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All of these sucker fish, squawfish are related and often will destroy the native fish and planted trout/steelhead and salmon smolts.

I know there was/is a bounty on the Columbia River, and I believe that some other waters in Oregon have a bounty on them.

I live in N. California and have noticed that whenever the local squawfish/sucker fish take over fishing holes that have been good for steelhead for decades. The steelhead no longer use those holes for holding or laying their eggs. We are seeing this on the Russian River right now above Healdsbert and below Geyersville.

10 years ago, it was seldom that you caught a squawfish/sucker fish on a fishing fly. Now it is a common everyday occurence from flies that imitate salmon, steelhead and trout eggs as their first menu choice during spawning time for the salmonoid species. That is an indication of how these slimey suckers key in on salmonoid eggs and impact the future of the salmonoids in the streams where there is an abundance.

Then, when baby salmonoids are heading downstream these slimey suckers will key on these baby smolts. This is why I carry the Jansen flies which look like baby trout, steelhead or salmon. When smolts are going down stream, I become a serial killer of the slimey suckers trying to eat all of the baby salmonoids using the Jansen flies. That was what I did this week.

A relative new occurrence has been noted by me and a few other fly fishers. The past couple of years Gray Davis or someone has been really dumping water downstream on the American and Sacramento River and the Trinity last year. I believe that it is to generate power as we have no new power plants. Also, it is an economic boon to the whitewater enviral rats who own canoes, kayaks and pontoon boats. With the high flows, they can often rent the boats twice a day.

During these artificial high water flows, a lot of normal food for all fish gets washed down stream. These slimey sucker fish then key in to the few remaining hatches of flies and in particuliar their nymph stage. I'm seeing less and less brown and green caddis hatches on the American, Sacramento and other rivers/streams as more bugs get washed down stream in these heavy abnormal summer flows. This will have a devastating impact on native trout and salmonoids if their diet of normal river bugs is removed from the rivers by high flow and squaw/sucker fish.

In places where trout or summer steelhead would bang a caddis pupah fly, we are mainly seeing the slimey suckerfish go after this nymph stage of the brown and green caddis flies. Also, you can see them gourging on the hard case caddis flies who form a hard case of the river sands around their bodies to protect them. I have seen hundreds of squaw fish in shallow water moving rocks around to gorge on these cased caddis nymphs. As a result it becomes harder and harder to even find a cased caddis nymph in waters a few years ago that had them all over rocks or on the underside of rocks.

Jim, I'm not an expert, but I notice these trends as I fish. I'm sure that the Klamath Sucker fish eat the eggs and fry of the famous, huge and wonderful Williamson River Red Sided trout that go in and out of Klamath Lake and back up the Williamson in the summer. This pattern will be replicated where other streams and rivers flow into the Klamath Lake. Yet you never hear any Fish and Game official concerned about these fabulous Williamson/Klamath native trout, which may be the biggest stream trout in America, including Alaska. These trout are a real catch and release asset for the economy of Oregon. There is no asset value for the Barbara Boxer Short Nosed Sucker Fish.

"Jim, I'm not an expert"

Bull Crap! Just declare yourself one like all these other self-annointed "EnvironMentalists" and charge in there! If you can't dazzle 'em with your brilliance... Baffle 'em with your B.S.!!! It's done all the time!!! Do it!!! Volunteer and "Reel 'em In," Grampa!!!

Sounds like we need someone like you who has fished the Williamson River and Upper Klamath Lake for years. I was hoping to flush someone out with these posts.