Oroville >> Fish splashed in ponds of the fairways at the Riverbend Park disc golf course.
Clint Garman, Christine Steenson, Daniel Thompson and Anthony Lombardi splashed through the mud and water with nets, scooping up steelhead, chinook salmon, a few perch and even a smallmouth bass along with wakasagi minnows from the ponds in the park.
The four Department of Fish and Wildlife workers were part of a larger group that teamed up with the Department of Water Resources to save as many fish as possible between Oroville and Yuba City that were displaced by the drop in flow of the Feather River when the water agency stopped the water in Oroville Dam spillway and reduced output from the Diversion Pool and the Thermalito Afterbay from 45,896 cfs on Monday to less than 2,300 cfs Wednesday afternoon.
In natural flooding, the fish are better able to survive, said environmental scientist Garman. After the spillway shut off though, they needed a little help.
“It’s a really precipitous drop, and these fish aren’t used to it,” Garman said. “You know fish are more used to gradual drop and flows and they can kind of get their way out.”
Garman led the fish and wildlife technicians in trapping and catching fish in ponds on the Oroville disc golf course.
The morning started with a drive to Yuba City to meet up with the rest of the fish and wildlife and water resources personnel for a briefing. Garman’s crew was the only one that came back to the Oroville area, the rest stayed in the Marysville and Yuba City area to catch fish in ponds left over from flooding along the Feather River there. Boat problems derailed the plan to move up the river from River Reflections RV Park to Riverbend Park.
The rescue operations in the low-flow area of the Feather River had been going on since Monday, and by Wednesday, more than 800 juvenile chinook fall-run salmon had been rescued. But only six adult steelhead were put back into the Feather River in the first two days.
“The adult fish have already kind of lived out their life cycle, and the adult fish are the ones that are closest to reproduction,” Garman said. “Juvenile fish, their odds of making it back to reproduce — especially the salmon and steelhead — are a lot less than saving an adult that’s going to have a better chance of reproducing more young.”
With Garman using an electroshock backpack and Steenson, Thompson and Lombardi scooping the stunned fish into nets, the crew pulled out multiple adult steelhead, measured them and returned them to the Feather River.
Garman was trained to use the electroshock backpack that attracts fish and then temporarily stuns them.
The group had caught at least six adult steelhead by 3 p.m. and had seen more swimming in the water of one pond as they stopped briefly to measure and count the catch.
Thompson said he had seen silt coming out of one fish’s gills as he returned it to the Feather River, but after a brief revival, the fish swam away.
“This is the best job I ever had,” Lombardi said as he scooped up fish with a net.
LOW FLOW
The water in the Diversion Pool is expected to keep the flow of the Feather River around 2,500 cfs through Oroville for at about six days, according to a news release from the Department of Water Resources.
Debris that has piled below the Oroville Dam spillways has an estimated volume of 1.5 million cubic yards or nearly 303 million gallons. The water agency reported that 60,000 cubic yards had been removed by Wednesday afternoon.
The current inflow of about 20,000 cfs into Lake Oroville should make the water elevation rise while the spillway is closed, but the lake shouldn’t get above 860 feet, according to the release.
