Acknowledgments

The ongoing success of the steelhead and trout program is the result of the coordinated and dedicated efforts of many Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) employees, as well as employees from other State and Federal Agencies. We especially thank Steve Rodgers, Doug Maxey, Brandon Kilmer, and the Lyons Ferry/Tucannon staff for their hard work, insight, and assistance of summer steelhead activities conducted at Lyons Ferry Complex for the last year.

We thank Jon Hansen, Marsha White, and Larry Barrett, of Idaho Fish and Game for their assistance in conducting joint Snake River creel surveys and providing coded-wire tag recoveries from Idaho fisheries. We also thank Rich Carmichael’s crew from Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, especially Mike Flesher, for their leadership in conducting the Grande Ronde River creel survey and providing the CWT recoveries. Henry Franzoni from the Fish Passage Center provided freeze brand and VIE tag smolt data collected at the dams to calculate passage index. Dave Marvin and John Tenney with Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission provided valuable assistance with our PIT tag files. The accuracy and timeliness of all the data provided by the above individuals is always appreciated.

We thank additional WDFW personnel (John Sneva, Jim Shaklee, Maureen Small, Susan Markey, and Lynn Anderson) for their assistance with portions of the project.

We thank Mark Schuck, Glen Mendel, Chris Starr, and Jim Scott for their critical review of the draft annual report.

Finally we thank the entire staff of the Lower Snake River Compensation Plan Office for their firm support in funding these monitoring and evaluation studies.

Lyons Ferry Complex Hatchery Evaluation:
Summer Steelhead Annual Report 2004 Run Year
February 2006

Introduction

This annual report is one in a continuing series describing Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife's (WDFW) progress toward meeting trout (resident and anadromous) mitigation goals established in the Lower Snake River Compensation Plan (LSRCP). The reporting period covers between 1 July 2004 and 30 June 2005. Smolt trapping information for the 2004/2005 emigration season will be presented in a future report, as population estimates were not completed at the time of report printing. Coded-wire tag recoveries/expansions from the summer steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss) sport fishery in the Columbia and Snake river basins will be presented in future reports. In addition, we had anticipated a genetics summary of samples collected from natural origin Tucannon and Touchet rivers steelhead, compared to Lyons Ferry stock steelhead. A delay in the analysis did not make the summary report available to be included here, but should be available for the next annual report.

The LSRCP program in Washington State began in 1981 with construction of Lyons Ferry Hatchery (LFH). Refurbishing of the Tucannon Fish Hatchery (TFH) followed in 1984 to 1985. In addition to the hatchery construction and modifications, three remote acclimation ponds (AP) were built along the Tucannon (Curl Lake AP), Touchet (Dayton AP), and Grande Ronde (Cottonwood AP) rivers to acclimate juvenile summer steelhead before release. All of these facilities make up WDFW’s Lyons Ferry Complex (LFC).