Laserfiche WebLink
<br />cutthroat trout, bluehead sucker, smallmouth bass, yellow perch, roundtail chub, <br />Colorado River cutthroat trout, and common carp. <br /> <br />. Several species, too small to be efficiently sampled by electrofishing <br />equ~pment, were incidental captures during the survey, including mottled sculpin, <br />speckled dace, green sunfish, and fathead minnows. <br /> <br />Lonqitudinal Distribution by River Seqrnent <br /> <br />Numbers of fish species captured by river segment are tabulated in Table 3. <br />Stream-reared "wild" rainbow and brown trout were the most uniformly distributed <br />species among all stream segments throughout the 30 miles of river sampled. <br /> <br />Table 3. Longitudinal distribution of fish numbers by river segment collected in <br />a 30 mile reach of the Dolores River, July 1993. <br /> <br /> Species River Segments in Miles Below McPhee Dam <br /> 1-6 7-12 13-17 18-25 26-30 1-12 1-30 <br />Brown Trout 278 274 112 163 108 552 935 <br />McPhee Rainbows 1015 610 102 20 16 1625 1763 <br />Stream Rainbows 63 55 58 48 53 118 277 <br />Kokanee Salmon 329 51 9 14 7 390 420 <br />Cutthroat trout 25 7 4 5 0 32 41 <br />Flannelmouth 2 181 89 116 82 183 470 <br />Bluehead 2 7 20 3 4 9 36 <br />Roundtail Chub 2 0 0 0 1 2 3 <br />Smallmouth Bass 10 7 3 0 0 17 20 <br />Yellow Perch 11 2 3 0 0 13 16 <br /> <br />Of the 1763 rainbow trout classified as lake migrants, 1625 (92%) were <br />captured in the 12 mile reach from the dam to Bradfield Bridge, while 138 were <br />collected between the Bradfield Bridge and the Dove Creek Pump Plant. Similarly, <br />93% of the kokanee salmon (390 of 420) were collected between the dam and <br />Bradfield Bridge while seven percent occurred downstream from the Bradfield <br />Bridge to the Dove Creek Pump Plant. However, the largest kokanee salmon (44 cm) <br />collected was taken at the confluence with Dove Creek. <br /> <br />Sixty-one percent of the cutthroat trout occurred in river segment RM 1-RM <br />6, 17% between RM 7 and RM 12, while 22% were collected between RM 13 and RM 30. <br />More than 90% of the cutthroat trout were of the Snake River sub-species, while <br />10 % (4 of 41) appeared to be Colorado River cutthroats that had originated from <br />tributary streams upstream from McPhee Reservoir. <br /> <br />Sixteen yellow perch and 20 smallmouth bass were among the non-native <br />warmwater species collected during the survey. Eighty-five percent of the <br />smallmouth bass and 81% of the yellow perch were collected in the first 12 miles <br />of river between McPhee Dam and Bradfield Bridge. Two green sunfish and nine <br />fathead minnows were also collected by seining and backpack electro fishing in <br />backwater areas in river segment RM 13 - 17. <br /> <br />The longitudinal distribution data (Table 3) strongly indicates that the vast <br />majority of the fish species numbers that were downstream migrants (from McPhee <br />Reservoir) were highly concentrated in river segment RM 1-12. <br /> <br />-4- <br />