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Good Coho Run for Oregon’s Willamette River

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20131008-210430.jpgCoho salmon are moving into Oregon’s upper Willamette River in large numbers this year, providing the potential for some very good fishing above Willamette Falls.

Over the past two weeks, ODFW’s fish counting station at Willamette Falls has logged some of the largest daily coho counts of the past 20 years. So far, more than 7,300 adult coho salmon have crossed the falls on their way to spawning grounds in upper Willamette tributaries. The total count includes several days when nearly 1,000 coho were observed.

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Lake Tahoe: Your new destination for Trophy Goldfish!

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The next world record goldfish just may come from the most unlikely of places…Lake Tahoe.

But if you want to get in on the action, you had better hurry because state wildlife officials are in the process of trying to rid the lake of several non-native invasive species.

Goldfish, largemouth bass, bluegill and crappie have all been illegally dumped into Tahoe over the years. While you wouldn’t expect these warm water species to thrive in the cold, clear waters of Tahoe, they have found a shallow, weedy sanctuary in the environmental abomination that is the South Shore’s Tahoe Keys.

When they built the Tahoe Keys, they basically filled in a very productive estuary and marsh and turned it into a housing development and marina. The resulting shallow warm water now doesn’t get flushed out by the upper Truckee River and have become a haven for warmwater invasive species.

When I used to run a six-pack charterboat out of the Keys back in the day, I would catch bass & crappie off the docks in the afternoons after my charters. There were some big bass in there, too — I saw largemouth to 10 plus pounds and crappie in the 2-pound class.

To read more about this issue, check out the Sac Bee

Weird Science: Is Frankenfish coming to a store near you??

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So, what do you get when you cross a Chinook Salmon with an Atlantic Salmon with an eelpout? In my mind…trouble, that’s what! Here’s the deal:

AquaBounty Technologies, a Massachusetts-based biotech company, has created what it calls the “AquAdvantage” salmon. Yep, salmon created in a lab, not gravel! They accomplished this feat by injecting a fragment of DNA from eelpout — along with a growth hormone gene from Chinook salmon — into a fertilised Atlantic salmon egg. The result? A salmon that produces growth hormone year round, instead of only during warm weather. This allows the fish to reach market weight in half the time of a real salmon.

The FDA is expected to approve the genetically engineered salmon after a 60-day public comment period. If approved, it will be the first approved food from a transgenic animal application to enter the U.S. food supply.

While fast-growing salmon seem like a grand plan, I am pretty leery of “better living through genetically messing with Mother Nature.” Though AquaBounty says their fish are sterile, environmentally sound, and have no chance to escape in the wild and, therefore pose no threat to wild fish populations, I’m still not so sure. Apparently, these fish eat five times more than wild salmon — and if they somehow got loose into the ocean, the AquAdvantage salmon could inflict major pain on native baitfish and salmon populations.

I wonder what they are going to feed these things?? The tuna farming business is wiping out baitfish populations around the world and I fear we could see something along the same lines here. And if the super salmon are not fed real baitfish..what then? I shudder the thought!

Then there’s the whole health question. Something about salmon completely engineered by humans makes me wonder about the nutritional value. Without labeling, will we be able to tell these things from wild fish in the market?

And you have other issues such as what effect these fish would have on US and Canadian fishing fleets and the businesses that support them.

Overall, it seems like a bad science project to me. Adding to the whole bad vibe I get is the fact that the FDA did some kinda sneaky business regarding this whole issue.

You should really read up on this and let the FDA know what you think. To sign a petition against Frankenfish, CLICK HERE (scroll to the bottom)

Further Reading
Nation of Change: FDA QUIETLY PUSHES THROUGH GENETICALLY ENGINEERED SALMON OVER CHRISTMAS BREAK

Nat Geo: FDA MISSES THE BOAT WITH GENETICALLY ENGINEERED SALMON

The Independent: GE FISH FOR DINNER

Grist: THE APOCALYPSE IS HERE

The Last Steelhead Seminar ever??

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The end of the world is near, so come down to Fishermen’s Warehouse in Sacramento tonight (12/20/12) at 6 PM for some steelhead tricks to take with you into the next world.

The seminar’s an hour or so and I’ll cover plugging, drifting, bobber fishing and more…Hope to see you there!

West Coast: Better Batten Down the Hatches!

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It looks like most of the West Coast is in for a good dumping this week. From Seattle on down through Los Angeles, things are going to be wet.

Most of the precipitation is forecasted for Central California on up and some major rain (and wind) appears to be on the horizon!

From Weather Underground, here’s the Nor Cal outlook:

” The heaviest precipitation is expected over Shasta County along with Butte and western Plumas counties, where a large area of rainfall amounts of 12 to 18 inches or more will be possible through the weekend…”

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