A peek at one part of what is causing California’s salmon collapse…
Amazing Flood Pix: CA Delta Feb. 11, 2017
We took JD-Force 1 up today to get a bird’s eye view of the flooding in California. There’s been a lot of talk about the spillway at Oroville Dam lately, but I also wanted to see how the lower end of the system was faring. What we saw was amazing!
Starting with Liberty Island in the North Delta. Look at the debris and the whitewater…
The Rio Vista Bridge looks like it doesn’t have much clearance right now. Lots of homes and businesses on the shore either flooded or getting very close…
Looking down Cache Slough towards Rio Vista. The current speed and amount of debris in the water is staggering…
Hidden Harbor where Steamboat and Cache Sloughs meet..
A closer look at the bottom end of the Liberty Island area, where Prospect and Cache slough meet…
The Wimpy’s and New Hope area of the Mokelumne River, where the houseboats broke loose on Friday. All the house trailers are gone…I hope everybody was able to get out in time…
Apparently, the Deep Water Channel is the only clear water in the state…
Looking north towards the Causeway. The bypass looks like the Amazon…
Unfortunately, there are lots of homes and farms either flooded or getting very close…
Sadly, there will be lots more structures inundated I’m afraid by the time this is all over. Look at the rapids caused by the road…
More properly and structures underwater…
Willow Berm Marina on the Mokelumne River seems to be hanging in there…
A wide, bird’s eye view of Liberty Island. So much junk down there it’s insane…
10 of the World’s Biggest King Salmon
King Salmon are awesome…and the truly giant ones are unbelievably special creatures. Here’s a list of 10 massive kings that will make you weak in the knees…
Close to 80 Pounds!
The Kenai River in Alaska has pumped out more monster Chinook than anywhere. This massive 53.5″ x 34″ buck weighed somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 to 80 pounds!
Potential Record…Released!
On July 15, 2009, angler Joel Atchison caught this massive Chinook on the Kenai River in Alaska. Guide John Whitlatch of Reel Adventures says he’s not sure if the fish was a world record or not…because he and Aitchison decided to forgo their own glory and instead let the big beast go and make babies. Very, very cool!
The Biggest of All!
The biggest king salmon ever caught was this 126-pound monster that was caught in a fish trap near Petersburg, Alaska in 1949. My friend and fellow Alaska guide, Chris Sessions, sent me this pic and said that a friend of his has one of the three replica mounts of the behemoth on his wall.
All I can say is OMG!!!
The King of Kings
Anchorage Daily News Photo
No list of massive king salmon would be complete without the current All-Tackle IGFA All-Tackle World Record 97-pound, 4-ounce king caught by Les Anderson in the Kenai River back in May of 1985. The record fish measured a mind blowing 58.5″ x 37″ and was probably a 100 pounder considering it wasn’t weighed for several hours after it was caught.
You can read the whole story HERE
Sacramento Monster
Imagine the surprise of California Department of Fish & game biologists when they found this Godzilla-sized Chinook carcass in Battle Creek, a tributary of the Sacramento River, nearly 300 miles upstream, from the ocean! The fish was almost 51 inches long and estimated to weigh 88 pounds… dead! In his prime, out in the salt, the fish could have been pushing 100 pounds!
See more photos HERE
83-Pound BC Beast (Released!)
Deborah Whitman-Perry of Newmarket, Ont., caught & released this huge king that weighed 83 pounds, three ounces in August 2012 at River’s Inlet, BC while fishing with guide Tyler Mills of Good Hope Cannery. Again, I’m loving the fact that people are letting these hogs go! Read the whole story HERE
The Good Ol’ Days: Columbia River June Hogs
Before all the dams royally messed the Columbia River up for good, it had some monster Chinook! Bound for the upper end of the watershed, “June Hogs” sometimes topped 100 pounds. The construction of Grand Coulee Dam, which has no fish passage, ultimately did these massive beasts in for good. :(
Saltwater Slab
Photo: John L. Beath
So, considering I’ve never caught a king remotely as big as this 80-pounder from River’s Inlet, BC… I can only imagine how ridiculously massive the fillets off a fish like this are! Kudos to the netter too… I’m thinking I’d have a sudden case of the shakes when this bad dude came to the surface!
