CUTTHROAT TROUT TRACKING AND HABITAT EVALUATION UPDATE

11/05/03

We are moving into our 6^th month of tracking fish.  We went through some very extreme water conditions during the summer months with maximum water temperatures exceeding 26^o C in July.  During this period (June - August) we observed very little movement of tagged fish.  In September water temperatures began to decline and fish were more active and we saw more movement of fish.  In general fish began to move downstream into bigger water.  During this period (September - October) we also observed a significant  fish mortality.  We found 17 tags that were on the stream bottom  We have had some discussions concerning what happened to these fish.  Some fish were legally killed by fisherman, but we also feel that some of the mortality could be due to illegal fishing, some to natural predation, mortality and possibly a natural loss of tags.  Since we had a number of tags that were not in the water, during October we captured an additional 10 fish and tagged them.  One of the fish tagged in Tepee Creek is shown below.  Including fish tagged by Parametrics we currently have 44 fish that we are tracking. We will continue to track this winter on a monthly basis and increase the frequency in the spring.

Figure 1.  Male cutthroat trout captured and tagged in Tepee creek during October. 2003.

We completed phase three of the project "Quantifying the amount of Suitable Habitat," during the month of September.  We were able to collect habitat information on the main stem of the Coeur d’Alene River and the North Fork of the Coeur d’Alene River from slack water up to Lost creek.  We did the little North Fork of the Coeur d’ Alene from Laverne Creek to the confluence with the North Fork and we completed Tepee from Halsey to the mouth. We also completed Prichard creek from Eagle Creek to the mouth, although section of this stream was dry.   We will be using exiting data (collected from 96-2001) for Shoshone Creek and the North Fork Coeur d’ Alene river from Lost Creek to Marten Creek.  We have also pulled all of our thermographs that were put out for the study.  We had three that were removed by the public and are gone.

Figure 2.  Example of pool where tagged fish was located during most of the summer months.

Even though we are still tracking fish, we are also starting our initial data analysis.  As we discussed in presentations last spring we will be looking at movement, try to determine if there are any environmental variables that help predict movement.  We will look at habitat use, cover use and relate that back to habitat availability within the river system.  Our plan is to have a draft presentation by the end of March or early April which we will present to all the clubs. 

We should all thank Earl Frizzel, Jerry McBride, and Judy Kaufman for their efforts in coordinating the Volunteers for all phases of the study.  We had a great contribution from all the clubs.  Volunteers contributed over 80 days of their time to the project to date.