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Project 4-- Monitoring Lees Ferry Fishes (Bio 4.M1.09) <br />Start Date <br />Ongoing <br />End Date <br />Ongoing <br />Principal Investigators <br />A.S. Makinster (Arizona Game and Fish Department), in cooperation with Josh Korman (Ecometric <br />Research, Inc.) and GCMRC <br />Geographic Scope <br />Colorado River from Glen Canyon Dam to Lees Ferry <br />Project Goals <br />The fall steady flow related goals of this project are: <br />• Monitor the rainbow trout (RBT) recreational fishery between Glen Canyon Dam and the Paria <br />River <br />• Monitor RBT redds and early life stages to support assessment of experimental flow releases <br />from Glen Canyon Dam <br />This project is designed to monitor the status and population of this RBT fishery in response to <br />management actions, and to determine how abundance, reproduction, survival, and growth are <br />influenced by operations of Glen Canyon Dam, including fall steady flows. Trend analysis using indices <br />of abundance can be used to determine whether changes in dam operations are having population -level <br />effects on the fishery. <br />The 2009 Protocol Evaluation Panel (PEP) reviewed this project for Grand Canyon Fishes. The panel <br />recommended that it was not cost effective or necessary to conduct multiple population monitoring and <br />assessment trips each year to assess the Lees Ferry rainbow trout fishery. Rather, the panel <br />recommended a single electrofishing trip at the randomized sites each year to physically observe the <br />adult population and perhaps to tag fish if that was desired for more data collection. Analysis of this <br />long -term dataset will be completed in 2009 to determine impacts of the recommended reduction in <br />effort and the ability to meet management objectives. <br />The 2009 PEP did not recommend maintaining the monitoring of early life stages of rainbow trout that <br />has been conducted for 5 of the last 7 years. However, this monitoring technique may be useful for <br />studying the response of the fishery to experimental dam releases, and so it should be maintained <br />through 2012 in response to the fall steady flow regime. <br />28 <br />