Salmon in Cascade Creek
Cascade Creek is home to a chum salmon run, sea run cutthroat, trout
and a variety of other fish and wildlife. There is a natural return of
Chum, Coho and a juvinile Chinook. We are glad to say that
currently
the run is doing well, and we will continue enhancing it with support
from Fish and Wildlife and enthusiastic friends.
We are very enthused about the current interest by Washington Water
Trust, and look forward to finding a way to preserve a year round flow
and sufficient water to preserver this wonderful habitat.
Please take the time to look at The Mountain Lake
Conservation Plan
This is where most of the water for Cascade Creek comes from.
Jan 23, 2004 Mike Oconnel put 42000 chum eggs in Cascade Creek in this
incubator:
Garrison Chaffee and his class from Orcas
Christian School enjoyed a tour or the stream and saw the small fry
in the incubator. We have been putting in 32000 to 45000 chum eggs most
winters.
The Washington
State Salmon and Steelhead Stock Inventory report includes Coho
in Cascade Creek.
The 2004 is looking great:
The incubator is very low tech, it looks quite a bit like a heavy duty
garbage can with plumbing. Water is gravity fed by a 2" PVC pipe into
the bottom of the tank. The water comes up through a screen into a bed
of
1/4" gravel covered with a thick layer of artificial gravel.
The survival rate of the eggs hatching to the point where they swim
around the tank and get swept out the pipe to the upper right in the
picture above is very high. There are some concerns that in this
artificial environment that they do not learn defensive skills such as
hiding from birds, but
they get a a quick lesson just down stream as they enter Buck Bay.
Our thanks to Mike Oconnel for his help. Mike also works with Long Live the Kings. Please
visit their site and support their cause.
Mike's helping hands.
Fred Leatherwood provided 35mm slides of his act ivies in the creek in
1957.
Silver Salmon were hatched in an trough:
It looks like the set up was very productive. Fred and his friends
would catch the returning adults and run them up the hill above the
waterfalls in buckets and release them in the nice flat gravel beds.
We (Jim Golinth & Fred
Leatherwood) had a trough out of 2x12 I think 10 ft long we had gravel
in the bottom and water flowing, finally had to put a screen on top,
some of those little divers (King Fishers) found the eggs.
I remembered one more thing you need for your history there ,
Down right on the brush line ,we had a back hoe come in and try to dig
some spawning channel but it wasn't too successful, the hoe got stuck a
few times, but I think we had the right idea. As more things come back,
I'll try to send them to you.
Thanks for the photos and the stories Fred!
Here are pictures of the salmon in Cascade Creek during the late
fall 2002 run. Maybe some are decedents from the fish Fred and Jim
started:
Sorry for the bad focus, this was a long shot of one of the
salmon that did not make it.
Doing a little dance.
Mackenzie Taylor caught several and her father carried them up over the
falls to a nice gravel bed. The 2002 return was about 150 adults. The
accessible area below the first set of falls was crowded. There are
better ways to handle the fish, but this kid has a real fish story to
tell!
This is "the end of the line". About 300' upstream from the bay are a
set of 3 falls that the chum
can not jump. Maybe someday we will build a pipe bypass system. If the
salmon could make it past this six foot fall, the next one would slow
them
down:
This was taken in the winter of 98/99. Cold day for a swim!
This little trout was spotted just above the bridge at the south end of
Moran Park
Going back the other way.
Rob Endacot netted a sea run cutthroat trout while surveying the creek
for salmon redds. Our thanks to Rob for helping us set up the incubator
in 1999.
Washington Trout
is a non-profit conservation-ecology organization dedicated to the
preservation and recovery of Washington’s native fish and the
ecosystems they depend on. Here is their report showing salmon and cutthroat in Cascade
Creek.
Sandy's (no patent pending) "One Step Fishing Technique."
Other links and information:
Shared
Strategy
for Puget Sound
SAN JUAN COUNTY CONSERVATION DISTRICT
Salmon
recovery
San Juan County on beneficial use of water:
"ranked domestic supply and habitat/special areas as the
first priority use"
Washington State Dept. of
Fish and Wildlife Salmon recovery
The Washington
State Salmon and Steelhead Stock Inventory report includes Coho
in Cascade Creek.
DFW Nature
Mapping for Fish and Streams
Restore America's Estuaries
Fish Identification
Fish passage
technical assistance
Here are my three girls playing in the front yard. Is Mackenzie is
still after a stray salmon?
It is rumored that Norman Rockwell was here, but left because it was
too quiet.
Please take the time to look at The Mountain Lake
Conservation Plan
Here is a diagram of the East
Orcas Watershed
Links related to fish passages from Fred
Goetz, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Washington
Conservation Commission WRIA 2 Salmon and Steelhead
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