7028

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 7028
• Author: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
• Title: Report on the Savery-Pot Hook Project.
• USFW Year: 1976.
• USFW - Doc Type: Denver.
• Copyright Material: NO

-9-
~ Due both to their limited population and the character of the
environments inhabited by these native fishes, simple surveillance
of their status is a major endeavor, and detailed life history studies
~ are extremely difficult to accomplish. At present, it is not known
whether any of these fishes inhabit the Little Snake River, but
they are known to occur in the Yampa. Biologists from the Cooperative
~ Fishery Research Unit at Utah State University have documented that
razorback suckers were spawning at the mouth of the Yampa River in
the spring of 1975, and ripe male Colorado River squawfish were
~ captured in the Yampa River near the mouth of the Little Snake
River. In addition, humpback chub hybrids were collected in the
Yampa, indicating that the humpback chub may be spawning there
~ also.

Above the project area, the Little Snake River, Slater Creek and
Savery Creek support good populations of rainbow, cutthroat, and
brook trout and mountain whitefish. Within the project area
(downstream from the reservoir sites) and below, these species
progressively decrease, largely as a result of dewatering the streams
for irrigation. Fishing pressure throughout the project area is light
~-attributable to a combination of few fishermen, lack of public
access, and a relatively poor fishery in the lower end of Savery Creek
and in much of the Little Snake due primarily to irrigation withdrawals.