Its absolutely horrible!

I work in Burlington and I can't believe how low the river is! Its barely a trickle! What will this summer look like?? This is going to spell bad news for the salmon runs this year in the Skagit system.

A friend of mine went up to Baker lake to check it out...he said it was just a puddle up there!...he literally could walk 1/2 way across the lake....

this is bad news......

This may be near a record low flow for the middle Skagit River, and it's likely the lowest levels the Baker reservoirs have ever been at. They simply ran out of water; that is why the Skagit is now so low.

The present impact is that nearly half of the chinook and many more chum salmon fry in the middle river section of the Skagit just got dewatered before they could emerge from the gravel. Looking for an upside, the Skagit had a pretty good chinook escapement last fall, and there was no flood damage to spawning redds this winter, so survival overall was pretty good. Hope it was high enough to offset this loss. Probably not so good for the chums, tho. Chum escapement was one of the lowest ever, so this loss hits them pretty hard.

Additionally, rearing flows for juvenile rearing and migration this spring are nearly non-existent. This will reduce the number of smolts that successfully reach the Bay.

Importantly, the Baker reservoirs are now storing what little water is flowing in. Puget Sound Energy has said that Lake Shannon will have enough refill by late June to help the adult sockeye salmon run enter the river and fish ladder and trap system.

Both Puget and Seattle City Light will store as much water as possible this spring and summer - so low river flows - to best manage the next spawning and incubation cycle beginning in late August on the upper Skagit River. So even tho the weather service is not predicting drought, it's nice to know that the utilities are cooperating and planning contingincy action in case the dry weather continues into the summer and fall.

It's not a good situation for fish, but I thought you would like to know plans are already being made to make the best of it.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

Salmo, I read an article that had a Seattle City Light spokesperson saying their dams had water but they couldn't release anymore because of commitments for power and fish. With the ESA listing of Chinook it would seem that keeping redds watered would take priority over power commitments. Why doesn't City Light release enough water to at least keep the redds watered until the fish emerge? Maybe saving the water for fish later is a better trade off, I don't know. It just seem that they should do everything possible to save what fish are left.
I'm getting very discouraged with the authorities allowing fishing on runs and then finding it was a weak run and regretting allowing fishing on that run. I read where the tribes were allowed to catch 15,000 chums on the Skagit last fall. Now you say the escapement was one of the lowest ever. That pisses me off. Why don't they get sonar fish counters like they have on many Alaska rivers and not allow any harvest until a certain amount of fish have passed.

With the low water it is kind of fun to check out all the holes and structure. I've been making some mental notes for future fishing use.

My guess was reaffirmed today by the Herald. This is the driest year since 77. Thinking back though, that was a good year for me with the fly rod, had a 5 fish day, lost 4 because of my too cheap reel, and becuase the fish were hot. Many summer runs that year! Lets hope all is not lost. The Stilly though might be scary this August. Lets pray for a wet sping and some good soaking showers this summer.

Keta,

It's kinda complicated. SCL is responsible for fish protection in the Skagit upstream of Rockport. If they had released water to protect fish in the middle river it would have jeopardized their ability to maintain upper river protection by running out of water like the Baker did. For what it's worth, the upper river produces a lot more chinook than the middle river. It is a trade off, with the goal being to maximize overall survival.

The chums spawned heavily in the middle river, so they really took a hit. Very sad. Yeah, the tribes' harvest rate was high, considering that in hindsight it should have been zero. But they didn't know that when they began their season.

Sonar doesn't work so well as a fish run size counter in our rivers due to the large debris load in the rivers. I'm told they use it in Alaskan rivers that run pretty clean, so they get a clean signal off the fish. At the present time the only alternative to run size forecasting methods is using a more conservative margin. Naw, 'tain't likely.

It is amazing to see the river so low. Make lots of notes.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.