The 3rd Annual Fly Casting Tournament is set for May 11, 2013, at Eagle Island State Park.

The cause remains the same: conservation of the South Fork Boise River wild trout fishery.

A day of competition and camaraderie begets conservation.  Sponsored by the Ted Trueblood Chapter of Trout Unlimited, the Fly Casting Tournament attracts more than 100 participants plus an equal number of judges and spectators.  All are there for the cause of the South Fork Boise River fishery.  You can join in the event through participating on a team or as a spectator.  Check out the Tournament webpage here.

Just as this website tries to demonstrate the number of different agencies and groups involved in the South Fork Boise River, the Fly Casting Tournament is also a showcase of cooperation.  Some examples:

The Boise Valley Fly Fishers has become over three years the single largest financial contributor to the Fly Casting Tournament, and therefore to the South Fork Boise, by being a Gold Sponsor and fielding several fly fishing teams.

Last year BVFF fielded a Gold team including notables like Marty Downey, Tom Labreque, Craig Estell and Gino White.  The club also put two teams in the Silver division.

As the longest continuing fly fishing club in the Boise area the BVFF have time and again stepped up for the South Fork Boise River.  And their presence at the Fly Casting Tournament is evident.

A stand out contributor to the event is Idaho Angler.  In their third year as a Gold Sponsor the fly shop has helped provide cash donations, prize winnings as well as great connections for putting together teams.

Shop owner Rick Williams helped with the original course design in 2011.

With the 20-year anniversary of the store being celebrated on May 4, the week prior to the Fly Casting Tournament, it’s a good time to reflect how this business has become an establishment specialty shop with professional staff who know the South Fork Boise River.

Not to be surpassed is the support from Anglers fly shop and owner John Wolter.

John has great customer connections which brought more fly casting teams to the tournament than any one else, and Anglers provides Gold Sponsor support with financial and merchandise contributions.  John has established credibility not only with the Anglers shop but also with informed insight how to fish the South Fork Boise River during the summer.  We’re not going into details here so you will have to ask him yourself.

The success of the first Fly Casting Tournament in 2011 contributed the funds that made possible the completion of the Pierce Creek reconnection to the South Fork of the Boise River. A culvert is gone, a new steel bridge crosses Pierce Creek and wild trout have access to tributary spawning habitat.

The 2nd Annual Fly Casting Tournament in 2012 kick-started the focus on flow management of the South Fork Boise River and in late summer 2012 the first assessment was made of the effects on juvenile trout and on the macroinvertebrate community when the river flows are decreased. Results from this work will be released this summer.

Work will continue in 2013 and following years to assess river flows on fish stranding with the goal of finding a flow management that can improve the fishery.  The 3rd Annual Fly Casting Tournament will be a critical piece to funding the conservation work on the South Fork Boise River.

Idaho Fish and Game biologist Joe Kozfkay came to the January 9th meeting of the Ted Trueblood Chapter of Trout Unlimited with an update on the South Fork Boise River fishery, showing the 2012 trout population appears stable or increasing depending on fish size.

As manager of the Southwest Idaho Region’s fisheries Kozfkay came loaded with data and historical information in his Powerpoint slide show.  And he explored many facets of this river resource we all cherish.  Over the next few posts we will break down the information.  This update looks at the overall population densities for the latest samping efforts.

Like any good drama, the results were held until towards the end of the presentation, but it was well worth the wait as Continue Reading…

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.

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.

September 4, 5 and 17 Field Outings to Observe Juvenile Trout Stranding

A year after Whitefish Ed and his fishing partner witnessed and documented some significant flow reduction stranding of South Fork Boise River juvenile trout, the Ted Trueblood Chapter of Trout Unlimited prompted, organized and collaborated with biologists from the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) and Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) and other angler groups to better assess the problem.

September 17 stranding study. Photo credit: Mike Dougherty

The assessments occurred September 4-5 during the first flow reduction, and September 17 during the second flow drop.

As way of background, BOR routinely cuts summer flows at Anderson Ranch Dam down to 600 cfs sometime in August or September when irrigation water demands begin to be fall off.

Flows are again reduced from 600 to 300 cfs later in September, usually no earlier than September 15th.  These flow cuts are rapid and believed to have catastrophic effects on macroinvertebrates and young fish that are hugging shallow shoreline margins or living in low velocity backwaters and side channels.  Up until this year, there had been little effort to scrutinize what actually happens.

