Welcome to the California Fisheries Blog

The California Sportfishing Protection Alliance is pleased to host the California Fisheries Blog. The focus will be on pelagic and anadromous fisheries. We will also cover environmental topics related to fisheries such as water supply, water quality, hatcheries, harvest, and habitats. Geographical coverage will be from the ocean to headwaters, including watersheds, streams, rivers, lakes, bays, ocean, and estuaries. Please note that posts on the blog represent the work and opinions of their authors, and do not necessarily reflect CSPA positions or policy.

Wild Salmon – A Superfood

Posted on August 1, 2015 by Tom Cannon

salmon for dinner Recently, I had fresh, wild, troll-caught¹ Coho from Costco ($4.99/lb whole) with wild rice and fresh strawberry walnut salad. The salmon was truly delicious as is the usual case with fresh, wild, troll-caught salmon.

Wild salmon like this is a “Super Food”.

“Salmon is a great source of protein and is packed with omega-3 fatty acids, which are associated with a healthy heart and brain function. Look for wild salmon to get the biggest health boost.” http://partnersinhealth.kaiserpermanente.org/july-2015/national/10-superfoods-that-pack-a-nutritional-punch-nat-july2015#sthash.hUM61ZOx.dpuf.

“Fatty ocean fish such as salmon and tuna are high in omega-3 fatty acids and can help reduce cholesterol levels, especially when you eat fish instead of saturated fats from red meats. Herring, trout and sardines are also high in omega-3s. Fish is also high in protein and minerals.”
http://nutrition.about.com/od/cardiovascular/ss/Super-Foods-that-Lower-Cholesterol.htm#step10

Having wild salmon available in markets is a very strong reason for upgrading the Central Valley Fall Run Chinook Salmon hatchery program, as I have advocated in earlier posts. Demand for salmon will be increasing as more and more Californians become health conscious. With the public recognition that farmed salmon are not “wild” salmon, there will be further pressure to increase production of “wild”, “free range” salmon in our coastal waters. Central Valley salmon hatcheries can help meet this need.

Approximately 90% of the coastal “wild, free-range” salmon come from the many federal, state, and tribal hatcheries on Pacific Coast rivers.

However, hatchery salmon and the fisheries they support can be a threat to native non-hatchery wild salmon runs, many of which have been listed as threatened or endangered under federal and state endangered species acts. Fishery harvest pressure on these non-hatchery “wild” salmon like the listed Winter Run and Spring Run Chinook of the Sacramento River, potentially put these runs at greater risk of extinction. With the greater risk comes fishery restrictions and less harvest of hatchery salmon, and the need for careful planning and management of the hatchery programs and fishery harvest. Harvest can be focused on times and locations where endangered salmon are least frequently present, but often this may not be possible. Other measures such as gear and catch restrictions, terminal fisheries, and mark-selective fisheries could be employed, making it possible to “have our salmon and eat them too!”

Troll-caught salmon are from regulated commercial fisheries in coastal waters from California to Alaska. They are caught live on trolling lines (in contrast to gill nets) and placed immediately on ice. I avoid purchasing “wild” salmon products from Russia or China that are available in grocery stores, because they come from “unregulated” fisheries, possibly even illegally from North American waters. Gill nets up to 50-miles long have been found fishing in ocean waters. I never purchase farmed salmon, which have little of the nutritional benefits of wild salmon. ↩

Are popular trout fishing waters too warm to fish?

Posted on July 30, 2015 by Tom Cannon

The Wild Fish Conservancy and other fishing groups have sent a request to the governors and fish & wildlife department directors and commissioners of Washington, Oregon, and California, and NOAA Fisheries, “urging the states to immediately implement emergency measures that would close all river reaches to all fishing, both recreational and commercial, that exceed 18°C (64.4°F), until water temperatures and flows return to more normal conditions”.¹ The petition notes that the drought (they referred to as “weather abnormalities”) have caused low flows and high water temperatures in rivers, streams, and lakes.

“A report released today by the Conservancy indicates that current water temperatures in almost all salmon and trout bearing rivers and streams analyzed in Washington, Oregon, and California have exceeded thresholds which result in biological stress, indirect mortality, and reduced spawning success. Furthermore, lethal conditions were detected in 39 of 54 of the rivers and streams.”

CDFW, in its CDFW News Blog, recommended on June 22 that anglers not fish whenever water temperatures exceed 70°F. ²

While the threshold temperature for the decision not to fish is somewhat species dependent, anglers should give careful thought to where they fish in hot weather, low water conditions.

