Originally Posted By: seabeckraised
Seems to me that the outmigration efforts might be more beneficial to all parties if fish and smolt were collected at the outlet of the river where it feeds into the upper reservoir. Use of a simple rotary trap and collection tank comes to mind. Collected fish could then be transported by truck to below the dam, say two or three times a week during peak migration windows.


Yes and no. Chinook and steelhead don't use forebay collectors as well as coho and sockeye, so a river mouth collector would make sense if it could be operated effectively. And I don't know of any of that type/location that have proven to be very effective. Forebay collectors are easier (in relative terms because none of these are "easy." And forebay collectors collect fish that readily rear in the reservoirs, particularly sockeye and coho. (At Baker Dam, about half the coho smolts rear in the reservior and 100% of the sockeye do.)

Given that Wynoochee has as many reservoir miles as stream miles upstream of the dam, a forebay collector would be more cost effective measured as smolts collecter per dollar spent.