At the recent TU Oregon Council meeting at Belknap Springs, we interviewed Robert Bernard, volunteer regional coordinator for Reel Recovery about the program’s purpose and value. Reel Recovery is a national non-profit organization that conducts fly fishing retreats for men recovering from life-threatening cancer.

 Everyone is welcome!

The TVTU chapter pot luck picnic will be held at Cook Park (behind Tigard High School) again this year, on July 16 starting at 6 p.m.  The picnic will be at Site No. 4 (closest to the river, by the boat dock).  As promised, this year there will be an opportunity for chapter members, family and friends to clean out their spare fishing and other household items for sale at the picnic, and to find new bargains to buy and fill up some of that new-found space at home. 

The chapter will again furnish the entrée, e.g., hot dogs and hamburgers, buns, condiments, genuine picnic plates, glasses, forks, knives plus spoons, and soft drinks.  Those attending are asked to bring a salad, side dish or dessert for pot luck and a beverage of your choosing. 

So that we can get a fairly accurate count, anyone wanting to attend should call Mike Gentry at (503) 636-0061 or Erle Norman at (503) 293-6006 by July 13, also letting us know what you will bring.  Those who have items to donate to the sale also should call Mike before June 29 or (between June 29 and July 13) call Erle no later than July 13 to make arrangements to drop off or collect.  Come and enjoy!

Any items not successfully bid upon will be used by the chapter for auction at another time.  The chapter reserves the right to accept or not accept prospective donated items, and will establish a minimum bid and bid increments on donated items. Successful bidders must pay for their items when the auction closes with cash or check, and take them to their new homes.  An attempt will be made to post a list of some of the available items on this blog site a few days before the picnic. 

Cook Park’s access is immediately west of Tigard High School at SW 92^nd Avenue and 9000 SW Durham Road.

*** This event is on the THIRD WEDNESDAY of July.  As a result, we are not holding a regular chapter meeting on the usual second Wednesday of July.

Trout Unlimited Oregon State Council chair Tom Wolf discusses the organization’s legislative agenda for the coming year. This video was recorded at the recent state council meeting in Eugene.

Tualatin Valley TU Chapter invites you to participate in our forthcoming Wednesday, June 11 meeting. We are fortunate our guest speaker is Alan Moore. Alan is a national TU director working at our Oregon TU office. He’s a leader in many conservation projects impacting Oregon and other west coast states. You may recall, from earlier newsletter articles and meeting presentations, this chapter continues expanding its efforts to improve the environment. 

Alan’s presentation will be an information sharing, Q &A format. He will talk with us about about assorted issues TU is working on, about what we are planning for the future, conservation projects, e.g., Necanicum watershed project including September work on the Thompson Creek as-well-as Deschutes and Crooked River projects and other topics.

Meetings begin with social time @6:30 pm - 7:00 pm; followed by a brief business meeting; then the presenter. As normal, we meet at Lucky Lab Brew Pub, 7675 SW Capitol Highway. 

Hope to see you there.

This weekend Mckenzie-Upper Willamette chapter of Trout Unlimited continued our outreach to the Calapooia Watershed Council and assisted in their restoration efforts. We removed blackberries and english ivy along the banks of the Calapooia hoping improve riparian conditions by giving native plant communities a chance to thrive.

The Calapooia is a small river–a west side Cascade tributary that heads near Tidbits Mountain and runs parallel to the Mckenzie to the north. Historically, the river was home to a fair population of spring chinook and was apparently the nothernmost distribution of native winter steelhead in the Willamette basin. Steelhead populations remain stable but typically the number of returning chinook can be counted on one hand. Though the upper river is undammed two impoundments on the lower river laid waste to salmon populations. Brownsville dam was removed last summer. Here’s the former dam site:

With the removal of Brownsville Dam and its fish slaughtering ladder, Sodom dam on the lower river remains the only barrier to fish passsage. Check out the old “fish ladder” at the site of the former Brownsville dam:

