Most mayflies have two tails, but how do you tell the difference between a two tailed mayfly and a stonefly?  You probably didn’t learn this in high school, but students in Prineville’s Cook County High School did last week.  During the week of November 1 – 5, members of the Deschutes Chapter of Trout Unlimited (TU)  and members of Central Oregon Flyfishers (COF) participated in an angler education program in Prineville for Middle School students of Tawnya Layne and high school students of Brian Wachs.  Tawnya teaches a semester long science class entitled “Stream Team ” where the students use Ochoco Creek as their laboratory.  Brian’s students are taking a semester long course on Fisheries and Wildlife.

The week started off with basic education in angling:  setting up a rod, tying knots, casting.  Lee Ann Ross found a great website which includes super clear graphics on knot tying, in case you want to brush up the location is: http://www.proknot.com/html/fishing_knots.html.  We started the kids off with casting yarn line practice rods, great for getting the right motion down. Tuesday was led by John Anderson covering entomology for the high school students.  In the classroom they learned the difference between mayfly and stonefly nymphs, as well as how to identify several other important taxonomic groups of insects and other aquatic critters (like scuds, aquatic sow bugs, and leeches).  John brought specimens that were displayed in vials and dishes that students were able to view with microscopes and hand lenses.  Herb and Ted helped point out key features of different insects as students prepared sketches and written descriptions of what they were observing.

Don Ratliff, Senior Aquatic Biologist at Pelton Round Butte Hydroelectric Project gave an entertaining and highly informative presentation which covered three topics: 1) the performance of the newly operative temperature regulating tower in Lake Billy Chinook, 2) initial results for smolt migration in the salmon/steelhead reintroduction program, and 3) bull trout in the Metolius/ Lake Billy Chinook system.  Selected slides are posted below with Don’s permission.

The temperature-regulating tower operated pretty much as hoped for.  Some first year glitches were encountered, but overall the system moved warmer water out of reservoir earlier in the year.  This caused the lower Deschutes to be warmer early on, but cooler later in summer and fall compared to recent years.  As graphs show, this will be more or less the pattern for the future.  The reservoir will rapidly become a cooler body of water as a result of the system, so that in future years less warm water will have to be drained during the summer.  This will change the character of the reservoir itself dramatically.  It will biologically be more like a natural lake, with a much colder average temperature favoring the cold water species (kokanee/sockeye and bull trout) instead of a warm water species (smallmouth bass), in the future.

Attachments:

PGE Biologist Don Ratliff Bull Trout Presentation

[Slimmed down version of Don's Powerpoint Presentation]

2492 Kb

11/15/2010 18:42