Headwaters to Ocean (H2O) Conference

The California Shore and Beach Preservation Association (CSBPA) and Beach Erosion Authority for Clean Oceans and Nourishment (BEACON) organized the 2023 Headwaters to Ocean (H2O) Conference.  This was the first big in-person gathering of professionals involved in watershed and coastal  health, restoration, and management since the COVID pandemic.

On Tuesday November 28, BEACON convened their science advisory panel and stakeholders for a morning meeting followed by lunch and guided tour of the Surfers' Point Managed Shoreline Retreat Project.  

H2O was a two day conference held in the Crowne Plaza Hotel on Ventura Beach on November 29-30. 

The H2O conference serves as a catalyst for collaboration across various fields, industries, institutions, and organizations united by their shared interests in topics related to water, oceans, coastal environments, sediment management, resilience, and the intersections between terrestrial and marine systems.  

A session on Surfers' Point included presentations from Paul Jenkin, Surfrider Foundation, Bob Battalio, ESA, Dave Hubbard, CRC, and Kiki Patsch, CSUCI.  The talks covered the history, engineering, dunes, and monitoring.

Paul Jenkin presented the lunchtime plenary talk, "A Lifetime of Coastal Activism; A Retrospective" or "Headwaters 2 Ocean; Ventura River, a Case Study"

H2O Conference Website: https://asbpa.org/2023/08/15/h2o-2023-conference/

 

California Adaptation Forum

August 19, 2014:  Surfers' Point at the California Adaptation Forum in Sacramento.
This conference attracted over 800 participants from around the state including "elected officials, public- and private-sector leaders, nonprofits and researchers addressing public health, energy, water, emergency management, agriculture, biodiversity conservation and coastal management issues associated with climate change and adaptation."

Surfers' Point serves as a case study for "Managed Shoreline Retreat, a viable response to coastal erosion and sea level rise, and a strategy for climate adaptation.

This presentation was given in a session titled "From Watershed to Coast," which profiled “No regrets” adaptation projects which increase climate change resilience and enhance existing conditions. What makes these projects truly adaptive and not just a repackaging of existing programs? This session looks at four no-regrets projects to address this question: (1) Water L.A. uses “urban acupuncture” to capture rainfall and infiltrate it into the aquifer. The project promotes retrofitting residential properties through education and permit streamlining. (2) Surfer‘s Point Managed Retreat (Ventura) relocated roads and parking lots threatened with wave erosion. Moving from a highly engineered solution to managed retreat was transformative. (3) The Marin Carbon Project utilizes a simple rangeland management protocol to increase carbon sequestration and drought resilience. The protocol, now under review for inclusion in carbon markets, consists of a single addition of composted organic matter to rangeland, yielding benefits over decades. (4) The Coastal Streamflow Stewardship Project (Statewide) utilizes changes in water rights to promote a shift from year-round stream withdrawals to winter withdrawal and storage, reducing impacts to salmonids and increasing drought resilience.


It was clear in this forum that local actions are where positive change is happening.  Ironies abound with government and industry responses.  Case in point: a state sponsored energy conservation PR campaign is using the grizzly bear as mascot...

SERCAL conference 2013

On May 14 and 15, 2013, the California Society for Ecological Restoration held their annual conference in Santa Barbara. The Ventura River Parkway efforts were presented in a technical session as well as an all day field tour.  SERCAL is dedicated to the following objectives:

• To advance the science, art and practice of ecological restoration. 
• To educate our members and the public on sound scientific strategies and techniques of protecting, restoring and monitoring native habitat. 
• To develop and promote ethical standards for practitioners in the field of ecological restoration. 
• To facilitate communication among professionals and others with an interest in ecological restoration. 
• To advise and consult with public agencies and appropriate entities regarding the improvement of standards and criteria for ecological restoration. 

Ventura River Parkway—Reconnecting People with the River

Chair: Paul Jenkin, Surfrider Foundation
Wednesday 15 May 10:30A–12:00P
Ventura River Parkway—Reconnecting People With the River.
A. Paul Jenkin,Ventura Campaign Coordinator, Surfrider Foundation
It Takes a Community to Clean a River. Derek Poultney,Ventura Hillsides Conservancy
Habitat Restoration, Public Recreation, and Flood Control — Making the Most out of Conservation Properties in the Ventura River Watershed. Brian B. Stark, Conservation / Operations

Director – Ojai Valley Land Conservancy
Managed Retreat: Restoring Habitat, Resiliency, and Recreation at Surfers’ Point. Louis A. White, PE*1, Bob Battalio, PE1, David M. Hubbard2, and Paul Jenkin3. 1ESA PWA, 550 Kearny Street, Suite 800, San Francisco CA 94108. 