With the removal of Brownsville Dam and the inevitable improvements (at the very least) to Sodom Dam the future looks better for Calapooia salmon and steelhead than it has for a century.  Oregon Fish and Wildlife hopes to improve chinook number to around 1000 returning adults per year.  The upper watershed is almost all in Weyerhaueser ownership and despite being heavily logged the river remains beautiful. The only thing it needs is some large woody debris to give the chinook an assist. It also looks like it might harbor a fair sized trout or two . . . when it opens I’ll find out

Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski had a great Op-Ed in the Oregonian this week. The news comes after NOAA fisheries released its latest court ordered Biological Opinion intended to guide the operation of the Snake and lower Columbia hydrosystem in a manner safe for the 13 threatened Snake/ Columbia River anadramous fish stocks. This was the agency’s third attempt, the previous two biological opinions didn’t meet the requirements of the Endangered Species Act to recover listed species.

From the Op-Ed:

I am resolved to keep fighting for our wild salmon and steelhead. I prefer to settle Oregon’s issues with the federal government at the negotiating table but, thus far, such negotiations have yielded little. If it requires another round of litigation, and that is my only option, then I will pursue that option. Oregon’s interests and the future of our wild salmon and steelhead are that important to me — to all of us.

Please send Kulongoski a note, thanking him for supporting our fisheries.

This week the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced that Bull trout will remain a listed species in the contiguous United States. The decision was part of a five year status review requested by then Idaho governor Dirk Kempthorne (now US Secretary of the Interior). Mr. Kempthorne requested the review because he contended that Bull trout are thriving in Idaho and ESA protections are unwarranted.

Bull trout now inhabit approximately 45% of their historic range. In Lane County, a population exists in the South Fork Mckenzie estimated at three hundred adults as well as in the mainstem Mckenzie above the Carmen-Smith hydroproject that utilizes Anderson and Ollalie creeks as spawning and rearing habitat. Also, Bull trout have been recently documented spawing in the Upper Middle Fork Willamette river above Hills Creek reservoir for the first time in many years, no small accomplishment for the reintroduction project spearheaded by the US Forest Service in partnership with Trout Unlimited Chapter 678 and other conservation groups. A healthy population exists in the Metolius, one of the only thriving populations in Oregon.

This is not the end of the matter: a decision will be made later this year on whether to break bull trout into five distinct populations that will be evaluated separately for future protection (or lack thereof) and recovery efforts.

From Peter DeFazio: Congressman DeFazio (D-Springfield) was pleased today by the full House passage of his bill, H.R. 3513, the Copper Salmon Wilderness Act of 2007. The Copper Salmon Wilderness Act would permanently protect nearly 13,000 acres in the headwaters of the Elk River on the southern coast of Oregon, and designate more than 11 additional miles of the river as either Wild or Scenic under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. The legislation also protects some of the last remaining stands of Port-Orford-cedar in the Elk River watershed.

The Copper Salmon Wilderness Act must now be passed by the Senate before it can go to the President to be signed into law. Unfortunately, Tom Coburn, a senator from Oklahoma is holding up the works in the Senate. But Coburn is more like a speedbump than a roadblock, since this bill has the support of both Oregon Senators Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith. It also has the support of the local chambers of commerce, Governor Kulongoski, the mayor of Port Orford Oregon and a slew of environmental and sportfishing organizations. For more info, check out the story in the Oregonian.

TU’s Mike Beagle and Sportsmen for Copper Salmon have worked hard to make this wilderness happen. Congratulations Mike on this first step to a big win for TU.

Just to follow up on the last post… here’s a video of TU Chapter 678’s outing on the McKenzie River last weekend.

Somehow, we managed to pick the date of the latest snowfall in over 50 years in the southern valley for our spring trip.  I won’t waste a bunch of words on the weather.  It wasn’t good–snow, rain, wind, hail, enough said.  The fishing was fairly slow too.  The caddis were in hiding but small fish would key in on the March Browns that were popping off when the sun would break through the clouds.  Near the end of the drift we got into some fairly nice fish though:

A pretty decent fish considering the adverse conditions. A couple minutes later we picked up this nice cutt:

After those fish, were were satisfied and got off the water as quickly as possible!