January 9th unveiling of 2012 Status of South Fork Boise fishery

Posted by admin on January 6, 2013 | No Comments

Joe Kozfkay, Idaho Fish and Game Southwest Regional Fisheries Manager.

The Wednesday, January 9, 2013 Ted Trueblood Chapter of Trout Unlimited meeting will feature Joe Kozfkay, the Southwest Regional Fisheries Manager for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

Joe Kozfkay will introduce himself at the meeting, and provide a brief discussion of past monitoring efforts on the South Fork of the Boise River, presenting results from 2012 population estimating efforts, and lastly will be available to discuss other IDFG programs and activities.

Population monitoring is a key component of fisheries management. A variety of techniques may be used to gauge population status and trends for salmonids in mid- to large-size rivers.

IDFG crew doing the South Fork Boise River population survey electrofishing in October 2009 — photo by Whitefish Ed

In the South Fork of the Boise River (SFBR) downstream of Anderson Ranch Dam, IDFG employees utilize canoe electrofishing on a tri-annual basis to monitor trout and whitefish populations. Population assessments were completed in mid-October 2012.

The Ted Trueblood Chapter meeting will be at the MK Nature Center, behind the IDFG Headquarters Office, 600 South Walnut. Fly tying starts at 6:30 pm with the regular meeting/program beginning at 7:30. Hope to see you there.

Salute to Whitefish Ed – 2012 Man o’ the Year for 2012

Posted by admin on December 30, 2012 | No Comments

For the year 2012 southforkboise.org salutes Whitefish Ed for his devotion to the South Fork Boise River fishery and his early work to call attention to the stranding of young of year trout when the river flows are abruptly reduced in late summer. Previous posts have reported the details here about the concern that changes in flows could be affecting survival of juvenile trout, and then the follow up study where anglers and agency biologists worked together to assess the effects. Information on the results of the work is forthcoming in 2013 but for now let’s tip the hat to Whitefish Ed who initially called attention to this concern and inspired others to get the ball rolling on a study.

Whitefish Ed gets instructions from IDFG biologist Art Butts during the stranding study on September 17, 2012

Didymo: A Future Thing to Worry About?

Posted by admin on December 12, 2012 | No Comments

Back in January a question to Idaho Statesman outdoors reporter Pete Zimowsky brought up the didymo topic.

Q: When I was fishing on South Fork of the Boise River last month, I’m almost positive I saw some “didymo” on rocks along the bank.

It was like I thought I saw on the South Island of New Zealand.

CONCERNED ANGLER, email

Zimowsky responded that Idaho Fish and Game has confirmed presence of didymo in locations along the South Fork Boise River. And that it has been there for a number of years. The entire question and answer is here.

So, is didymo the next thing to wring our hands about? What do we know and need to know about this diatom (algae) that goes by the latin name didymosphoenia geminata?

Fortunately it appears the attention to this problem is going to escalate and in early 2013 there will be the International Didymo Conference to be held March 12-13 in Providence, Rhode Island. The national Trout Unlimited organization is a sponsor. Information about the conference can be found at the stopans.org website here.

What information we have on the South Fork Boise River and didymo appears to be largely anecdotal at this point. Some long-time anglers recall a particularly bad episode or two in the early 1990s. In fact 1992 and 1994 come to mind, and those were years where the summertime flows were reduced early in the summer because Anderson Ranch Reservoir was running out of water in those drought years. Some early 2000 drought years also saw a return. Correlation with water flows is only part of the picture, and perhaps an international conference can help shed light on this topic and what to do about it.

For more information there is a pretty good page that EPA has put together here.

FUTURE FISHERY: Fry Monitoring Assesses Recruitment

Posted by admin on November 18, 2012 | No Comments

In addition to the population survey that Idaho Fish and Game conducts every three years on the South Fork Boise River, there is also an effort to track the status of trout fry in several locations along the South Fork Boise River.

In late October a small crew was led by Art Butts from Idaho Fish and Game along with volunteers from Boise Valley Fly Fishers and the Ted Trueblood Chapter of Trout Unlimited. They monitored trout fry in six locations spread a few miles apart.

A section of the river would be measured for a 33 meter transect. The photo at left shows a portion of the river right (we are looking upstream so it’s on your left in the photo) portion of the South Fork just upstream of the confluence with Rough Creek. This is just upstream of the slide area where a January 1996 landslide formed a backwater along the South Fork.

Since Art was the guy who knows what he is doing with electricity he manned the backpack electroshocking unit. The three volunteers handled the nets, and as fry would emerge from the river bottom they would be netted and put in the five-gallon bucket. The larger photo above shows the method.

The next step in the process was counting and measuring each of the trout that had been netted and put in the bucket.

Each trout was counted and measured with a ruler. Total numbers are each site were recorded as were the measurements of all the fry.

The age zero trout were then put in the second bucket (both buckets held water of course) so they could avoid double counting or losing track of the number of fish.

This process was repeated for a total of six different sites. The data collected at these sites match up with previous fry monitoring activities in years past.

Over time we hope to get a better sense of the juvenile fish populations in the South Fork Boise River and what issues they face with flow and habitat management along the river.

As lay people we were interested to see these fry are in very shallow water and for the most part on or in and among the interstices of the rocks on the bottom of the channel. And they were right along the bank or shoreline. In places where there was better brush cover along the bank there appeared to be more dense numbers of these little fish. The more open areas seemed to have fewer fish.

Tagged population survey

Triennial Trout Tracking

Posted by admin on October 17, 2012 | No Comments

Idaho Fish and Game crews are this week and next undertaking their triennial fish population survey of the South Fork of the Boise River.

Photo from the 2006 electrofishing survey.

The last such survey was in the fall of 2009 when results showed a large number of smaller 100 mm or 4 inch (2 year old) trout in the system. In fact, the numbers were very high for the small fish so it will be interesting to see if the demographic bulge makes its way through the age class distribution.

Electrofishing surveys have occurred every three years since 1994. In previous posts we have detailed the changes observed in fish population estimates, such as number of fish per kilometer. We have also paid attention to size distribution of the fish found in the river.

We expect the marking run to be completed this week, and the recapture run early next week. Then the numbers will be crunched and we will begin to hear results sometime in 2013.