Gunnison – The several hundred kokanee enthusiasts who daily elbow their way into choice pools certainly appreciate the effect. Too bad most don’t know more about the cause.
The annual autumn run of salmon up from Blue Mesa Reservoir is in full gallop, as evidenced by a congregation of anglers in every public puddle.
If observational evidence is a true indication, the Gunnison and East rivers are experiencing a banner run of fish that even might measure a few millimeters larger than normal.
How they get there – more precisely, the relative ease with which they this year will make the 20-mile journey – is an even more interesting matter.
Through a cooperative effort involving the Colorado Division of Wildlife, Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District and local irrigators, a major stream alteration project was completed last week. Its purpose: Make it easier for salmon to move upstream and boaters to go down.
This consortium spent $55,000 to remove a high, artificial rock drop spanning the river at a spot just below Gunnison Water Park, about a mile outside town.
Built to divert irrigation water, the barrier during certain flow conditions blocked the migration of kokanee, a condition devastating to DOW’s essential egg-collecting efforts and two-pronged blow to fishermen.
With Dale Hockett of Elk River Construction quite literally in the driver’s seat, a crew in just three days removed the high drop and left three smaller, less daunting structures in its place.
Salmon now are streaming happily upstream, bound for the waiting arms of DOW egg-takers and the flies and lures of happy anglers.
“We built little slots between the rocks to make it easier for the fish to move upstream,” DOW biologist Dan Brauch said of a project completed Sept. 8.
“This also will help boats navigate the river,” he said of a condition that often kept fishermen from completing a productive float.
To know the impetus for all this, it’s important to understand the strange and wondrous ways of these landlocked salmon.
Fishing is maintained summer and winter at several dozen reservoirs artificially through a rearing operation that centers around the Roaring Judy Hatchery, near the hamlet of Almont, where the East and Taylor rivers converge to form the Gunnison.
Here, salmon are grown to a length of 2 inches, then flushed each spring into the East River. The fingerlings in their millions make their way to Blue Mesa, where they spend more than three years growing to maturity, a maximum of about 17 inches.
In the autumn of their fourth year, they begin the long trek back up to their place of origin, a run that reaches a peak toward the middle of September.
Sport fishing is allowed, with the proviso that from Aug. 1 through October, all fish must be released unharmed. Beginning Oct. 2, DOW personnel will begin an egg-taking operation also conducted later at five other reservoirs around the state.
Brauch said his goal this year will be to take about six million eggs, about half the state’s total.
That effort quite literally hit a roadblock in the 2002 drought year when no kokanee could negotiate the rock barrier below town. Brauch and his crew hauled salmon from the river in large buckets, an exercise that likely never will be repeated.
Last week, a small horde of anglers relished the fruit of DOW’s labor, catching and releasing large number of salmon from places where the rivers slowed into deeper pools.
Conventional wisdom holds that bright streamers and Alaska-style patterns attract fish that ostensibly have stopped feeding on their quest to spawn and die. But there are times when they seem to reject these reflex strikes.
On Tuesday, a man working a long pool near the hatchery caught salmon consistently on a small bead-head Pheasant Tail nymph, while others nearby rarely scored on the gaudy stuff.
The Gunnison-area drill goes something like this:
* Arrive early to secure a spot against what seems an unusually large crowd of anglers.
* Start with a bright attractor, but be quick to switch to a smaller bead-head nymph if the salmon don’t respond.
* Use enough weight to keep the fly bouncing on bottom.
* Keep tight-line contact with the fly to detect subtle strikes.
And don’t forget to thank the nice people who made it all possible.
Staff writer Charlie Meyers can be reached at 303-954-1609 or cmeyers@denverpost.com.
