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69 °F Forecast | Road Cams Tuesday, May 24, 2005 Today's News | Shop Our Valley | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery | Contact Us SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Menu Guide How To Guide Health Biz Connection Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Real Estate Guide Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Passport to the Rogue Valley SHOP OUR VALLEY AutoFinder HomeFinder JobFinder Classified Place an ad TOP JOBS EXTRA Ashland News NIE Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People Volunteer Moving here? eSouthernOregon CUSTOMER SERVICE FAQ's Advertise with us Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend May 12, 2005 Rogue pulls itself into fishable shape By MARK FREEMAN Mail Tribune Standing Tuesday along the banks of the Rogue River Highway and watching the chocolate water stream over Savage Rapids Dam, it’s hard to imagine that this spring could get any wackier. Two months ago, record low flows plagued parts of the Rogue River and many of its tributaries. Now the stream is teeming with so much water that there’s not a lick of fishable water around. But it will get even crazier once the caramel Rogue slows, shrinks and morphs into its normal blue-green hue. After a winter in which nature took away fishing opportunities, the Rogue is ready to give it back, and then some. As the Rogue pulls itself into fishable shape this week, the river appears primed to produce simultaneously good fishing conditions for spring chinook salmon anglers from tidewater to the Hatchery Hole. Advertisement Normally, the lower Rogue’s fishery heats up in early April and dies down at the end of April as the middle Rogue becomes the place to be. By the end of May, the upper Rogue starts to turn on and it draws the lion’s share of anglers until the season ends July 31. But water conditions this weekend likely will change all that. Lower Rogue anglers will have the cool water temperatures they need to catch spring chinook, while simultaneously the middle Rogue will have its requisite water conditions for good catches and the upper Rogue will have the water and fish numbers needed to support a fishery. "You are going to have viable fishing all up and down the Rogue," says Tom Satterthwaite, an Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist who has researched Rogue fisheries for more than two decades. "I’d be surprised if that isn’t the case. "When the river clears, I’d say now is the time to pursue spring chinook," he says. No one has to tell Bill Urie of Medford that it’s time. A river guide whose clients regularly catch more than 300 spring chinook each season, Urie knows when and how to stalk Rogue springers. And so far this season, his powerboat has sat in his garage. He spent Tuesday afternoon polishing his boat, expecting to start fishing Saturday and not stopping until the spring chinook season is over. "These are super-prime conditions," Urie says. "It should be wide open, if we have any fish. This will be a good time to tell." Normally, there’s not much cause for concern about springers in mid-May. Biologists have predicted at least an average return, and average here means about 34,000 adult spring chinook over Gold Ray Dam. But ODFW forecasts have been askew elsewhere in Oregon, with huge schools of fish simply not coming home to spawn as expected. The Columbia River’s spring chinook run fell far under predicted levels. That has led to angling closures that not only ban spring chinook fishing, but also bans steelhead and shad seasons to protect what few wild spring chinook have entered that system. The Rogue, too, is lagging behind. Through Tuesday, just 2,201 fish have traversed Gold Ray Dam, the lower boundary for the upper Rogue. Migration had just starting to turn on last week before the heavily silted flows hit close to 10,000 cubic feet per second, and chinook movement stopped, says Rene Pellissier, the ODFW’s Gold Ray Dam fish-counter. Nothing moved Monday and Tuesday while the chinook waited for the turbidity to subside. Flows also remained high as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has increased releases after Lost Creek Lake not only filled, but jumped to 9 inches above the elevation that’s considered full. Strong, steady rains like those seen here are more common on April Fool’s Day than Mother’s Day. "We thought we’d see the flows drop off," says Steve Watkins the Corps’ assistant project manager at Lost Creek. "We didn’t’ think we’d need to catch all this. But the water kept coming. "It was a swing and a miss," he says. But everyone from the hydrologists to the pundits didn’t see this coming. May storms aren’t unusual. But no one has seen such a February and March with May weather, followed by a May with February weather. "That’s what makes this unprecedented," says Satterthwaite, the ODFW researcher. "It’s a complete flip-flop." But a full reservoir, a bustling mid-May Rogue and fish finning in all 170 miles open to salmon doesn’t mean chinook face smooth sailing this summer. In freshets like these, streamflows can drop fast and hard. Other than Lost Creek Lake and Applegate releases, the Rogue is fed by snow runoff. As of this week, the Rogue Basin’s snowpack is just half of normal. Two months ago, it was 30 percent of normal. Based on the water forecast at that time, Satterthwaite predicted a fish-killing outbreak of the warm-water disease columnaris as early as this week. Plans were to start searching for dead salmon in the Lower Rogue Canyon and monitor two cool-water tributaries for signs of stressed fish. Those programs are on hold now, says Satterthwaite, who is still worried that a hot June and lack of snowpack could still lead to trouble. Conditions have gone from "very critical to one of concern," Satterthwaite says. "But it looks a lot better than it did two months ago." As for Urie, it looks like it’s time to go to work. "This water’s pretty nice, isn’t it?" Urie says. "Early springers like this. "If we’re going to have any fish," he says, "they should be there." Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2005 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. 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