Tuesday May 14 - Full Day Field Tour 

The field tour included site visits to Surfers' Point, Ventura Hillsides Conservancy 'Willoughby property,'  Ojai Valley Land Conservancy preserves, and Matilija Dam.

SERCAL Field Tour at Matilija Dam, May 14, 2013

West Coast EBM Network meeting

This year's annual meeting of the West Coast Ecosystem-based Management Network drew experts from around the region.  First the founding member projects provided an overview and update of their projects:

Humboldt Bay Initiative
     Susan Schlosser, CA Sea Grant Becky Price-Hall, City of Trinidad
Port Orford Ocean Resource Team (POORT)
     Leesa Cobb, POORT Exec. Director
Elkhorn Slough Tidal Wetland Project
     Bryan Largay, TWP Director
San Luis Obispo Science and Ecosystem Alliance (SLOSEA) 
      Dean Wendt, Ph.D., Melissa Locke, SLOSEA Policy & Communications Mgr.
Ventura River Ecosystem Project
    Paul Jenkin, Surfrider Foundation – Ventura Chapter

The network then heard from several other projects that are applying 'ecosystem-based management' approaches to their local initiatives:

Hood Canal Coordinating Council
    Scott Brewer, HCCC Exec. Director Jacques White, Ph.D., Long Live the Kings
Washington State Outer Coast Marine Resource Committees
    Pete Stauffer, Surfrider Foundation
Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission
    Lia Protopapadakis, SMBRC Tom Ford, SMBRC
San Diego Fishermen’s Working Group
    Pete Halmay, Working Group President Kristen Goodrich, Tijuana River NERR
Point Reyes Bird Observatory (PRBO)
    Applied California Current Ecosystem Studies ACCESS Project
    Meredith Elliot, PRBO Dan Robinette, PRBO


Information about national-level and West Coast regional developments was presented. Topics  included the new National Ocean Council, planning for a West Coast Regional Planning Body and Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning, and the West Coast Governors’ Agreement on Ocean Health (WCGA), with a focus on linking these activities to local-level efforts. Detailed discussion  also centered on the activities of the new WCGA Sea Grant Fellows, and opportunities for overlap with Network and partner efforts.




The afternoon fieldtrip to the marshlands of Humboldt Bay provided an opportunity to learn about the City of Arcata's unique wetlands wastewater treatment system.   

This year's meeting drew a large number of participants with plenty of opportunity for information sharing and networking.

Elwha River dam removal

Last week, while attending the Elwha Science Symposium, I was able to visit the reservoir above Elwha Dam with the scientists who are studying the effects of dam removal on the sediment that has accumulated in the reservoir.  There are actually two dams being removed simultaneously from the river, Glines Canyon and Elwha Dam, the latter being the lower dam on the River.

The big question with all dam removal projects is sediment management.  The total sediment that has accumulated behind these two dams amounts to over 24 million cubic yards.  Since the upper reservoir, Lake Mills, has been trapping the majority of the coarse sand and gravel flowing down the river, the lower reservoir has trapped less material, the majority of it 'fine' clay and silt.

For the removal of the two dams on the Elwha River, the plan is for natural transport, with incremental notching of the dams to allow the river to rework the sediments.  This summer, both reservoirs were drawn down, or drained, about 20 feet.  This has provided an opportunity to document the initial changes to the delta sediment that has been deposited in the upper end of the reservoirs.

Reservoir sediments at the delta of Lake Aldwell, upstream of Elwha Dam.
Puget Sound is visible in the distance.

In order to document the current topography of the sediments, scientists from the USGS are using ground-based LiDAR, which is basically a terrestrial laser scanner. It takes 4400 points per second using a pulsed near-infrared laser. The scanner was set up at different locations around the delta, then all the scans were linked together and to real-world coordinates using a survey grade GPS.  The result is this otherworldly image, as well as a set of data that accurately models the surface of the ground and surrounding features.

