After years of working through logistics and paperwork we finally have our permits and have set Friday March 7th as the date for the Owyhee River gravel augmentation!

This augmentation is significantly larger than our Boise River gravel augmentation in 2023, and has more complicated permitting and logistics.  We are getting 100 cubic yards of ¾ +/- washed round gravel from a Sunroc pit in Notus and using a gravel slinger from Conveyored Materials Company of Idaho to throw the gravel into the river from the road. CMCI is sending their newest gravel slinger and most experienced driver in order to reach the far side of the river and accurately lay down 6 inches of gravel.  It sure beats moving the gravel to the river with wheelbarrows, and will be quite the show! 

The Owyhee Augmentation sub-team members met at the site this week to review the two planned augmentation and gravel staging areas. We used the information from a Redd Study we did with ODFW back in 2021 to map out 4 gravel augmentation zones below Sand Hollow and 1 below the Bridge that have the right depth and water velocity for brown trout redds, and are accessible by the gravel slinger. It’s exciting to look down at the river and imagine all of the new gravel that will be available for brown trout spawning.

ODFW does yearly brown trout redd counts on the Owyhee river and confirms that these zones have not had any brown trout spawning activity. Hopefully that will change this Fall ! Our experience on the Boise river is that trout find and use the gravel for spawning the very first year after it is added. It will be exciting to track how trout use the new habitat. If all goes well we plan to install a trout habitat sign similar to the one we added to our Boise River augmentation site.

The sub team has a lot of work to coordinate the gravel augmentation and will meet with ODFW and the BLM in late February to do a final site review and confirm the augmentation zones. We are working up a list of volunteer tasks and will be posting an event on www.bvff.com soon.

Thanks to those who have helped with the augmentation so far, including Forrest Goodrum and Jon Fishback who helped with initial project planning and our current sub-team: Scott Lenz, Greg Hitchcock, Randy James, Kent Christensen, Brian Martin and Troy Pearse.

BVFF's Fly Fishing Expo is the fundraising engine for this, and other conservation projects.  My thanks to everyone who works on the Expo to make these projects possible. Additional funding has come from Fly Fisher’s International, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Snake River Waterkeepers, our 2023 Idaho Gives campaign that was run by Brian Martin and Deborah DeSousa and everyone who bought a “Greenback”. 

BVFF's Fly Fishing Expo is coming up at the end of January and has an excellent set of fly fishing programs, fly tiers and vendors. Please make an effort to attend, and bring a friend!  More information can be found at the Expo Website.

Thanks to our partners who have helped us get this project put together, including Dave Banks and Kirk Handley from ODFW; Jonah Blustain from the BLM; Jennifer and Alex Babcock at the Owyhee River Ranch.

For more information on the study we did with ODFW to identify this gravel augmentation location, see the conservation blog article below.

Owyhee River Gravel Augmentation Study

https://www.bvff.com/Conservation-News/12866080