Northern California Lakes and Reservoirs

Popular trout fishing locations in northern California include Shasta, Oroville, Almanor, Davis, Eagle, Siskiyou, Bullards Bar, and Folsom reservoirs, as well as many smaller foothill and Sierra lakes and reservoirs. Nearly all of these waters have surface temperatures in the mid-seventies in summer. Although these are not wild trout fisheries and are sustained primarily by stocking, many are quality fisheries that have carryover trout prized by many fishermen. Catch-and-release should be discouraged in these waters in summer, as many of the trout (and salmon) caught would likely die if released. Some guides and private waters no longer offer fishing in these waters because of the warm water. Harvested fish should be immediately put on ice and not on stringers.

Northern California River and Streams

Northern California is rich in cold water stream fisheries sustained by large springs (e.g., Hat Creek, Fall River, upper Battle Creek, upper McCloud, and upper North Fork Feather), and by others sustained by cold-water reservoir releases (e.g., upper Lower Trinity River, upper Lower Sacramento River below Shasta, and lower Yuba River). These waters can sustain fisheries through the summer even in most drought years.

However there are some streams that should be closed, partially closed, or considered for closure on a case-by-case basis. These include the Klamath, lower Trinity, lower sections of the upper Sacramento and lower McCloud, the Pit above Shasta, and the lower Truckee rivers.

Some selected water temperature charts are included below. They are available on CDEC, DWR’s streamflow and reservoir website.³ Check the web before you head out.

Upper Sacramento River upstream of Shasta Reservoir

Lower Sacramento River below Redding.

McCloud River above Shasta Reservoir

Lower Truckee River near Nevada border.

Lower Yuba River below Englebright Dam

Lower Klamath River.

Lower Trinity River.

http://wildfishconservancy.org/about/press-room/press-releases/extreme-water-temperatures-low-flows-in-pacific-northwest-rivers-creating-lethal-conditions-for-salmon ↩
https://cdfgnews.wordpress.com/ (Search June 22, 2015) ↩
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/river/rivcond.html It takes some trial and error to find the temperature plots, and not all stations have them. Generally, if you click on the title in blue below each graph it directs you to a list of data available for the station. The blue headers for each category of data are links, which opens up further graphing functions. ↩

It is time to save the Delta Smelt

Posted on July 28, 2015 by Tom Cannon

Causes of the Decline of the Endangered Delta Smelt

There are multiple threats to the Delta Smelt population that contribute to its viability and risk of extinction. Chief among these threats are reductions in freshwater inflow to the estuary; loss of larval, juvenile and adult fish at the state and federal Delta export facilities and in urban, agricultural and industrial water diversions; direct and indirect impacts of the Delta Smelt’s planktonic food supply and habitat; and lethal and sub-lethal effects of warm water and toxic chemicals in Delta open-water habitats.

Temporary urgency change orders by the State Board have allowed reduced Delta outflow and increased Delta salinity. This has moved the Low Salinity Zone further upstream (eastward) into the Delta, thereby increasing the degree of each of these threats. During the past few drought summers, remnants of the population have been confined to a small area of the Low Salinity Zone where water temperatures barely remain below lethal levels. The change orders are an obvious and direct threat to the remnants living in the Low Salinity Zone. Further allowing these weakened standards to be violated is a direct disregard for the remnants of the population. It places them at extraordinary risk by bringing them further into the zone of water diversions, degrading their habitat into the lethal range of water temperature, further degrading their already depleted food supply, and increasing the concentrations of toxic chemicals being relentlessly discharged into the Delta.

Saving the Delta Smelt

The following are measures necessary to save the remnant Delta Smelt population:

Keep the low salinity zone (LSZ) out of the Delta as prescribed in State water quality control plans over the last several decades. This can be readily accomplished by meeting already defined flow and salinity standards and restrictions on Delta exports. The LSZ on the Sacramento channel side should be in the wide open reach of eastern Suisun Bay between Collinsville and the west end of Sherman Island (location of Emmaton standard). It must be kept out of the Emmaton-to-Rio Vista reach just upstream in the west Delta, because this reach is confined and continually degraded by reservoir releases and warm water passing through the North Delta via Three Mile Slough to the interior of the Delta and south Delta water diversions. On the San Joaquin (south) side, the low salinity zone belongs in the wide Antioch–to-Jersey Point reach as prescribed in standards. This can be accomplished in spring and summer of dry years by maintaining prescribed flows, salinity standards at Jersey Point, installation of the False River and Dutch Slough Barriers, and opening the Delta Cross Channel (which results in positive net outflow from the mouth of Old River downstream to Jersey Point in the Central Delta). Maintaining the net positive flows in west Delta channels helps tremendously in getting salmon, steelhead, sturgeon, striped bass, and smelt from upstream freshwater spawning areas to their downstream rearing area target, the estuary’s LSZ. Keeping the LSZ in eastern Suisun Bay, as has always been an objective Delta Water Quality Plans, has huge indirect benefits as well, including greater plankton production, lower non-stressful water temperatures (conducive to growth and survival of all the Delta fish including smelt and salmonids), higher turbidity levels in the LSZ (reduced predation on and improved feeding for Delta smelt), lower invasive Asian clam concentrations in eastern Suisun Bay (which siphon off plankton and larval fish), and lower concentrations of toxins in the LSZ.
Improve the physical habitat of the LSZ. Habitat in eastern Suisun Bay, though far better than that of the west Delta, has been continuously degraded over the past century. Fortunately, there are few levees along the north shore of the Sacramento side. However, the wave-swept shores along Antioch Hills have lost all riparian vegetation except pockets of invasive Arundo. Hillside windfarm and shoreline erosion have filled in shoreline shoals, shallows, bays and alcoves that provided rearing habitat for smelt and salmon (salmon fry are the most abundant fish in these shallows through the winter). Miles of shoreline bays, inlets, and tidal marshes east of Collinsville have been lost. On the south side of the Sacramento channel are the remnants of historic Delta marshes and islands of West Sherman Island and Sherman Lake. Gradually the riparian shoreline and shallow waters are washing away as a consequence of wind as well as ship-wake erosion. Lack of interior marsh channel circulation has also led to grand infestations of invasive non-native submergent, emergent, and floating aquatic vegetation. Like the north shore, the south shoreline of West Suisun Bay on the San Joaquin side is not leveed. Likewise, shoreline and shallow water habitats are degraded, but from industrialization. Large areas east of Antioch to Big Break are degraded much as in the area of Sherman Lake. Both the north and south East Suisun Bay channels are degraded by dredging of the two deep-water ship channels, which has resulted in the loss of shallow shoal, bay, and mudflat habitats. Virtually none of the habitats mentioned above were addressed in the grand BDCP restoration plans for the Bay-Delta. Though some of the areas have been prescribed for restoration in various mitigation plans, virtually no progress has been made toward their restoration in the last several decades.
Stock hatchery raised smelt in the LSZ. The agency-sponsored Delta Smelt conservation hatcheries could be upgraded to production status to provide juveniles to be stocked in the LSZ in late spring and summer. The population is so low now (zero 20-mm and Townet survey indices) that stocking would be helpful if not necessary.
Provide a spring pulse flow into and through the Delta to help smelt fry transport from freshwater spawning areas downstream to the LSZ. This could include passing some Sacramento River flow through the blocked entrance to the Deepwater Ship Channel at the Port of West Sacramento. Delta inflow pulses could be provided by reservoir releases coordinated with infrequent natural flow pulses through the Delta.
Manage tidal flows and Delta hydrodynamics, as well as water quality, on a real time basis to help maintain the LSZ in east Suisun Bay and to stimulate and sustain plankton blooms. Real time management is possible because of the many satellite-accessible data recorders in the Delta, as well as the many frequent biological monitoring surveys being conducted throughout the Bay and Delta. Active adaptive management is possible with the many flow controls available on diversions, reservoir releases, and flow splits (e.g., Delta Cross Channel).

More on Longfin Smelt

Posted on July 20, 2015 by Tom Cannon

Longfin Smelt have declined as other pelagic fish species have over the past two decades. The species was listed in 2009 under the California Endangered Species Act. In a previous blog¹ I described trends in their abundance and distribution in the upper Bay and Delta. Below is a chart depicting the long-term trend in another standard CDFW survey, the San Francisco Bay Midwater Trawl Survey. The index is the average catch for the April and May monthly surveys at a basic array of 28-44 standard stations from San Francisco Bay upstream into the central Delta. Yearling smelt are dominant in the April surveys, while young predominate in the May surveys.

As in other surveys, the index pattern clearly shows a sharp reduction in average catch since 2007. The average catch is particularly low in the last three years. There was no May survey in 2008. Similar patterns were evident in the Fall Midwater Trawl Survey, Summer Townet Survey, Winter Kodiak Trawl Survey, 20-mm Smelt Survey, and the Larval Fish Survey.

http://calsport.org/fisheriesblog/?paged=2 ↩

Longfin Smelt Update – They’re Gone

Posted on July 18, 2015 by Tom Cannon

Back in April, I questioned whether Longfin Smelt, a state-listed endangered fish, are going extinct in the Bay Delta¹. The June surveys are in. The Bay Midwater Trawl, the Bay Otter Trawl, the Townet, and the 20-mm Survey show Longfin are at record lows with only a few caught in the Bay². One only has to compare 20-mm Survey results for June over the past three years to see the trend. Going, going, gone.