LIDAR image of reservoir sediments provides accurate surface topography data

LIDAR image of Brian Cluer and Paul Jenkin on reservoir sediments

Wider view of Brian and Paul on the reservoir delta sediments

Of interest to those of us working on Matilija Dam is the impacts to water quality during and following erosion of the reservoir sediments.  The fear has been that erosion of fine silt and clay will result in chronic turbidity and downstream impacts.  The reality is that this impact is short-lived during periods of active erosion, but water quality improves rapidly thereafter.   This was evident while standing on the muddy delta in Lake Aldwell, watching crystal clear water flowing over and through the fine sediments.

Blair Greiman, USBR hydrology analyst, observes post-drawdown erosion
 of fine sediments in Lake Aldwell above Elwah dam, WA.

other venturariver.org blog posts on Elwha:

Ventura River Ecosystem: Elwah Science Symposium
Last Dam Summer

Towards Ecosystem-based Management

This is the presentation from the Ventura Hillsides Conservancy annual meeting. 'Towards Ecosystem-based Management' outlines the issues facing the community, and current and ongoing efforts towards integrated watershed management to benefit our coastal resources:




on Youtube here

A similar presentation with a fish-centric message was part of the plenary session for the annual Salmonid Restoration Federation conference in March. The same message will also be presented this week in San Diego at the Headwaters to Ocean (H2O) Conference.

Thanks to Robert Barrett who recorded and edited this presentation and broadcasts our materials on CAPS TV in Ventura. Many of these shows are also online at the Surf and River Report

SRF Conference 2011

March 23-25, 2011

Annual Salmonid Restoration Federation Conference in San Luis Obisbo, CA

The plenary session included:

Towards ‘Ecosystem-based Management”­–a Case Study: Ventura River, California, Paul Jenkin, Surfrider Foundation and Founder of the Matilija Coalition

My presentation included an overview of the Ventura River Watershed and the ongoing efforts toward 'Ecosystem-based Management.' The multi-media presentation included the trailers for Watershed Revolution and Cycle of Insanity, as well as documentation of recent progress at Surfers' Point.

I also presented Monitoring Trends in Abundance and Distribution of Steelhead Above and Below Matilija Dam, Ventura, California, an update from the presentation I gave at Watershed U last year.

In addition, the half hour film "Watershed Revolution" showed during the movie night and social event on Thursday, and our poster, "Removing Matilija Dam," was presented during the Friday night poster session. In all, the Ventura River was well represented at this annual gathering of fisheries and watershed restoration practitioners from around the state.

The conference agenda is online at Calsalmon.org

The conference website will soon include a video of the plenary presentations...

...

Corps Reform Network meeting in DC

The Corps Reform Network held their annual meeting in Washington DC March 14-17, 2010. Over 70 participants from around the country convened to learn how to influence Corps projects and share their experiences.

The Surfrider Foundation is a member of the Network, as our chapters are affected by the numerous Corps projects around the country. It was good to see that we are not alone in trying to instill sanity into Corps activities that threaten our nation's waterways.

The conference also gave me an opportunity to meet with our legislative representatives as well as key federal staff to discuss the Matilija Dam project.

The Corps Reform Network is a coalition of hundreds of organizations from around the country, supports member groups advocating to ensure that Army Corps of Engineers projects are economically and environmentally sound. As our nation's largest water management agency, the impacts Corps projects have on our environment rival that of any other federal agency or private company.

With the passage of WRDA '07, the Network was successful in passing several measures to 'reform' the way the corps does business. The new law requires the corps to modernize its project planning, strengthen its wetlands mitigation, and independently review certain projects. Unfortunately, the Corps has yet to recognize or implement these changes.

As part of the conference, American Rivers presented the recently released A Citizen's Guide to the Corps of Engineers, downloadable off their website.

The Network was successful in bringing high-level federal agency staff to the meeting to provide an opportunity to hear and discuss the issues. The full agenda may be downloaded, and a summary of the topics is listed below:

Panel Discussion: Improving the White House Council on Environmental Quality’s new proposed ‘Principles and Guidelines’ (P&G) for federal water projects. How you can help influence the new guidelines to better address your water resource needs and challenges.

Panel Discussion: Ensuring Better Management of America’s Floodplains. How do federal policies and programs need to change to better protect people and wildlife?

Keynote Lunch Speaker: Jo-Ellen Darcy – Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works to discuss the direction of the Corps’ civil works and regulatory programs.

