In the Media

Oregon’s Department of Fish and Wildlife is considering cutting short the fishing season on part of the Deschutes River.

Oregon fishery managers and dam operators are blaming a combination of this year’s drought and good water years before it, low water in an upstream reservoir and possible fish migration out of it, and requirements to hold back water for irrigation for last week’s big fishkill on the upper Deschutes River.

This past week a large quantity of trout and other fish species became stranded and died in a side channel of the Deschutes River, near Meadow Camp and Lava Island, southwest of Bend, Oregon.

The flow of water out of Wickiup Reservoir a month ago was 934 cubic feet per second (cfs). Since then, it's been lowered slowly to 32cfs.

Hefting buckets, nets and an aerator, Kim Brannock and her family set out Friday morning to help stranded fish in a dwindling pool in a dry channel of the Deschutes River close to Bend.

Countless fish now lay dead on the banks of the Upper Deschutes, stranded after the Water Resources Department reverted to extremely low winter flow rates earlier this week.

Mirror Pond’s mudflats were under water again Monday as the end of irrigation diversion upstream left more water in the Deschutes River.

Water levels in Mirror Pond dropped sharply overnight from Friday to Saturday as PacifiCorp opened the sluice gates on the Newport Avenue Dam to examine a recently-discovered leak.

Water levels in Mirror Pond are expected to drop in the coming days, as PacifiCorp inspects a leak discovered in the Newport Avenue Dam.