U.S. Water News Online
BOISE, Idaho -- Drought continued to plague anglers throughout Idaho in 2003 and took an increasingly significant toll on fisheries in the eastern part of the state.
``If long-range weather forecasts are to be believed, the outlook for the 2004 fishing year will not be much different,'' the Fish and Game Department reports in its latest assessment of water conditions. ``Government climate experts see another year of low winter moisture and drought for the West.''
Another winter of limited precipitation means steelhead and salmon smolts will take a longer, warmer, even more lethal ride down the river system over the dams to the Pacific Ocean, the report said. Low water in small streams also reduces the numbers of those fish before they are ready to go to the ocean.
Fisheries managers reported that conditions deteriorated as they moved from the Panhandle through north-central Idaho into the southwestern and southern parts of the state. The situation became severe in the southeastern and Upper Snake River regions.
The state north of the Salmon River felt subtle effects of the drought. Several Panhandle lakes are lower than normal and groundwater recharge in some areas is low, reducing some stream flows. But most fisheries were still considered to be in relatively good shape heading into the winter.
But the fourth year of drought in southeastern Idaho has had a devastating effect, managers said. Reservoirs that offer quality fishing in good water years have been drained to meet irrigation needs and their fisheries depleted.
The Blackfoot Reservoir, which provided adult rearing habitat for the wild Yellowstone cutthroat trout that spawn in the upper Blackfoot River, was drained to just 4 percent of capacity for the winter, which is insufficient to support the fish until spring.
``Since most upper Blackfoot River adult cutthroat spend their winters in Blackfoot Reservoir, this population may be reduced to a record low number during the coming winter,'' the assessment concluded.
In the Upper Snake River region, catch rates were down and some fisheries lost access and aesthetics as water managers stretched supplies for irrigation. The reduced river flows are also weakening reproductive rates for cutthroat in the South Fork of the Snake River and rainbows in the Henrys Fork of the Snake River.
``The Big Lost, Little Lost, Willow Creek and the small streams in the Centennial Mountains all have suffered extremely low water for the past three years,'' the assessment found. ``Many of the trout populations appear to be in fairly rapid decline.''
In southern Idaho, economic problems facing the commercial trout industry turned into a boon for fishermen. The hatcheries in the Hagerman area gave the Fish and Game Department more than 500,000 catchable-sized rainbows this year, permitting significantly greater stocking efforts than in past years.
In southwestern Idaho, some reservoirs were also drained, but a slightly heavier snowpack minimized the drought's effects this year.
The Boise River system had adequate flows throughout much of the year although flows in some mountain streams were limited, affecting wild trout populations.
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