Cal-Bar - California Barging & Salmon Restoration

11/19/2020

California Barging and Restoration: Barging Salmon to Restore Our Salmon Fishery is now complete. Last year 2019 and a little bit, perhaps, this year...2020...would be the last returns from the 5-year, six-barge project. Three barges for Feather Hatchery, likewise three for Mokelumne Hatchery. I will keep this page active, but don't foresee many posts in the near future. You can contact me on my own page: Rob Tillitz. Message me a question and I'll try to get you an honest answer.

The results of our barges were tremendous. The reason for this is we got the smolts safely to the ocean, and that is the secret to salmon restoration. Predation and low water is the biggest issues, in my mind Predation is number one. Barged down and released after dark an on outgoing tide West of the GG Bridge whosshes these babies out to sea with no predation. Fish released in this way have about a 5% return rate. Smolts released at the hatcheries have way less than 1% return numbers. Trucking and netpenning at Fort Baker area near the GG Bidge has shown good results. The bet number on Net Penning releases come from, surprisingly, Princeton Harbor in Half Moon Bay. That project is a joint venture between two fishing clubs, and supplied with smolts by Mokelumne Hatchery. They normally release about 450,000 smolts with near 5% return rates back to Mokelumne.

12/14/2018

Check this video, hear it straight from the Barge Master himself:

On 12/11/18 I asked Bill Smith about the proposed salmon barge to continue on with the work the Merva W started. Looks like a couple years and we'll have a b...

12/02/2018

In this article EBMUD is mentioned...this is East Bay Municipal Utility District and the source of funding to build the Mokelumne Hatchery and Comanche Lake and Dam. East Bay MUD also sponsors the innovative projects the Hatchery and CA Department of Fish & Wildlife come up with in an effort to bring the salmon runs back up to normal.

Walking along a stretch of the Mokelumne River at the Mokelumne River Hatchery in Clements on Thursday morning, EBMUD’s manager of fisheries and wildlife pointed to salmon spawning near the riverbank.

11/03/2018

Here's results to date (this fall) of Mokelumne Salmon Returns, which includes our (Cal-Bar) final Salmon Barge ( #3 of 3) for Mokelumne Hatchery. It appears about 1/3 of the returning fish are tagged ("AdClipped"), so there will be good data when their noses have all been gathered, tags removed and information recorded and crunched.

FYI: Barged and netpenned fish are 100% tagged. Normal hatchery releases 25% are tagged. Therefore based on these numbers, 10-plus % of the returning salmon are barged or netpenned. That information is on the tags so we'll know exactly what the percentage differences are between hatchery, barged and netpen projects. For years they've had well under 1% of hatchery fish returning. Based on years past, we've figured anything over 1% (for our barge projects) would be dramatic; 5% or more would be game changing.

In terms of "What does this mean to a salmon fisherman?": The return rate is the best indicator of the mortality rate. The reason the return rates have been so poor for so long is the smolts are not making it to the ocean. Therefore, if the Fish & Wildlife were to develop a barging program, they could assure themselves that virtually all (say 90-some percent) of the smolts they released outside the bridge would not only live, but would be available for fishermen to catch over a several year period, and at least five percent would return to spawn.

08/04/2018

Great opinion piece about California Water. It has a political bent, however it doesn't necessarily rub me as I think the knock against the Government is true, and that no matter which party you belong to there is a valid point here. Excellent job by Heather Sears of representing the industry.

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-caltrump-salmon-20180802-story.html #

Already devastated by drought, California's salmon industry fears being wiped out by Trump's environmental rollbacks.

02/24/2018

Record Year for Steelhead too at the Mokelumne Hatchery...

It’s official; a new record for the number of steelhead returning to the Mokelumne River Fish Hatchery in one season has been set. The hatchery has received 530 adults and 638 juveniles this year t…

11/28/2017

Don't let the title fool you, great article about barge efforts (at the end), net pen and trucking of smolts downriver. There is only one way to save the species, get the salmon downriver and into the ocean...they are very capable of swimming upriver to spawn. That's what they've been doing for 5 million years.

Despite an increase in the number of Chinook salmon in California this year, some fishers are worried that methods to truck and barge hatchery fish will lead to long-term problems for the restoration of ecosystems and fisheries.

11/18/2017

This might be the best article so far on the work that has been done by Bill Smith and his Mokelumne River Salmon Hatchery crew, in conjunction with the Merva W's California Barging and Restoration Non-Profit. IT'S NOT ABOUT GETTING THE FISH TO FIGHT THEIR WAY UP THE RIVER, WE KNOW THEY WILL DO THAT...IT'S ABOUT GETTING THEM DOWN THE RIVER AND INTO THE OCEAN.

After suffering in the drought from 2011 to 2015, salmon are thriving on the Mokelumne River this fall, thanks to efforts by the state and a local water district.

11/18/2017

Cal-Bar did the barging for this hatchery the last three years. It was also the Mokelumne Hatchery that supplied all the Bay Area Net Pen Projects with Chinook Smolts. Essentially, what has happened here is Bill Smith, Director of Mokelumne Hatchery, figured out that it is not about clearing the way so salmon can fight their way back up the river, the key is getting the delicate smolts downriver and out into the ocean.

After suffering in the drought from 2011 to 2015, salmon are thriving on the Mokelumne River this fall, thanks to efforts by the state and a local water district.

11/18/2017

Cal-Bar did the barging for this hatchery the last three years. It was also the Mokelumne Hatchery that supplied all the Bay Area Net Pen Projects with Chinook Smolts. Essentially, what has happened here is Bill Smith, Director of Mokelumne Hatchery, figured out that it is not about clearing the way so salmon can fight their way back up the river, the key is getting the delicate smolts downriver and out into the ocean.

The Mokelumne River Fish Hatchery is expected to break the 2011 record of 18,000 salmon. Feather and Nimbus hatcheries are looking good as well.