And the other shoe drops

[Anglinarcher]

I was having a talk with a person of some renoun on Saturday, and discovered that there was a newspaper article about the PO River in the last couple of days. It seems that the indians have been given a 40 Million Dollar grant to build a fish ladder over Albany Falls Dam (PO Lake).

It seems that they think that it is worth spending that kind of money so Bull Trout can migrate "down stream" to spawn, then migrate back up to PO lake. They claim that this will create a catch and keep fishery for bull trout in the PO River.

OK, so do you guys still think I am on drugs, or do you think that maybe the local indians and the Feds have been smoking something a little too strong in the old peace pipe? Note to haters, I have three tribes in me, so I am stating fact, not hating. Don't even try to play that card.

Many of us have been wondering what the truth was about the Pike murder in the PO. We all knew that there was money involved somewhare, and now we know what it is.

OK, so this is a quizz, how many of you think that trout or char (like Bull Trout) will go against a million years of evolutionary history and migrate "down stream" to spawn.

The question is not if Pike are here to stay, it is what do the powers that be think that they can waist the most money on. Please let me know when you guys start seeing spawning Bull Trout in the PO River. Please! In the mean time, a world class fishery and an economic opertunity for the local area is lost.

Please, let me vote for the idiots in the State and Federal Government that figured out this waste of money.

[TroutSnipr]

They've been talking about this for years....

http://www.scawild.org/newsletters/sigh ... er2009.pdf

[G-Man]

Maybe these fish are of a strain similar to that of the Beardslee Trout? All kidding aside, bull trout look to migrate to the upper reaches of streams to find the coldest, cleanest waters for spawning. The adult fish are wanderers though and I guess a percentage of them will head downstream to check things out. However, fish ladders aren't selective and would make it easier for other species to work their way downstream which is what caused the pike problem in the first place. I know that the State doesn't care for pike, lakers or walleye, so how do they propose to keep them in the lake and not headed down the ladder?

[TroutSnipr]

I think this is the article you may be referring to.

http://m.spokesman.com/stories/2012/jul ... ut-stocks/

Two prized trout fisheries in the Lake Pend Oreille watershed will get a $39.5 million boost from the federal government through an agreement with the Kalispel Tribe.

The money will be spent over the next decade to improve stocks of native bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout, whose numbers plummeted after Albeni Falls Dam was built in the 1950s.

The effort will help the Kalispel Tribe keep centuries-old fishing traditions alive in watersheds used by their ancestors. And for local anglers, there’s plenty in the pact to celebrate, too.

“At some point in the future, we want our people to be able to harvest these fish again, and everyone else to be able to harvest them, too,” said Deane Osterman, executive director for the Kalispel Tribe’s Natural Resources Department. “We want the improvements to benefit the entire community.”

In addition to eating salmon from the Columbia River, the Kalispel Tribe’s members also caught healthy-sized bull trout and cutthroat from Lake Pend Oreille, the Pend Oreille River and its tributaries. Both fish are indicators of pristine watersheds, with clean, cold water.

North Idaho’s older anglers also remember trophy bull trout and cutthroat being reeled out of the Pend Oreille system, said Jim Fredericks, regional fisheries manager for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. Lake Pend Oreille holds the world record for the largest bull trout: a 32-pounder caught in 1949.

Fish and Game officials support the goal of restoring the runs so anglers could keep a limited number of bull trout and cutthroat, Fredericks said. Currently, the fish have to be released if they’re caught. Bull trout are federally listed as “threatened,” and westslope cutthroat are a species of concern in both Idaho and Washington.

Lake Pend Oreille actually supports one of the West’s healthiest remaining bull trout runs, said Joan Jewett, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman. In 2008, the lake’s bull trout population was estimated at 8,000 spawning adults. But the population is way down from historic, pre-dam levels, when the bull trout had access to more than 200 miles of spawning streams, she said.

Restoring fish passage over Albeni Falls Dam is a key part of the accord, said the Kalispel Tribe’s Osterman. Built without fish ladders, the dam prevents young bull trout from migrating upstream to Lake Pend Oreille, where some of the bull trout matured to adulthood before heading back downstream to spawning grounds.

The dam also altered river flows, creating warmer pools of water. As part of the accord, the tribe and federal agencies will work together on dam operations to provide cooler water for bull trout during the late summer and fall. At times, temperatures in the river threaten bull trout survival.

Other money will be spent on acquiring and protecting habitat; investigating the possibility of a hatchery to rear genetically pure stocks of native trout; and removing non-native predatory fish from tributary streams.

The accord was signed by the Kalispel Tribe and three federal agencies: the Bonneville Power Administration, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation.

It mirrors the 2008 Columbia Basin fish accords between the federal government and Lower Columbia tribes, which focus on research, habitat improvements and monitoring to benefit endangered salmon and steelhead runs. However, this is the first such accord with the aim of restoring resident fish stocks, said Doug Johnson, a Bonneville Power Administration spokesman.

More links:

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.c ... out-125525

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.c ... ons-120289

http://efw.bpa.gov/environmental_servic ... 102011.pdf

http://flatheadtu.wordpress.com/2012/07 ... fish-news/

http://nativeamericanrightsmovement.wor ... /tag/fish/

[Anglinarcher]

Looks like it is. Interesting how it is written. Clearly it is written using the information provided by the official press release; to bad the official press releass is full of half truths and misleading informaiton.

OH well, we got what we voted for all these years.

[YJ Guide Service]

There going to supply the bull tout with cooler water in the summer and fall time?????Are they going to pump ice into the river to cool the water lol...another waste of money trying to bring back a species that was lost with the intro of the dams. Move on with it and get over it, bull trout are not going to ever want to be in the slow, hot waters that are the PO River. Makes me mad that all this money is being wasted and not being used for something that actually makes sense...Ahhhh another chapter in the lets mess things up on the PO River more...Didnt they just get 10 million to destroy the Pike fishery? now 40 million for fish ladders. I dont think the federal gov understands what there dealing with when it comes to the PO River..

[Mark K]

There going to supply the bull tout with cooler water in the summer and fall time?????Are they going to pump ice into the river to cool the water lol...

Hahaha if it makes Conner and his gang a couple bucks why not. Wow.

[Anglinarcher]

...........I dont think the federal gov understands what there dealing with when it comes to the PO River..

Of course they do, just like they understood all about putting wolves, grey wolves and not the much smaller timber wolve, back in the west.

Personally, I agree with putting wolves, cougars, and bears back into their natural habbitat. Seattle has a lot of city parks that were once natural habbitat, so lets put some wolves, cougars, and bears into the center of Seattle, Kent, Olympia, etc., and see how the locals like them.

[AJ's Dad]

It all makes sense if you just think about it from a dollars and cents point of view.
A certain entity puts millions and millions and millions and millions, (OK that's enough millions) of dollars into their pockets and they didn't even have to build a new casino.
Now that's business sense.

[YellowBear]

The sad thing is that the general public will beleive this nonsence.

How many Salmonids spawn down stream?

[G-Man]

More importantly, how many salmoniod fry and smolts, that aren't Beardslees, head up river to mature?

[Anglinarcher]

Well, there is $40 Mill that our "leaders" are betting that says we are all wrong.