Seattle Public Utilities is proposing to make fish passage modifications to the Landsburg Dam and lower aqueduct crossing that will allow salmon to swim freely to an extra 17 miles of upper watershed that has been blocked of for over a 100 years! However, only coho & chinook will be allowed into the upper resevoir. Sockeye will not be allowed to the upper reaches because they are not native to the Cedar. Does anyone have any thoughts on this issue?

BD

Build it, and they will come!

Gee how thoughtful of them. "No soup for you!!"

Sure, sure--it sounds so easy. Just post a sign that says, "Authorized Anadromous Fish Only Beyond This Point." But sooner or later a group of teenage Sockeye will break in and leave their beer bottles and empty pretzel bags and spawn-filled condoms all over and then where will we be?

note: no teenagers were harmed in the production of this message. Any relation to other sockeye, whether real or imagined, is purely coincidental. Permission to use sign lettering provided by the Stupid Sign Company. This note copyright Flameguard, Inc., 2002.

It sounds just like a "trap & haul scam to me! Beware!

Cowlitzfisherman
Is the taste of the bait worth the sting of the hook????

Bobber Down: Sockeye weren't native to this watershed? That really suprised me. I thought they were native to Lk WA which obviously would have had them up into the Cedar River too. Just curious, when were they introduced?
ps: as to my opinion on it, seems crazy not to do it. It should be very cheap to do, I always hate to see the sockeye schooled up by the thousands at the aquaduct barrier dam with no place to spawn so would prefer they be allowed to pass as well. From what I read, the few chinook & coho that come into the river later in the season have very few good gravel stretches to make their redds in, so opening the mostly unspoiled section of the watershed seems like a no brainer to me.

It's a water quality issue. They don't want hundreds of thousands of dead sockeye above the Seattle Water intake. Other species are few in number; they aren't likely to cause problems. Most of the steelhead will swim back out, anyway. Recently, the sockeye fry from the Landsburg hatchery project were released. Scientists diving in the river, near Landsburg, reported there were large cutthroat behind every boulder gobbling up fry.

fishingtoo,
Sockeye were introduced to the Lake Washington system in the early 50's from Baker Lk stock. Before the Locks were put in at Ballard the Cedar did not even flow into Lake Washington, it went into the Black R and eventually the Green R. The Chinook and the Coho that are there now actually swiched migration routes through Ballard after the river was altered. Although, I personally worked on the Cedar for a while and I saw alot of Chinook and Coho that looked an awful lot like the same Chinook and Coho at the Isaquah Salmon Hatchery.
I am all for opening the Landsburg dam to Chinook, Coho, and Stealhead. I do hope they plan on putting some kind of a smolt slide on the dam though because, like CedarR said, the cutts and Rainbows on that river are something else.
I also agree on not putting Sockeye into the upperwatershed. Not only is the city worried about the fish nutrients in the city water intake, but the seagulls that spend a half day at the local land fill then eat spawned out Socks the rest of the day and bath in the upper river, no need to attract them. Sockeye are also carriers of a diseas known as IHN, that is deadly to just about everything but Sockeye(as far as fish go anyway). I do not know enough about it to go into to much detail but its a nasty thing. Glad to here they are still moving forward though, when I was there in the fall of 98 they were just starting to measure where everything would fit.

NEN

I thought kokanee were native to Lake Washington, which makes it seem likely that sockeye were around too? Anyone know about this?

Downstream migrating fish above the dam will be passed through a series of fish screens that will eventually drop them in a plunge pool below the dam.

An interesting situation is that there is a large resident Rainbow population above the dam (sorry guys no fishing allowed!) and for the first time in over a 100 years they will be allowed to swim below the dam and all the way to Puget Sound. This could increase salmon smolt predation in the lower river. Hopefully, opening the habitat in the upper river for salmon will offset the negative aspects of the proposal.

BD

NEN: thanks for the great info. I had always assumed Lk WA was only enlarged by the Ballard locks, with the Sockeye run being native to the lakes tributaries. That's what I like on this
BB is the sharing of info

Never enough nookie
Well done on the history of Lk Washington and the Cedar River system, everyone I know has never heard the river stories of this area. What was not in my history book in school was how the migration of fish changed there coarse after the alteration. A old friend of the family has told me stories of the kings and steelies they use to catch there and now it is all gone or is it. I presumed that the return on the Cedar never came back or is this a river that we never hear about can you fill some of us in on how the returns are on the Cedar river. Sockeye excluded

Bobber Down,

Resolving many of our man-made barriers to fish is a good thing. It's simply amazing how resolving dams, culverts and irrigation diversions can lead to the instant colonization of fish species returning to a watershed. The issue(s) of what to allow as far as passage over Landsburg sounds like a trap and haul facility similiar to the White River, Baker River, Wynochee River and Sunset Falls on the Skykomish. But you'd have to check w/the folks at WDFW to see what Seattle is up to as far as a prescription to fish passage.

The sockeye of Lake Washington were introduced from the Baker River. That strain was toyed w/somewhat as well before the introduction into Lake Washington in the '50's. Artificial supplementation began in earnest in 1977 w/WDF's efforts to supplement production and increase harvestable levels w/ the Streamside Egg Incubation Box Program from '77 through I think 1982. The goal was to obtain a 360,000 sockeye escapement into the Lake Washington system so a sport and tribal fishery could occur. At it's peak, 12 million sockeye eggs were incubated at the Landsburg site. There was a little problem, a viral infection known as IHN and it all started with Sacramento Chinook! So WDFW may be looking to protect native species to this upper watershed,i.e., a pathogen free zone for chinook, coho and steelhead. I would gander a guess that a formal fishway would be the most cost effective w/ a fishway/trap shunt to select species for the upper watershed.

