New Catch and Release Protected Water on the Smith River

[5xTippett]

I just got off the phone with Scott.  He said there were two 16 inch trout and one 17 inch trout shocked out of the whole river.  He also said the 10 inchers range from 4 to 7 years old.  The younger fish came from areas downstream where there are less fish and less competion for food.  The natural mortality is around 69%.  He said it should be in the 40's not 50's as I said.  He is planning to go over everything Thursday night.

[22midge]

Two 16" & one 17" wow Im going to give Scott one of them brown bugs and tell him to throw that extention cord away if thats all he can find......

[rjs123]

I just got off the phone with Scott.  He said there were two 16 inch trout and one 17 inch trout shocked out of the whole river.  He also said the 10 inchers range from 4 to 7 years old.  The younger fish came from areas downstream where there are less fish and less competion for food.  The natural mortality is around 69%.  He said it should be in the 40's not 50's as I said.  He is planning to go over everything Thursday night.

Can someone explain what is meant by 69% natural mortality rate?

[dossphoto]

I just got off the phone with Scott.  He said there were two 16 inch trout and one 17 inch trout shocked out of the whole river.  He also said the 10 inchers range from 4 to 7 years old.  The younger fish came from areas downstream where there are less fish and less competion for food.  The natural mortality is around 69%.  He said it should be in the 40's not 50's as I said.  He is planning to go over everything Thursday night.

Can someone explain what is meant by 69% natural mortality rate?

In a nutshell it means that 69% of a given population of fish will die at some point in the calendar year.  When you say natural mortality rate, you take out any unnatural means of death...aka being ate by fisherman or fisherman's cat.

[5xTippett]

The natural mortality rate is how many die during the year from natural causes.

[dossphoto]

Another question I have about the Smith...
Who is doing the benthic macro studies to determine the insect forage base in the river?  Is DGIF doing it or are they relying on DEQ's work with the TMDL study that is currently going on in the Smith River basin?  And how are those macro number correlating with other tailwaters such as the SOHO?  I know that the DEQ is classifying the Smith as impaired due to low macro numbers, but they attribute that to high coliform numbers.

[rjs123]

Ok I got that but what year?  69% of the the first year fish or the entire population?

[dossphoto]

Generally it is in the entire population.  Most of my studies in college involved trees and animals, but i believe you can do what they call life tables on fish as well, that would include mortality rates and survival rates for each age class. The part you would need to know is the fertility rate compared to the mortality rate for the study area, that would determine if the populations was increasing, decreasing or stable.
Don't etch that in stone, college was several years ago and now I am working in the soil and food science world.

[flatlander]

I hardly ever fish the Smith.  What exactly is to blame for the river's decline?  I know it used to be a hell of a fishery.  Is it something to do with the flows?  Silt?

[22midge]

Doss you ask a very good question and would like to hear Scott's response to the question.I think it may be a combination of generation  surge-temp spikes and as you say water quality farther downstream you go.As you move down the temps change and the insect and food sources change.I believe there is a link to the size and age relation as you go downstream.

[dossphoto]

I hardly ever fish the Smith.  What exactly is to blame for the river's decline?  I know it used to be a hell of a fishery.  Is it something to do with the flows?  Silt?

oh boy....talk about a loaded question!!
Here's my thoughts....1.  Can't really blame coliforms....I would think there are less straight pipes now than there were back in the 70's.
2.  I would love to get my hands on some generation data from the 60's and 70's.  I would love to debunk the idea of food being ground up coming through the generators from philpott, and possibly they temp/flow spikes.  After all, they generated power back then too.
3.  Over fishing....That's my pick!!  I wasn't around in the 60's and 70's when you first started hearing about big trout coming out of that river.  Does anyone know when they 'started' getting that big and what caused it?  But when the word got out, every trout over 18" went home in the back of a pick-up truck.  And the more that were caught...the more fishermen it brought in to catch them. 
4.  Over population....maybe...but it is an effect of removing the tertiary predators - the 18" plus trout.  Big brown trout eat meat, that would help reduce the numbers of little trout(the only real 'big fish' food source).  Take the big browns out of the river....you got nothing to 'manage' the population of the smaller trout(except people).  The problem with this idea is the slow growth rates of the 4 to 7 year old trout.  But that goes back to #3, how old were those BIG trout taken out of the river back in the hay day??  Will these 4 -7 yr old trout hit a growth spurt when they reach that magic size when they get big enough to eat meat?? 
I'll stop...you could go on for days on this topic.  After all we haven't even started to talk about industrial pollutants in Fieldale and Bassett.....

[Fire-Fly]

I hardly ever fish the Smith.  What exactly is to blame for the river's decline?  I know it used to be a hell of a fishery.  Is it something to do with the flows?  Silt?

oh boy....talk about a loaded question!!
Here's my thoughts....1.  Can't really blame coliforms....I would think there are less straight pipes now than there were back in the 70's.
2.  I would love to get my hands on some generation data from the 60's and 70's.  I would love to debunk the idea of food being ground up coming through the generators from philpott, and possibly they temp/flow spikes.  After all, they generated power back then too.
3.  Over fishing....That's my pick!!  I wasn't around in the 60's and 70's when you first started hearing about big trout coming out of that river.  Does anyone know when they 'started' getting that big and what caused it?  But when the word got out, every trout over 18" went home in the back of a pick-up truck.  And the more that were caught...the more fishermen it brought in to catch them. 
4.  Over population....maybe...but it is an effect of removing the tertiary predators - the 18" plus trout.  Big brown trout eat meat, that would help reduce the numbers of little trout(the only real 'big fish' food source).  Take the big browns out of the river....you got nothing to 'manage' the population of the smaller trout(except people).  The problem with this idea is the slow growth rates of the 4 to 7 year old trout.  But that goes back to #3, how old were those BIG trout taken out of the river back in the hay day??  Will these 4 -7 yr old trout hit a growth spurt when they reach that magic size when they get big enough to eat meat?? 
I'll stop...you could go on for days on this topic.  After all we haven't even started to talk about industrial pollutants in Fieldale and Bassett.....

