Winooksi Hydro 1 update 9/25/11

[digitroll (ron)]

My 7 year old daughter has a class every Sunday for an hour and 15 minutes at St. Mikes so what did I do to kill time? Went down to check out "The Hole".

The USFW were busy checking 41 salmon trapped yesterday tagging / weighing / measuring in the holding tank. When done they send em back down a chute into the river. They are all tagged so there is no double counting if they reenter the trap.

The biggest Male was a 7.1 lb 28" specimen all colored up and with a nasty hook jaw. The biggest female was 26" and was beat up bad with old lamprey scars and I don't think it would weigh 5 lbs.

I watched them tag 35 of the 41 salmon. And then the trap came up!!!! 20 more salmon and that was really cool. Wish I had thunk to bring the camera, but didn't anticipate ahead of my plan to go down there.

I will bring my camera next week same time same place . Maybe we can keep a daily report going here just like fishing reports of the salmon count and notable fish. I will shoot some video next week of the fisherman from above and the process of tagging and reporting the fish from the USFW team.

R

[digitroll (ron)]

I did spend a few minutes looking for Matt at the salmon hole and one guy was throwing flies and said he could see them swirling in front of him. Really nice conditions for the river to fish.

[raz]

So what's the deal with the lift and tagging Ron?
Is done everyday, this time of the year when they know the fish are there?
Is there a schedule?

[Matt]

Nice! I decided not to go down today. Water level went up quite a bit, was pretty hot, and I was exhausted. Another 41 for the day? That's crazy, there was above 30 I think just yesterday. Looks like the total is over 160, and it's not even October yet. More this year in Sept than all of last year combined, sweet. I think the trap works in certain way. The workers that are always there operate the lift, if there are Salmon, they call VT Fish and Wildlife to come tag, etc etc. The guy was talking about not keeping them in the holding tank this week because the water may be too warm, don't know how many they'll be lifting this week because of that, but I'm positive the numbers will only keep going up.

[digitroll (ron)]

Gerry,

It's a random event on weekends when they are there and the fish ladder schedule. During the week they told me it's 3X a day on a set schedule. I plan on going down every Sunday from 9:30 am -10:15 am during my daughters class. I may bring a spinning rod if they aren't working at the fish station. I want to get some video and photos for everyone to see here the entire area and people fishing. I may even bring my TD Fishhawk to take the temp. of the water. I will get the weekday times next Sunday. I was just in awe of watching the whole process today.

May run into Matt one of these Sundays window's or others that follow the forum here.

[Matt]

Gerry,

It's a random event on weekends when they are there and the fish ladder schedule. During the week they told me it's 3X a day on a set schedule. I plan on going down every Sunday from 9:30 am -10:15 am during my daughters class. I may bring a spinning rod if they aren't working at the fish station. I want to get some video and photos for everyone to see here the entire area and people fishing. I may even bring my TD Fishhawk to take the temp. of the water. I will get the weekday times next Sunday. I was just in awe of watching the whole process today.

May run into Matt one of these Sundays window's or others that follow the forum here.

I went down a few hours this afternoon until Dark, caught like 30 SM's. I left and checked the holding, tank. They had about a dozen inside that wooden box, I shined my flashlight inside the mesh and a huge Male with a big ol' kipe came right up to the screen to check out what the light was, it was funny. Then I turned around...4-5 Rabbits hopping around the concrete, about 5 feet away from me, lol!

Total when I was leaving was 164...last years 131 is already shattered and we aren't even in October yet!