Panel Discussion: Community and Environmental Protection in an Era of Global Climate Change. How do we work with nature to adapt to rising seas, changing water cycles and more frequent and intense storms?

A View From the Hill: Congressional Staff from the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and Appropriations Committee discuss project and policy priorities, and process insights.

White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) Listening Session on America’s New Water Policy (P&G Revisions). Corps Reform Network Members will provide their comments on the proposed Principles and Guidelines (P&G) to the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

original post here: http://www.venturariver.org/

West Coast EBM Network meeting

West Coast EBM Network
First Annual Meeting
October 6-7, 2008
Friday Harbor, Washington

Meeting goals:

• Provide a forum for communication among the six West Coast EBM Network members to strengthen relationships, share information on accomplishments and challenges, and support successful implementation of EBM concepts.
• Explore first-hand one of the Network’s project sites – the San Juan Initiative
• Discuss governance issues faced by Network members as they strive to implement EBM concepts at local, county, state, and federal levels and to interact with decision-makers and elected officials. Initiate design of a plan for future progress.
• Enhance knowledge of the economic and social dimensions of EBM by discussing analytical approaches and methods that will help Network members determine pertinent questions and understand resources available to address economic and human dimension aspects of their efforts.
• Examine the benefits, challenges, and considerations for using common ecological, economic, and social indicators across the Network sites to measure change at local and regional scales in the context of existing goals based on pre-meeting survey results.


Much of the progress in the San Juan's is the result of this man's hard work... now running for Washington State Senate. Good luck Kevin!

Japan Dam Tour 2008 - part II

The second Case study considered in this year's River Policy Network symposium in Japan was the Akaya Project. The “Akaya Project” is a collaborative project organized by local residents, the Regional office of the national Forestry Agency, and the Nature Conservation Society of Japan. These groups entered into an agreement in order to formalize their collaborative efforts to achieve a sustainable community as well as restoring biodiversity in the adjoining national forests. Officially called the “Biodiversity Restoration Program for Mikuni Mountains and Akaya River,” it is also dubbed the “Akaya Project” because this program covers the tributaries of Tone River and the upper river basin of Akaya River.

The project includes a variety of conservation and restoration components, and includes volunteer and educational opportunities for the public. Their newsletters contain beautiful artwork depicting the local flora and fauna. Making good use of donated buildings, their small headquarters includes rustic sleeping accommodations for work parties and visiting school groups. Some of the Akaya restoration work includes propogating and planting native trees to replace non-native forests, a root cause of much of the ecological disturbance in the planning area.


Forestry practices in Japan include the construction of debris dams, or “sabo dams,” intended to capture sediment eroding from clearcut logging areas. Any visitor to Japan will notice the proliferation of these concrete structures throughout the countryside, even in remote areas where direct property damage is not an issue. This is a byproduct of a huge, and often mis-guided, domestic infrastructure budget.

One component of the Akaya Project is the removal of soil saving dams at Mogurazawa, a tributary of Akaya river. This is probably the first case in which soil saving dams will be removed within national forests, and it is hoped that this will become a new model for forestry management operations in Japan.



Our group hiked through the forest and up the small tributary creek to see firsthand the dam in question. In this case, recent structural damage had undermined the foundation. We crawled through the slot under the dam to see that most of the accumulated sediment had been naturally flushed under the dam. The plan is to remove the central portion of the structure, leaving ‘wings’ on either side. I understood this is intended to help stabilize the streambanks while passing sediment downstream.





At one point I was asked if I had any ideas for ‘ecotourism’ development in the area. The hotspring resorts already draw Japanese tourists, but there are other users of the hotsprings in the winter. Having seen a National Geographic magazine several years ago, I was interested to hear that "Japanese snow monkeys" visit Akaya's natural hotsprings in the winter. Although the Japanese seem accustomed to monkeys, I suggested that monkeys enjoying a hot bath could be a big draw for foreign tourists.

Location: the northern area of Niiharu, Minakami-Cyo(former Niiharu Village), Gunma Pref.

