Where have all the fish gone?

by Suzi Taylor
From the 1997-98 4-H Clover Project Selection Guide

08/07/97

Back in the 1950s, Jake Meadows' grandparents had a fishing hole on Little Beaver Creek outside of Trout Creek in Sanders County. But by the time Jake was in high school, all the fish in Little Beaver Creek were gone.

"The creek had been fished out," he says, describing how that leads to poor habitat, and thus an endless cycle of fewer and fewer fish.

And somehow that just didn't seem right.

So Jake, a member of the White Pine Happy Workers 4-H Club , started looking for reasons, answers and a way to restore the life to Little Beaver Creek.

He started by contacting Washington Water Power as well as Fish, Wildlife & Parks for both funding and advice. He met with a fish biologist, and he discussed the stream with neighbors along its banks.

"Washington Water Power was very helpful," said Jake. "They did a walk-through of the creek and divided it into the different types of fish habitat." The agency also lent Jake instruments to measure water flow, temperature and pH. He studied the insects that should be around the stream and the types of fish that would habitate it under ideal circumstances.

And what he came up with was an approximate five-year plan, a way to bring Little Beaver Creek back to the way it used to be.

One of the biggest problems was beaversspecifically their dams. "The overpopulation of beavers was causing braiding of the channels," said Jake, "In some places the stream was a couple hundred yards wide with many channels."

He worked to take out the dams, which helped a great deal. Standing water around the dams had raised the temperature of the stream too much for fish to spawn, so removal of the blockage meant free-flowing channels and more natural conditions for spawning.

Jake also noticed that cattle crossing the stream were causing erosion. Jake worked with five different families along the 31/2 to 4-mile stretch of creek to get banks fenced off and allow desig nated crossings.

Over the years, Jake has worked gradually and consistently, all the while watching Little Beaver Creek become more like the waterway of his grandparents' day. He removed debris from the bottom, which led to less silt and consequently, more spawning beds for fish.

As a reward for his efforts, Jake's demonstrations on the project have won him the conservation of natural resources state championship, along with trips to 4-H Congress in Memphis and the Western 4-H Roundup in Denverplus the personal satisfaction that comes from hard work, coop eration and doing some good for the environment.

"The best part of this has been that we've had all our neighbors working together," said Jake. "And just seeing something get done."

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