The smith river is californias largest free-flowing river and provides a flagship fishing destination forthousands of anglers annually fishing for steelhead trout, resident rainbow trout, coastal…

The smith river is californias largest free-flowing river and provides a flagship fishing destination forthousands of anglers annually fishing for steelhead trout, resident rainbow trout, coastal cutthroat trout, andchinook salmon. Most of the basin is within the smith river national recreation area with dozens of developedriver access points used for fishing and other recreation activities. There are a total of seven individualfishery regulation zones and 18 individual species zone-specific regulations resulting in 25 unique fisheriesthroughout the basin section 180 2023 california department of fish and wildlife (cdfw) regulations .management of these in-river fisheries as well as the evaluation of ocean fisheries harvest rates relies uponinformation regarding the robustness of individual stocks and the freshwater habitats upon which they depend. The national marine fisheries services (nmfs) endangered species act (ESA) section 7(a)(2) current biologicalopinion anticipates incidental take of ESA-listed southern oregon northern california coast (soncc) coho salmonto occur each year in salmon fisheries. Under the proposed action, the pacific fisheries management council shallconstrain total exploitation rate of soncc coho at 15.0 percent for each of the individual populations within theevolutionarily significant unit (ESU) effectively limiting fisheries for other species. Nmfs, in collaborationwith the council, indicates states should continue to investigate increases in monitoring including expansion ofspawning ground surveys to aid the comanagers ability to assess impacts to wild soncc coho salmon, reducing someof the uncertainty reflected in the risk assessment. Estimating annual chinook salmon and steelhead troutescapement and identifying critical areas for juvenile rearing will aid in defining future salmonid habitatrestoration priorities and fisheries management decisions. Fisheries assessment and management recommendationsproduced in technical reports associated with this sport fish restoration act (sfra) project are the primarycatalyst for identifying restoration actions targeted at increasing sportfish population numbers and evaluatingfisheries management.an effective means to estimate spawning escapement in larger river systems is through the use of sound navigationand ranging (sonar) technology. In order to estimate spawning escapement of anadromous salmonid species in thesmith river basin using sonar, two key study components are needed. The first component is operation of the sonarunit to enumerate fish as they migrate upstream. The second component partitions this count into unique speciesby estimating the species composition of fish using auxiliary sampling techniques. The juvenile snorkel surveys will investigate how populations are distributed within the basin. Informationregarding the distribution and abundance of salmonid species rearing within the basin is necessary to evaluateboth in-river fisheries associated with cdfw heritage trout waters and trends in salmonid species distributionand occupancy patterns throughout the basin over time. The spawning ground survey component of this proposal is targeted at evaluation of chinook salmon, coho salmonand steelhead sub-populations in mill creek within the smith river. Because populations of coho salmon are smallrelative to chinook salmon and steelhead, sonar counts partitioned to species are expected to be imprecise forcoho salmon. Mill creek is known to support the majority of spawning coho salmon adults in the smith river. Wetherefore take a more appropriate, spawning ground survey approach to monitoring trends for this stock in themill creek sub-basin. Additionally, collection of scales from chinook salmon taken during this effort can be usedto add age structure to estimates of abundance derived from the sonar counts.