Coeur d’ Alene Cutthroat Study -Information and updates

Please contact your Volunteer Coordinator for more information

The volunteer coordinators/contacts for each club are as follows:

North Idaho Flycasters
Earl Frizzel
Coeur d’Alene Id(208) 664-8020
e-mail – idspike@my180.net

Inland Empire Fly Fishing club
Jerry McBride
Spokane Wa
(509) 233-2108
e-mail – jernnita@aol.com

Spokane Fly Fishers
Judy Kaufman
Spokane Wa
(509) 924–9462
e-mail – dv111@qwest.net

Dan Ferguson
Spokane Wa
509.325.8885
e-mail – sffishers@comcast.net
 

CUTTHROAT TROUT TRACKING AND HABITAT EVALUATION UPDATE

 

11/05/03

 

 

We are moving into our 6^th month of tracking fish.  We went through some very extreme water conditions during the summer months with maximum water temperatures exceeding 26 C in July.  During this period (June –August) we observed very little movement of tagged fish.  In September water temperatures began to decline and fish were more active and we saw more movement of fish.  In general fish began to move downstream into bigger water.  During this period (September – October) we also observed a significant  fish mortality.  We found 17 tags that were on the stream bottom  We have had some discussions concerning what happened to these fish.  Some fish were legally killed by fisherman, but we also feel that some of the mortality could be due to illegal fishing, some to natural predation, mortality and possibly a natural loss of tags.  Since we had a number of tags that were not in the water, during October we captured an additional 10 fish and tagged them.  One of the fish tagged in Tepee Creek is shown below.  Including fish tagged by Parametrics we currently have 44 fish that we are tracking. We will continue to track this winter on a monthly basis and increase the frequency in the spring.

We completed phase three of the project “Quantifying the amount of Suitable Habitat”, during the month of September.  We were able to collect habitat information on the main stem of the Coeur d’Alene River and the North Fork of the Coeur d’Alene River from slack water up to Lost creek.  We did the little North Fork of the Coeur d’ Alene from Laverne Creek to the confluence with the North Fork and we completed Tepee from Halsey to the mouth. We also completed Prichard creek from Eagle Creek to the mouth, although section of this stream was dry.   We will be using exiting data (collected from 96-2001) for Shoshone Creek and the North Fork Coeur d’ Alene river from Lost Creek to Marten Creek.  We have also pulled all of our thermographs that were put out for the study.  We had three that were removed by the public and are gone.

 

Even though we are still tracking fish, we are also starting our initial data analysis.  As we discussed in presentations last spring we will be looking at movement, try to determine if there are any environmental variables that help predict movement.  We will look at habitat use, cover use and relate that back to habitat availability within the river system.  Our plan is to have a draft presentation by the end of March or early April which we will present to all the clubs. 

 

We should all thank Earl Frizzel, Jerry McBride, and Judy Kaufman for their efforts in coordinating the Volunteers for all phases of the study.  We had a great contribution from all the clubs.  Volunteers contributed over 80 days of their time to the project to date.

7/24/03

We have been tracking fish for two months now and it appears that everyone is having a great time when we are tracking. We have 42 fish that we are tracking at this time. We have four transmitters that are not in fish, two appeared to be mortality from tagging, one was caught by a fisherman (legally) and the fourth tag was found alongside the stream, which could have been caught by a animal and eaten?

The weather has been HOT, and we have not seen a lot of movement from the fish. It is to early in the project to draw any conclusion or trends about fish movement or why one fish is staying put and another moved. We have also been tracking fish tagged by Parametrics in the lower river. Again some of these fish are staying in the areas they were tagged and others are gone (we feel the ones we can’t located have moved down river and into the lake). Water temperatures are getting up to 20-22C in the river in the late afternoons and with the forecast, we expect them to get higher. The fish seem to be handling these temperatures as we see then feeding at some sites when we are tracking. We will continue our tracking every two weeks through the summer and early Fall.

We are approaching the start date of Phase three of the project “Quantifying the amount of Suitable Habitat” In our signup sheet I indicated that we would be putting on a training on Saturday August 16^th for the Volunteers who were interested in this phase of the project. Could the volunteer coordinators please contact all the people signed up for habitat work and let them know that on Saturday as many people that can attend the training should. It will be very difficult to train people every day Thanks. If we get enough people for the training we will be meeting at the mouth of Shoshone creek at 0900.

 

6/01/03

We have been tagging fish for three weeks now and it appears that everyone is having a great time. We have at least 36 fish tagged at this time. We had some good press from the Spokesman Review, thanks to erveryone who provided information for the articles.

The weather has been warming up, during the first four days of the week it was quite warm. Early in the week we were quite successful. We tagged three on Monday and eight on Tuesday. At the end of the week things slowed down quite a bit, maybe it was the warm weather. We tagged two fish on Wednesday and only one on Thursday. We were catching quite few fish but we could not get them into the net and tagged. We finally finished the little North Fork of the Coeur d’Alene, the last fish was a tough one. What’s left? We have the lower river, Shoshone creek and one or two fish in the roadless area and Independence creek. We had our first drive by tagging. Matt Davis and crew were on Tepee creek and as they drove by a fisherman they notice he had a fish on. They all jumped out of the truck and told the fisherman to keep the fish in the net. It was a 19 inch fish and Matt put a tag in it.

So what’s been working and what not? Nymph fishing is hooking fish, Cactus Caddis or a Golden Stonefly seems to be catching fish. Late in the afternoon a few fish are being hooked on dry flies.

We will be fishing the lower river this week and taking a few people out trying to pickup a few of the individual fish we need in the upper basin. We will also take some brave soles and try to fish Shoshone creek for the fourth time.

Thanks for the help getting everyone out and fishing. Our goal next week is to get all the additional fish tagged.

 

5/27/03

We have gotten through the second week of tagging and we have 23 fish tagged. So we are halfway through the fishing and have half the fish tagged It appears that KREM 2 news ran the spot on Monday May 19th, We did not get in from fishing that day till after 6pm so I missed the news. When I get some time I will try to track down the tape from KREM.

Well it is still spring out there. We got rained on three days and had some of the warmest weather yet. We caught some nice fish, 18.5 inches was the biggest of the week. Rumor has it someone hooked a 20-22 inch fish but did not get it in the net. We are starting to catch a lot of smaller fish also (10-11 inches). We had some on and off days. On Monday we got 4 tagged then Tuesday 1, four again on Wednesday and then only one on Thursday and one on Friday. We have caught fish in all sections of the river, except the roadless area. We will be going into that area this week.

So what’s been working and what not? Early in the week and in the mornings, nymph fishing was the only method that was hooking fish. We have hooked some big fish (not landed ) on sculpin patterns. We are starting to pick a lot of fish up on dry flies. All the fish I tagged were taken on dry flies last week.

We would like to try to get into the roadless section of the river next week. We have access to all the trail heads, on the Upper Coeur d’Alene river and we will get in to some of the areas this week. We will be talking to the Volunteers in the morning to see which crews can do some hiking and which crews will be fishing with road access, but you can help me as you call people let them know we are trying to get a little further from the roads. Based on the data from Fish and Game these areas have the highest populations of fish.

We had a drop off in some of the fisherman showing up at the end of last week and today we only had one volunteer show up. We need to continue calling and making sure people are going to make the days they signed up for.

Thanks for the help getting everyone out and fishing. Our goal this week is to get an additional 15 fish tagged.