 |
Deschutes River, Sherars Falls Steelhead Count.
We often face questions from anglers concerning when to pursue Steelhead upstream from Sherars Falls. June, July and early August are months when most fish are found in the lower 20 miles, but come mid August, there’s plenty of angling opportunity for steelhead all the way to Warm Springs. Often anglers depend on Steelhead counts from the trap at Sherars Falls to estimate the timing of the run and when one can increase his or her chances of encountering fish.
Here are the numbers on paper. So far 1800 Summer Steelhead, both hatchery and wild, have been trapped and tagged to date on the Deschutes River. These fish enter the trap at Sherars Falls near river mile 43 (43 miles upstream from the river’s confluence with the Columbia). Every fish trapped; whether of hatchery origin or wild is tagged with a spaghetti-tag also know as a “floy tag”.
Mind you, should you catch a fish above Sherars Falls without a floy-tag, it was obviously not trapped. There are two other passages for fish at Sherars; jumping the falls or passing through a second ladder. (The second ladder does not have a trap.) In fact, it is by this method the majority of Deschutes River fish will pass above the falls. ODFW estimates only 10-15% of upriver fish go through the trap. Let your mind fester on this a little and you’ll see fishable numbers above the falls are pretty spectacular right now. If you really want to get fired up, compute this against the remaining river miles to Pelton (58) for a fish per mile breakdown.
What is important to know is that between July 17th and October 13th 2008, the trap was only operating 58 days. In other words, every third day is not accounted for! Also, bear in mind that the trap is only operated about 16 hours a day, although according to Jason Wells at ODFW very few fish pass through the trap in these non-operated hours.
Keeping your eyes on the dam counts at Bonneville and the Dalles, as well as Sherars can assist greatly with locating the progression of steelhead along their migratory path. Extrapolating the actual numbers, well…some things we have to leave up to you. Good luck and good hunting.
Jakob Lund
Here's your link for the Sherars Falls Ladder.
|
|
|