there are 3 things that cause the sizes of fish on the Smith

1. generation
2. generation
3. generation

There is no overpopulation, there are streams with many more numbers per mile and they have good sizes. These fish are pounded daily with 42 degree water year round, they never get out of a hibernating state and feed heavily. I can promise you that there are 2- 5 lb fish in the Smith. There are insects in the Smith ive dug them out with my own hands, there are chubs in the Smith ive caught them. There is no program that can be put in place to change the sizes of the fish in the river except replacing the tubines and changing the generation schedules.

[Al]

All good questions. Write them down so that you can ask them at the end of the presentation.

[dossphoto]

I hardly ever fish the Smith.  What exactly is to blame for the river's decline?  I know it used to be a hell of a fishery.  Is it something to do with the flows?  Silt?

oh boy....talk about a loaded question!!
Here's my thoughts....1.  Can't really blame coliforms....I would think there are less straight pipes now than there were back in the 70's.
2.  I would love to get my hands on some generation data from the 60's and 70's.  I would love to debunk the idea of food being ground up coming through the generators from philpott, and possibly they temp/flow spikes.  After all, they generated power back then too.
3.  Over fishing....That's my pick!!  I wasn't around in the 60's and 70's when you first started hearing about big trout coming out of that river.  Does anyone know when they 'started' getting that big and what caused it?  But when the word got out, every trout over 18" went home in the back of a pick-up truck.  And the more that were caught...the more fishermen it brought in to catch them. 
4.  Over population....maybe...but it is an effect of removing the tertiary predators - the 18" plus trout.  Big brown trout eat meat, that would help reduce the numbers of little trout(the only real 'big fish' food source).  Take the big browns out of the river....you got nothing to 'manage' the population of the smaller trout(except people).  The problem with this idea is the slow growth rates of the 4 to 7 year old trout.  But that goes back to #3, how old were those BIG trout taken out of the river back in the hay day??  Will these 4 -7 yr old trout hit a growth spurt when they reach that magic size when they get big enough to eat meat?? 
I'll stop...you could go on for days on this topic.  After all we haven't even started to talk about industrial pollutants in Fieldale and Bassett.....

there are 3 things that cause the sizes of fish on the Smith

1. generation
2. generation
3. generation

There is no overpopulation, there are streams with many more numbers per mile and they have good sizes. These fish are pounded daily with 42 degree water year round, they never get out of a hibernating state and feed heavily. I can promise you that there are 2- 5 lb fish in the Smith. There are insects in the Smith ive dug them out with my own hands, there are chubs in the Smith ive caught them. There is no program that can be put in place to change the sizes of the fish in the river except replacing the tubines and changing the generation schedules.

Did they not generate in the 70's and 80's when all of the big trout were caught?

[OTS]

Great bullets dossphoto and you hit the nail on the head several times! The best fishing and growth rates on that river were back in the late 70's, which is also a period that had the "MOST" recorded generation flows. During that period, those factories, along the river, were also operating at their peak levels.

During that period, there were 3 generations a day and this was 7 days a week. A special interest group partitioned the ACOE for a halt to weekend generation, for the recreational fishers, and they obliged, this was in the mid to late 80's. The factories started closing down and moving production out of the country, during the NAFTA transition, the fishing was still good but not as good. During the time of the VA study, this area suffered a historic record draught and the lake levels dropped to the lowest levels on record. The facility also transitioned to their lightest recorded generation schedule on record. My first observation was drastic temp changes and a total loss of aquatic vegetation. The sizes of the trout were now much smaller but if the fisher just relocated to a better temp variance section of the river, large trout were and are still caught.

The river is over populated with trout but the data supports the idea that starvation is not the number one culprit, if it were; there would be no 7-year-old trout. Shock, from extreme temp variation, has such an impact on the trout metabolism that it creates scares on their otolith bones, something very unique to the SR trout. This means that the trouts metabolism is shocked so low that they go into daily hibernation like mode and is so drastic to their system that it leaves daily visible scars that can be counted and compared to the generation schedule, accurately.

I have had very in-depth conversations with the folks at VT and DGIF and the one thing that we all agree upon is the fact that the summer temp spikes create more havoc on the trout and the entire ecosystem than anything else.

I agree, 100%, that if people really care about this river, go and listen to Scott but don't spin or confuse the info later. My understanding is, he is saying the exact same thing that he said at the end of the VA study and for some odd reason, the grapevine gives it a bullwhip effect and now we have tens of thousand of starving fish yet, I have not seen a mass dead float or unhealthy looking trout in all of the SR trout photo's posted. Think about it: You are outside, with nothing to protect you from environmental conditions, in 70 degree weather and 5 minutes later it is 58 degrees; my offering you a steak dinner is not going to make you grow and I question how much of it you would actually eat. The one thing that hurt this river, more than anything else; "people with recreational agenda and no aquatic impact studies". The last solution can sometimes become the greatest problem. I can't help but feel, if the old generation schedule was left alone, we probably would not be having these types of discussions today and would probably still be bragging about how great that fishery is.

Changing the generation schedule, back to or close to what it was, it a great first step: At least daily purges during the summer to maintain a narrower temp. variance. Changing the turbines will not help at all as new turbines only allow for a 10% increase in efficiency and would take many years of battle, the Gov.. simply is not going to dish that out any time soon so, go for something winnable. Something that will have an immediate positive impact on the entire ecosystem.