85-Pound June Hog
Photo: Columbia River Maritime Museum.
Here’s another one from the “wish I had a time machine jet sled” files… An 85-pound Columbia River June Hog caught in 1925 at Astoria by Tony Canessa. Man, those fish were soon awesome!
99 Pounder…Released!
www.ifish.net
Wolfgang Voelker, owner/operator of Kermode Bear Fishing Lodge in Terrace, BC writes:
Mrs. Ingrid Oeder, her husband Bernhard and their daughter arrived at Terrace Airport on August 6, 2001.
We went out fishing by boat the very next day. Fortunately, John Wright, the Kermode Bear Lodge Assistant Guide, joined us that day. We cast anchor right across the mouth of the Lakelse River. Suddenly, around 11 a.m., there was action on Ingrid’s rod. Bernhard hooked the fish and handed the rod back to her. Initially, there was no reaction on the other end of the line for about 10-15 seconds. All of a sudden, like an explosion, the fish headed toward the main current of the Skeena River.
At this point, I realized that this must be a really big one. We were lucky having John with us since we have been well-coordinated team for years. John released the anchor chain and started the boat engine. Now we’re prepared for the fight. I advised Ingrid to hold the rod up and to keep the line tight. In spite of her excitement she did everything right. We drifted downstream while Bernhard was operating the video camera. I would guess that we were fighting about 30 to 40 minutes with the fish, of course, Ingrid had to do most part of it. At last, the fish showed the first signs of tiredness and therefore the escape attempts lessened. Then it was my turn. After Ingrid finally managed to get the fish alongside the boat, I was able to net it. John and I lifted the salmon into the boat. Ingrid, meanwhile completely exhausted could not believe her luck. We drove back at full speed, since we did not want to set the fish back in the torrential current. I explained to Ingrid that we usually release all “the really big ones” to preserve the gene pool. She and her husband agreed to it without hesitation.
At this point, I want to thank them again for their understanding.
We took the measurements (136 cm x 98 cm) of the Salmon two times because could not believe it the first time. John and I put the giant back into the river approximately 10 minutes later, it swam into the deep water under its own steam.
There was a devout silence on the boat for a few seconds.
In the afternoon Bernhard caught his own smaller Chinook. This one, however, we took with us. Certainly, we will never forget this fishing day on the Skeena River.
The monster fish with a length of 53.5 inches and a girth of 38.5 using a formula (endorsed by FOC) of Length x Girth squared divided by 800 would weigh 99.125-pounds… clearly the largest Chinook (Kings as the Americans refer to them) ever landed. Along with witnesses a video was taken and a photograph made from the video.
Salmon Fishing Techniques
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10 Mind Blowing Giant Steelhead
Net Pen Rearing of California Chinook Salmon
(NOTE: I’m getting hit up with lots of questions this year about the smolt acclimation project that’s happening in the Sacramento River basin this spring, so I thought I’d repost this to give you some inside info).
You have no doubt heard about how California and the Feds, in response to extreme drought conditions in the Central Valley, are going to truck and net pen rear 30 million Chinook salmon smolt this spring. The first loads of small salmon were delivered to Rio Vista and released into the Sacramento River on Monday, March 24 and the project will continue into May.
Salmon taking the quick ride from tanker truck to the protective custody of the net pens
I’m a huge supporter of this and figured I’d give you a little background…
Out-migrating hatchery Chinook salmon smolt from California’s Central Valley rivers have to navigate a seemingly impossible list of hazards that include massive water diversions, predators at every turn, poor water quality and temperatures that are often 70 degrees and higher. In a low water year like this, the trip is exponentially more lethal.