▽Akaya Project（Nature Conservation Society of Japan) http://www.nacsj.or.jp/akaya/index.html

▽Akaya Project（Kanoto Regional Forest Office）http://www.kanto.kokuyurin.go.jp/akaya/akayaproject/

▽Houshi Hot Spring Resort Cyoujyukan http://www.houshi-onsen.jp/

▽Kawafuru Hot Spring Resort Hamaya Ryokan http://www3.kannet.ne.jp/~kawafuru/

Japan Dam Tour 2008 - part I

September 9-16, 2008

I was invited to participate in a dam policy and field tour sponsored by River Policy Network, Japan (RPN). This was my 3rd trip to Japan to share the experience gained from the Matilija Dam Ecosystem Restoration Project. Over the past several years, RPN has done a great job of bringing scientists, engineers, local and federal government, and community representatives together in these forums on dam management. (I participated in a similar forum in 2005)

The focus of the program was management of aging dams, and included two symposiums (Osaka and Nagoya) and two field trips. Japan has many dams, large and small, which are experiencing typical sedimentation, structural aging, and environmental impacts. The case of Matilija Dam was presented alongside Yahagi Dam and the Akaya Project in Japan. Other presenters elaborated on the impacts of sedimentation on Japan's reservoirs and other environmental effects.

Yahagi Dam is the main dam of several on the Yahagi River, which drains into the bay near Nagoya, Japan. Nagoya is one of the industrial centers of Japan, home to Toyota's global headquarters and several manufacturing plants. The dam operators cite that Yahagi Dam provides over 1.3 million kWh of hydroelectricity, enough to power all of Toyota's manufacturing in the area.


Construction of the 100m high dam was completed in 1971 at a cost of 14.5 billion yen (around $145 million.) Sedimentation has occurred faster than predicted, and today the reservoir is 40% filled with over 15 million cubic meters of sand. This has reduced the length of the reservoir from 8km to 4km, reduced flood control capacity, impacted water quality, and degraded downstream fish habitat for a historic and existing commercial fishery, as well as posed a threat to future energy generation capacity.









In an effort to offset the loss of reservoir capacity, Yahagi Dam managers have been dredging the reservoir and trucking sand downstream. In one project, 60,000cu.m was transported by truck 96km to the bay, where the new land formed by the sediment deposit was turned into a park. This was very expensive, costing approximately $100/cu.m. Another project trucked sand to a location within the floodplain downstream, where it eroded away during a flood helping to restore river habitat. A project is also underway to truck sand to the bay in an attempt to revive a commercial clam fishery that has been lost due to the shortage of sand in the system.


The more permanent solution being considered is a tunnel that will bypass sand from the upstream reservoir delta to the river downstream. The tunnel would be almost 9km long, and would require careful engineering to provide adequate sediment transport at the right time.



Perhaps most significant about the Yahagi River is that it has become a case study of citizen-based action to protect local resources and partially mitigate the impacts of dams. Beginning in 1969, local fisheries and farming cooperatives organized to solve water quality issues in the watershed. The Yahagi River Basin Water Quality Preservation Association (YWPA) includes agrarian, fishery and local municipalities. In recent years, local fishermen have been instrumental in working with dam managers to improve downstream flows, water quality, and sediment management for downstream fisheries. This is a significant first in a country where complete de-watering of rivers downstream of major dams is common. (Water is often diverted through elaborate hyroelectric and transbasin schemes.) It was a privilege to meet two of the leaders of the Yahagi River Fishery Cooperative.



In addition to environmental flows, dam managers, working with the local fishermen, developed a silt 'curtain' to eliminate high turbidity water from the intake structure. This has been effective in preventing fine silt from smothering downstream spawning gravels, resulting in increased fish populations.







The most dramatic problem at Yahagi Dam is the influx of millions of trees during a large flood event. This is in large part due to forestry practices in Japan after WWII, and the resulting instability of the steep mountain slopes from the non-native timber. The solution in this case was to start a charcoal production business, creating an economic means to clear the reservoir.





Here the tour group is pictured at the charcoal kilns upstream of Yahagi Dam.


...continued in Part II

Dam Removal at SRF 2008

On March 5-8, 2008, the Salmonid Restoration Federation (SRF) hosted their annual meeting in Lodi, California. This years conference included talks about the central valley of California, where water diversions have left many once-great rivers bone dry, and the once-vast wetlands of the San Francisco Bay-Delta are on the brink of ecological collapse. Most of the dams here are destined to stay in place for the forseeable future, and complex work-arounds are being considered to restore water where there is none, without removing the existing infrastructure.