Kingfisherman,
I hope I can answer a few of your questions below. One thought I had though was to see if you can do some type of a search at the Seattle times regarding the Ballard Locks. I would guess it was about 1 year or so ago that their was a great story about the creation of the locks with incredible photos and very detailed.
The runs in the Cedar are not doing great, with the exception of Lake WA Cutthroat and resident Rainbows. My understanding is that when the Cedar was diverted into the lake that what ever those fish were using to home in on when returning to the Cedar in the past, they now smelled comming out of the ballard locks. This is how they changed there course to go into the Cedar.
Like I said before, personaly, I would be very cautious to call all the Chinook that spawn in the Cedar, Wild Native Cedar River Chinook, Simply because I think Issaquah Hatchery Chinook stray at a fairly high rate in that system, along with Coho from both Elliot net pens and Iss hatchery. An interesting side note is that this year is the first year we will see ad-clipped Chinook returning back to Issaquah Cr. as 3 year olds. It will not be the majority of the run but it will show that some of the fish in the Cedar may be Issaquah fish.
So the fish runs, Like I said are not doing all that hot. Last year (2001) was the first in atleast the 5 years that I have been around that we had just over 1000 Chinook return, but 1999, was just 200-300. The minimum escapement for that system is 3000 fish, although I would imagine that with the opening of the upper watershed that it would go up some.
The Stealhead are in the same boat but much worse, I think in 2000 the had less then 100 fish return, these are based on counts at the Ballard locks and river surveys. I do not know enough about these fish to throw out many suggestions, but I have caught resident Rainbows in the lake that a trained biologist had a hard time telling the difference between migrating Stealhead smolts that are ~8 inches long, could we be catching the smolts on ther way out? Of course Hershals gone but we all know that there are plenty of others out there.
The Coho run is stable, just not real large, while doing stream surveys this pasy fall, 2001, I found a spawned out unclipped Coho buck in early Janurary in a tributary to the Cedar that weighed 22.5 pounds, my assumption is that in the salt, he would have went closer to 28-30? They are not all that big, avg 4-8 but he was imperessive.
Hope this helps and check out that article, it was very informitive, I will see if I can find it too.

NEN

NEN,
Two questions for you.
1-Where did you hear that over 1000 chinook returned to the Cedar River in 2001? Just curious.

2-Why do you think that there is a great deal of straying from the Issaquah Creek Hatchery, if the fish were not marked? Do you have data from otoliths, genetics? From what I read in the paper, the Cedar River Chinook are thought to be a native strain---similar to the fall chinook in the Green and White Rivers.

Were there any sockeye (or kokanee for that matter) in Lk. Washington prior to the introduction of Baker Lake sockeye? I was under the impression that there were.

Never Enough Nookie
Thanks for the information. I am a sound fishing fool but on those days that wee cant get out on the sound because of weather the lake is a good secondary option. I would really like to find out about the cutthroat,trout,kokanee fishing and were you fish it. This would save me from going back home at 5:00am and trying to go to sleep. If you have the info email me. Thanks again

FishPirate,
1) Those numbers for 2001 are not final, sorry I should have mentioned that, but I occasionally get the chance to help out with spawner surveys in the river, that is where I got the numbers from. I think it will be close to that number.
2) I said that I personally think that there will be Ad-clipped Issaquah Chinook showing in the Cedar for a few reasons. (A)I have found ad-clipped fish with and without codded wire tags before in the river, from other areas other than the Cedar. (B) I have heard that after Issaquah releases their smolts, they have found them in the lower Cedar River feeding, so they may be homing in on that water. (C) The last reason is really not all that scientific or technical, I just think that the fish have changed there physical form quite abit over the last few decades and are starting to look more like Iss chinook. ie. smaller.

Kingfisherman,
Unfortunately I have never sport fished in the lake and could not give all that great of advice on that issue. I know there are big cutties in there though, possible state record size.

NEN

A neighbor of mine grew up along the Cedar River and is about 50 now. When he was kid, there was a run of kings returning to the river in the 40-50 lb class. He said that a lot of people would use pitch forks on the fish when they were in the shallow water. This pretty much wiped out the big fish over time. My neighbor used to catch a lot of steelhead in the Cedar but it has been closed for quite a few years now. Herschel and his buddies are a major factor in the decimated steelhead runs. About 18 years ago I helped build a steelhead hatchery at the Landsburg dam site which spawned fish caught in the Cedar. After a few years the Dept of Wildlife squeezed the original Puget Sound Anglers group who conceived the idea and did the site labor, out of the program and I suspect let it lapse. They now spawn sockeye at the site which are taken at a weir down river by the mobile home park.

DEEPWATER

Interesting Deepwater, I never knew that it used to be a Stealhead hatchery. Thanks for the Info.

NEN

NEN,
Thanks for your reply, the Cedar is fascinating. It's good to chat with folks like yourself who know the system.

I heard that the AUC estimate for 2001 chinook in the Cedar is 825 fish, from a guy at WDFW. He explained the AUC technique, but I didn't understand it very well. I asked him about the smolts in the river, and he said the Issaquah smolts "feel their way around the Lake", to find the outlet, and there weren't very many of them.

What percentage of the chinook that you guys have seen in the Cedar are clipped or CWT's? Where do you think the other clipped fish came from? Does the UW still release fish at their hatchery?

And, what do you know about kokanee or "native" sockeye? I've heard from a number of people that there is a "native" population of kokanee/sockeye in the system, and that they were here prior to the introduction of Baker Lake fish---is that true?