Hello folks,

It's that time of year again, spring is upon us and we need to move fish to the Pigeon River. We are planning to work April 6-8. Barring any bad weather or high water we will meet at the back of the McDonalds parking lot off of Hwy 25 in Biltmore (across from the Biltmore Estate entrance) April 6, at 9 am. We will attempt to collect Gilt darters, Banded darters, and TN shiners from the Swannanoa River. The following day, we will move down the French Broad near Hot Springs, if the river is workable we'll try to collect Highland shiners; if not we'll try Spring Creek and/or Ivy River for more targeted fishes. The third day we'll plan to collect Mirror shiners upstream of Canton at the park.

As in the past, the majority of work is involved with collecting, tagging, and counting the fish at the source site. You don't necessarily have to come and get in the water, there is plenty of work to do on the bank. Following collections we will release the fish the same day in the Pigeon River at various sites downstream of Clyde, NC.

If anyone has any questions please feel free to contact me. Also, please forward this email onto anyone interested in helping. If weather changes plans I will be in touch; we will move the translocations down in the week or possibly the following week, April 14-16.

Thanks



TR



William T. Russ II

Western Aquatic Wildlife Diversity Biologist

NC Wildlife Resources Commission

645 Fish Hatchery Road

Marion, NC 28752

Office: (828) 659-3324 x228

Cell: (828) 777-0495

Email: thomas.russ@ncwildlife.org

www.ncwildlife.org

Letting anybody else know that wants to help

Edited by Gambusia, 22 March 2010 - 08:17 PM.

Anyone that volunteers will be sure to have a good time. TR is a really good guy and really knowledgable about non-gamefish, I was in graduate school with for about a year and had the pleasure of helping him out on a few occassions.

I'm intrigued to hear about the program. Has there been a post that I missed.
Was this a degraded river that responded to reclamation efforts?
A subject I'm very interested in as both a naturalist and a water/wastewater professional.
Successful implementaion of treatment plant upgrades have a huge bearing on H2O Q. The reams and reams of regulation being churned out keep me employed for life.

The long and short is that this part of the Pigeon River in NC was essentially a wasteland for decades because of paper mill effluent. This project has been a project going on for maybe almost a decade now that water quality is improving due to various regulatory and industry changes.

Is this the river in which striped shiners were extirpated? That would be a seriously polluted body of water. Paper mills used to be incredibly destructive of aquatic systems. I remember hearing a friend of my father's in North Carolina remark upon the unmistakable smell of a paper mill, "I smell money!" and smile happily. My unspoken reaction was, this man's mentally ill...

Is this the river in which striped shiners were extirpated?

The same. Isn't it insane that they had to reintroduce them? Sounds like they're getting into the more sensitive taxa. Wish I was down there, this would be a lot of fun!

Todd

The same. Isn't it insane that they had to reintroduce them? Sounds like they're getting into the more sensitive taxa. Wish I was down there, this would be a lot of fun!

Todd

The Pigeon has come back quite a bit.

There is a very good population of smallmouth bass in the river above and below Waterville Lake.

Restoring these non game fishes should increase the forage for the smallmouths.

I wish they would also put some mooneye in there as well. They are restoring them to the TN stretch of the Pigeon

Im wondering if the introduction site is near Waterville just off an exit going to Asheville on i40?

That is my back route to camping in Cataloochee, NC. I have snorkeled a pretty stream by the church and playground that is healthy but not very diverse in species. Longnose Dace come to mind. Just yards downstream is the Pigeon River and a power plant, i think. Waterville. I think i have been told it was to power the pulp plant? This water looks inviting but can be very rough, maybe even dangerous.

Nonetheless i would urge anyone living nearby Asheville to take the opportunities to see and participate in a success story. TR Russ is a fun guy to spend time with and it will be educational to boot. It would make a fine story for American Currents. Probably the CFI guys will be along too.

Ranger Bob is the closest NANFA member i know of.

Casper

The release sites are above the lake in the vicinity of Clyde and Waynesville in Haywood County NC

As far as I know all releases are above Waterville Lake

The section upstream of the Waterville Powerhouse does not have a lot of water and has lots of smallmouth and spotted bass that would eat any reintroduced fish plus otters

Edited by Gambusia, 24 March 2010 - 09:15 PM.

Gambusia, I am pretty sure you are correct on the stocking above the reservoir. I do not believe they have been stocked into anything below the powerplant (TN side) until just outside of Newport. Just this summer we (UT and TVA) caught a whole slough of bluebreast darters and mountain madtoms from the French Broad and released them just east of Newport.

I agree that the Pigeon is getting much better. I spent half of my summer in the Clyde area snorkel sampling salamanders and crayfish both above and below the papermill. I don't miss the smell or taste of that water inside a mask. Above the papermills are in excellent shape. As it nears the TN line, the water is cooler and the papermills seem to have less effect on the river. In fact, my best picture of a tangarine darter (in my gallery page) is from the Pigeon as it nears GSMNP.

Casper, Big Creek campground is my favorite place to camp (while I loved in Knoxville). That water is bitter cold (even in late July). The crays are enormous and have incredible blues and greens to them. But like you said, the fish are lacking - all we saw were rainbow trout, sculpin and longnose dace.

Is this the river in which striped shiners were extirpated? That would be a seriously polluted body of water. Paper mills used to be incredibly destructive of aquatic systems. I remember hearing a friend of my father's in North Carolina remark upon the unmistakable smell of a paper mill, "I smell money!" and smile happily. My unspoken reaction was, this man's mentally ill...

Reminds me of an old-timer I knew who was disgusted by the Smokies. "Millions and millions of acres of wasteland!" Glad to hear the Pigeon is recovering. There's some interesting stuff going on in the Ocoee (East Tennessee's other disastrously polluted river) these days, much of it less heartening.

There is also talk of restoring species to the French Broad River above the Craggy Dam in NC but that is probably many years away

I'm in Asheville,. Let me know the next time you need help with a project. Sounds like fun!