As a speaker in the dam removal panel, however, I felt privileged to learn of the latest developments on the cutting edge of a new era in river restoration. To anyone who has played with water as a kid (or adult), there is nothing more alluring than the concept of removing a dam. Large or small, it's something we can all relate to - a river is either free-flowing or it's not. But the actual transition from a river blocked by a dam and decades worth of sediment, to one that runs free, is a technical and scientific frontier. This has been done only a handful of times, and at relatively small scales.

The crux of the issue in removing a dam is not concrete demolition. It's sediment management. The nature of that sediment, and more importantly how we have treated the river downstream, dictate how a dam may be removed.




MECHANICAL TRANSPORT: If the material trapped behind a dam is contaminated, in the case of a mine for instance, it may not be released downstream, but rather must be removed by mechanical means. Think trucks. Lots of trucks, or perhaps a conveyor.








STABILIZE IN PLACE: In cases where development has encroached on the downstream floodplain, and mechanical transport may be cost prohibitive or infeasible due to the sheer volume, or lack of roads, creating a channel and stabilizing the sediment upstream may make sense.







NATURAL TRANSPORT is the method that really tweaks the imagination. "Blow and Go" makes sense when there is no downstream risk, but until recently this has not been done on a very large scale.






The panel of experts presented cases in which each of these methods has been used, or is being planned. But the highlight of the discussion at SRF was a presentation by Gordon Grant on Marmot Dam. Last October, this 50 foot dam on the Sandy River in Oregon was removed. A coffer dam was placed upstream to temporarily divert the river while the concrete was being blasted, then the river was allowed to do the work.

Watch and learn.



No one predicted the power of the river to restore itself. Flowing water arranged the sediment nicely downstream, and fish returned almost immediately to the Sandy River. See the documentary and more videos here

Keynote Speech - Ventura College GIS Day

Friday November 16: Ventura College Annual GIS Conference , a part of World GIS Day. (GIS means Geographic Information System, used to create maps and geographic databases.)

This year the college selected "The Monkey Wrench Gang" as required reading... then invited the local dam decommissioning advocate to speak... ?

This presentation provided an overview of Ecosystem Based Management for the Ventura River bioregion, and incorporated many GIS maps that illustrate the use of the technology to advance the understanding of ecosystem processes.

As a bonus, the Ventura Chapter's GIS guru (and new board member) Cynthia Hartley won First Place in the conference Poster Session with the Ocean Friendly Gardens map that she created of the Ventura urban watershed!

Coho Confab and Steelhead Pilgrimage: Part 2

Fishing the Klamath

It was fitting that as part of my introduction to the salmon rivers of northern California, I was destined to visit the Klamath River. The Klamath is notorious for the devastating fish kill of 2002, when over 30,000 adult Chinook salmon fell victim to upstream water diversions.
http://www.earthjustice.org/news/multimedia/video1/page.jsp?itemID=29675451




At first light we took a small drift boat to the mouth of what was once the third most productive salmon river in the nation.













Here, native Americans have permits to fish the estuary using gillnets. The scene reminded me of the local fishermen I have observed in Baja California. It's good to see there was still some commercial catch available to the local tribes.










After a couple of hours trolling, it was clear the fish were not interested in our shiny metal lures, so we took the boat upstream. Here we rowed upriver for an hour, walking and casting along the bank for the final half mile or so. Bear tracks on the riverbank served as a reminder of the relatively wild ecosystem, and there was "Large Woody Debris" of a scale not found in Southern California.





















"Pop!" The sound echoing up the river had us running for the boat. Lunch was served, with a nice bottle of wine. Top notch guide service!

























Algae has been a topic of interest since we started monitoring on the Ventura River. Here on the Klamath algae is largely the result of the upstream dams. In a complex reaction that highlights a delicate cause and effect balance, the dams heat the water and accumulate nutrients from farming. The release of this toxic soup downstream dramatically alters the ecosystem.

This photo shows typical algae growth in the lower Klamath River. As the sun came out in the afternoon, we measured water temperatures over 71F and levels of dissolved oxygen over 9 mg/l, a recipe for stress later in the evening when the plants cease photosynthesis.















As luck would have it, the fish were not biting upstream either. Whether this was due to warm water, or the earliness of the season does not matter. We had a good laugh, and drove back to the boat ramp where the locals were unloading the day's catch. As it was my duty to bring home some fresh fish, I happily bought a "seal bit" chinook, fresh from the nets, for a more than reasonable discount. (should have bought two!)

... continued (Part 3 "Steelhead Pilgrimage")