Helping the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe Install Smolt Traps Way out West

  There is a great deal of work that goes into installing smolt traps.  Each year the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe installs several smolt traps on the west end of the Olympic Peninsula.  This is done primarily to take a look at the coho population of juvenile salmon that is out migrating.  This information is used to determine how well  restoration projects are working and to help set harvest limits.The crew is lucky enough to get tasked with helping the Elwha restoration crew with this The traps span the creek like a large V, this causes the fish to be funneled into a pipe then into a box submerged in the water.  This box is checked once a day.  The fish are identified and counted.  We installed traps at Salt Creek, East Twin, West Twin, and Deep Creek.  These include three of the larger traps that get installed and Deep Creek is the largest.  The creek flow levels must be agreeable for installs.  Deep creek had considerable flows and it rained the whole day but we had some help from a Port Angeles Crew.  The Port Angeles Crew and their new Supervisor Peter Allen were a great help and it was a blast working with them and the tribe.

Kori wiring the frames to the t-posts with Mike McHenry and Sonny Sampson in the background.

Here is the downstream side of the trap you can see the plume and the pvc pipe that the smolts are channeled into.

Here the the box that the smolts end up in.

Dylan Kelly driving in one of the many T-post required to support the smolt traps.

Here is the Deep Creek install, rainy and high flows made it somewhat challenging.

 

A great deal of wire rope is stretched across the "V" shaped trapped to add support.

Gabe, Dylan, and Kim working on wiring.

Mike McHenry renowned fish habitat biologist for the Elwha Tribe, takes a minute at lunch break to explain why we are doing this work and how he found his way to the Olympic Peninsula and wound up doing salmon restoration.  Thanks Mike!

Robbie driving in a post

 We have to anchor the ends of the smolt trap far into the creek bank.

 

It's a blurry shot, but here is Kori in beast mode.

Thanks for checking us out.  We'll post more of our year as it happens.  Thanks to the North Olympic Salmon Coalition for sending us.  Thanks

to the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe for having us. Thanks to Peter Allen's WCC crew for showing up on short notice and helping us at Deep Creek.