YES PLEASE!!!

Possibilities would be unreal if migration past all the toothy warm water fishies was possible. I always imagine what it used to be like when huge inland summer-run steelhead used to migrate that high. What did they look like and how big did they get? Imagine the stocks lost when the dams went in. Camping over there and looking at the scenery across the water always makes me day dream.

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Enjoy your dream.

Talked with a CR Gillnetters who, while fishing in the River for springers, had 20 steelhead that weighed over 400 pounds.

Isn't the record a 35# steelhead from the Clearwater?

Getting anadromous fish upstream of Chief Joe and Grand Couless is easy as pie with present day trap-and-haul technology. Getting juvenile fish downstream of dams (safe, timely, and effective) is the challenge. Floating surface collectors work really well with sockeye and coho, but the jury is still out with regard to Chinook and steelhead.

i though one of the 35s came from the Snake in the 70s, then like 20 years ago one at 35 was caught on the Quinault...

the world record is still from David White at 42 right? think that was Alaska tho...

Nick English got that 37 on the Kispiox a decade or so ago as well....

If only I could explain the size I have witnesses swimming by under the raft from one of those rivers..... only a few would believe me.. the folks that were with me when I was gasping for a word and nothing coming out.

Orygun 30?

Easy thar fellars.... not from Orygon..

Bob Hooten has a picture of a brace of 40+ fish taken in a Skeena Gillnet in his book on Skeena steelhead.

Let's put all our eggs in one basket and focus on getting rid of the low hanging fruit. Snake River dams that provide the smallest benefit of power, flood control and shipping. It would be cool to see salmon above Grand Coolie but it sounds like a lot of $ and effort for a hundred miles of spawning habitat for salmon, most of that watershed is submerged by stillwater that warmwater-smolt-eating predators thrive in.

If you really want to restore the Big C, start at the bottom. Essentially, the lowermost dam goes first and you work your way upstream. Clean out the tributaries and keep working upstream. That way, the slackwater issues don't effect the restoration, except for temperature and some flow issues. Taking out the Snake dams just sends more food to the lower Columbia Smallmouth and Walleyes. Some more will get through, but it won't be the Silver Bullet.

I would prefer to get rid of all the below-Bonneville dams (on anadromous waters) and the take out Bonne and move up one pool at a time. Probably be the fastest way to get the sturgeon back, too.

I remember that "alligator sighting" very well. It takes a pretty unique set of circumstances to render Danny speechless. Not an easy thing to do

Still haunts my thoughts Coley. That hen that cartwheeled in front of you and Aaron gets me to. We even got it to hand. Just no proof.... prolly funner that way anyway.

You're talking big money. Like, bigger than Hanford big. All the contaminants from smelting and Hanford are entombed behind those dams. It was described to me as "the removal of one dam below Hanford would amount to the single greatest environmental remediation project on the earth to date."

Dams don't last forever, so it will have to be dealt with some day.