventura River long ago, I’ve been intrigued by the whole notion that the rivers of Southern California once harbored populations of sea-run rainbows that rival some of today’s best waters.

Prior to the 1940’s, the Ventura played host to an estimated 5,000 steelies annually (think about that one for a second!) — more than enough to support a popular spot fishery. In fact, several popular Hollywood stars of the day were said to have spent plenty of time wetting a line there.

An exploding human population, however, quickly did the Ventura’s steelies in around the 1940’s and now adult fish are only occasionally seen in the river. There is hope however for the future…

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Putting the finishing touches on the Stanislaus River salmon spawning riffle Restoration Project!

Well, after weeks of grueling (but exciting!) work, we’ve pretty much got everything done on the Stanislaus River salmon spawning riffle restoration project I’ve been working with KDH Environmental on. The Cliff’s Notes version is this: we took a 1.5-mile stretch of virtually fishless water and transformed it, with lots of gravel, boulders, grunt labor and heavy machinery, into a fishy nirvana.

Here are some photos I took during the project. To see more, check out my essay in the the February issue of Salmon Trout Steelheader. Okay, on with the show…this is just some of the 18,000 tons of pristine spawning gravel we excavated, sifted, washed and placed into the river:

For a bunch more photos, read on…

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Stanislaus River restoration project nearing completion

It’s a funny thing…it took 4 years of permits, meetings and politics to get the Stanislaus River gravel restoration project off the ground and only 4 weeks to complete the actual work. We’re just about done renovating the 2-mile stretch of river we’ve been working on this month and it looks fantastic. With a gazillion tons of gravel and over 100 boulders in the 2- to 7-ton size range, this year’s fall run of Chinook salmon will have some stellar new habitat to call home.

Here’s a before photo of one of the spots we’ve rehabed:



And then the after picture…lots of good spawning gravel, some nice holding water and perfect flow!

Read on to see some other cool photos…

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River Restoration Update

As you know, I’ve been working with KDH Environmental over the past several weeks to help restore gravel spawning beds for chinook salmon on the Stanislaus River. Things have been going exceptionally well and the 2-mile stretch of river we’ve been on has undergone an amazing transformation. We’re getting close to being finished…here’s a little sneak peak at some of the stuff we’ve been up to.

Here’s a picture of a side channel on the backside of an island before we started cleaning it up:


And here’s what it’s looking like now:

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Stanislaus River Restoration Update

As I noted earlier, I’m currently working as a consultant with KDH Environmental on a salmon spawning riffle restoration project.



You can go back and read earlier posts, but in a nutshell here’s the deal: The Stanislaus, because of New Melones, Goodwin and Tulloch dams, doesn’t receive new gravel every winter to replace the stuff that washes out in high water. Because of that, the river’s turned into a gravel-free ditch with little suitable spawning habitat for the river’s wild chinook salmon population, which dwindled down to just a couple hundred fish in the 1990’s.

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Bringing back the river

We began work today on Northern California’s Stanislaus River to build several Chinook salmon spawning riffles and juvenile holding areas.

The gravel restoration work is being done by Dennis Hood of KDH Environmental, for whom I’m working as a consultant, and should give the river, which is a tributary to California’s San Joaquin River, a huge shot in the arm from a fishery enhancement standpoint.

Several riffles were built in the river’s upper reaches some years back and they helped bring the wild Chinook population back from near extinction (the run was down to something 200 fish) to a run that now numbers anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 fish annually.

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