FFC biologist James Walker oversees the offloading of Chinook smolt from the tanker trucks to the net pens. On this day, the pens received approximately half a million fish. The transfer of the fish from the DFW’s trucks to the pens takes close to and hour.
To help increase the odds of the little salmon’s survival, the California Department of Fish & Wildlife has been engaged in trucking the fish to locations in the lower Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta and upper San Francisco Bay for decades. The ride down Interstates 5 and 80 from the hatcheries on the Feather, Mokelumne and American rivers has given the fish a fighting chance but the feds, who operate Coleman National Fish Hatchery on the Sacramento River, have been more concerned with straying than salmon survival and have not participated. This year, however, the Golden Gate Salmon Association presented compelling evidence that the loss of salmon dumped directly into the river would be catastrophic and the feds finally agreed.
But simply trucking the salmon doesn’t ensure their survival — dumping the smolt directly into the water (like planted trout) made it so that predators like striped bass, sea lions, terns, seagulls, cormorants, etc. had plenty of food to eat. It was pure carnage at the release sites as the dazed fish suffered heavy losses immediately after leaving the trucks.
Immediately after hitting the water in the pens, the Chinook are dazed and confused. Most flounder around on the surface…and it is here where you can really see the benefits of the “protective custody” that the net pens provide. It’s estimated that at least 20% of the smolt are lost to predation from birds during this vulnerable period. In as little as 20 minutes in the pens, however, the fish get their wits about them and start to school up.
Fishery Foundation of California, which 20 years ago saw a better way…
According to the Foundation’s Executive Director, Trevor Kennedy, the FFC funded the area’s first net pen acclimation pilot study. They found that the net pens worked…big time. In fact, surveys showed that survival rates to the ocean for Chinook acclimated in the pens were 400% higher than those simply dumped straight into the river.
Think about that for a second…four hundred percent better survival! When you’re talking about that kind of improved survival for the tens of millions of fish released, you can see what a profound impact such a simple project can have!
Once the fish are all loaded up and acclimated to their new surroundings, the pens are covered in netting to protect from bird attacks, the lines are cast off and the whole unit is towed to the release site.
After that, the project got the green light to go full bore and the numbers are impressive. The amount of fish that are released via the net pens varies annually, but Kennedy says that his outfit typically does 60 to 70 percent of the State’s Chinook…and are doing all of them in 2014!
Initially, the funding came from mitigation money from the water contractors for the zillions of smolt they sucked up in their pumps. Then, money for the project came from the Commercial Salmon Trollers. Kennedy said that for the past 6 years, the funding has come from Bay-Delta Fishery Enhancement Stamp. Unfortunately, future sources for this program are unclear…but it obviously needs to be continued!
James Walker and Kari Bur pulling the net at the release site and sending the little salmon on their way..
The downside is the DFW and Feds would prefer to release fish in the river instead. They have this huge concern about salmon straying into the “wrong” systems. But, come on folks…in the Central Valley, which has been so altered by man, there’s nothing natural left. In this day and age, a live salmon in a river is a good salmon…regardless of origin.
The only “river” in California that isn’t bone dry…What The??
While driving to and from Southern California this week, it was hard not to be thoroughly outraged by seeing the California Aqueduct bank to bank with water…while every other river in the state is at or near historic lows!
Apparently, we’re not holding a whole lot back when it comes to Southern water deliveries!
Here’s another unsettling visual: Pyramid Lake, just north of LA (which receives water from Nor Cal), brim-full…
Now, compare that to Folsom Reservoir on the American River system…
In review: CA Aqueduct…
And then you have the Sacramento River and all its salmon spawning beds left high and dry…
Something isn’t right here, folks! I’m just saying…
One thing we can all do to help is to join the Golden Gate Salmon Association which is fighting hard for us to keep enough water in Nor Cal so that our fish runs can flourish.
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