On Tuesday, September 4, BOR began cutting flows at 8 a.m. in 300 cfs increments from the summertime irrigation flow level of 1800 cfs every two hours until reaching 900 cfs at 1 p.m.  Again on the next day, and at 9 a.m., flows were reduced to 600 cfs.  These flow reductions mimicked the normal operational flow cut schedule at the dam.  A group of 1 TU and 3 IDFG biologists teamed with 5 volunteers on September 4 to observe and tally the incidence of bug and fish stranding along four different reaches of the river. 

Whitefish Ed chose to stay put at a shallow bank section below Cow Creek Bridge to watch the reaction of hundreds of juvenile trout as flow reductions showed up.  This was the location where he had observed and related significant fish stranding the year before. 

The next morning on September 5, these same biologists combined with 3 volunteers to retrace their steps and look for stranded fish when the flow was finally dropped to 600 cfs. 

Twelve days later, on Monday, September 17, a total of eight biologists with TU, BOR and IDFG teamed with about two dozen angler volunteers to be on the river when the final flow cuts were made to reach the minimum flow of 300 cfs.  In addition to Ted Trueblood Chapter members, other angler groups included the Hemingway Chapter, Boise Valley Fly Fishers, and Gem State Fly Fishers.  TU provided a night-before dinner, and on the day of the field work a light breakfast and lunch at the “camp central” location at Reclamation Village for everyone involved.  This larger group allowed for more river sections to be investigated.  The river was dropped 100 cfs at 9 a.m. and another 200 cfs at 11 a.m. 

RESULTS:  Right now, the jury is out.  The data collected during our two outings have not been evaluated and compiled into a report by the biologists as yet.  Each group that was deployed to the river had a person with a clipboard to write down information on stranding sites, including information such as the size of the pool (length, width and average depth), a GPS waypoint if someone in the group had such a device, and numbers and species of fish stranded.  Participants were asked to bring a digital camera, and as this article shows we created ample documentation of the event.  More than 200 photographs can be viewed here.   

Dick Frencer with Boise Valley Fly Fishers measures water depth, somewhere downstream of Cow Creek bridge. Photo Credit: John Wolter.

During the course of our on-river evaluation, many of us observed great numbers of “young of the year” juvenile trout that could be readily seen along low velocity and shallow shore line margins.  These age-0 fish (young fish that have hatched and emerged from spawning redds this last spring/summer) are said to be subject to 70 – 80% mortality in the winter ahead.  The incidence of stranding when flows are lowered is directly related to the character of the river at any specific location. 

Preliminary observations were that stranding appeared to be more catastrophic within the 600 to 300 cfs flow reduction regime as more shallow water and side channels were subjected to dewatering.  Everyone involved observed different amounts of stranding based on the specific river sections they were looking at.  Ed filed his report here.

Some of the salmonid casualties. Photo credit: Steve Boyd.

Last year, the flow cuts occurred in the darkness of early morning hours; this year flow reductions were implemented during daylight which could somehow reduce the amount of stranding.  Significant stranding of stoneflies and caddisflies were observed, indicating that these organisms cannot readily follow rapidly receding water.

A summary report of our study findings should be completed by our biologist partners later this fall.  If there is biological justification, we believe there could be opportunity to modify the BOR downramping regimes at Anderson Ranch Dam to help lower fish and insect stranding.  Next year, we may want to repeat this study using a different flow drop schedule.  Stay tuned.

Group photo after breakfast. Photo credit: Darryl Kuhrt.

The Macroinvertebrate Effects of Downramping

To help evaluate the effects of dropping flows on aquatic insects, the TU Ted Trueblood Chapter contracted with Dr. Chris Walser, Professor of Biology at College of Idaho.  C of I students are participating in the assessment.  Dr Walser’s approach focuses on the flow reduction of 600 to 300 cfs, looking at pre and post conditions.  Macroinvertebrates were collected at shallow riffle sites on Tuesday, September 11, before downramping and then again at the same locations on September 18, following the final flow cut to 300 cfs.

Big stonefly nymphs like this one were scrambling to find the water. Photo credit: Marj Dougherty

A total of 60 samples were taken.  These samples will be sorted to the lowest practical taxonomic level, enumerated and weighed.  A concluding report will be completed and provided to TU in December.  This unique scientific study should shed some significant light on losses to the macroinvertebrate community when rapid flow drops occur on the South Fork Boise River.