Biologist enjoys scientific, recreational aspects of area’s fishery

Balancing conservation, recreation and American Indian cultural aspects of the Enterprise district’s fisheries will be Yanke’s focus. - KATIE NESBITT/The Observer

With a degree in environmental science and biology, he had studied and fished the “big river” as he called it, the Mississippi, but trout fishing lured him to a job with Idaho Fish and Game in Salmon, Idaho.

Recently hired as the district fisheries biologist of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Enterprise District office, Yanke previously worked for the North East Oregon Fisheries Research Program, also out of Enterprise, for the past four years.

Yanke grew up near Milwaukee, Wis., and fished local ponds, lakes and rivers. When he went to college he got into trout fishing — brown and brook trout are the predominant cold-water fish in southwest Wisconsin.

He received his fisheries resource master’s degree from the University of Idaho in Moscow and spent a lot of time traveling to the Clearwater River to fish for steelhead.

As a Wallowa County resident, he gets to Troy “as much as possible” to fly fish for steelhead and fishes most of the rivers and waterways in the county.

Yanke describes an annual rotation of prime fishing in Northeast Oregon. Steelheading starts in late September in Troy and later in the fall and winter in the Imnaha and Wallowa rivers.

“There is a brief lull during high water in April and May, but Wallowa Lake provides year-round fishing opportunities,’’ he said. “In the early summer there are mountain ponds and alpine lakes for trout fishing, and when your legs are sore from hiking it’s time to chase steelhead again!”

Conducting research in Wallowa County’s fisheries included PIT tagging, Passage Integrated Transponders, an ongoing project, Yanke said. One of the rotary screw traps they use to collect the fish is in the Minam River a few yards from the confluence with the Wallowa River.

Juvenile chinook and steelhead are collected, tagged and each fish is given its own name. When the fish pass over the hydroelectric dams on the Columbia as they return to the ocean, the PIT tag tracks each fish. Yanke has also conducted research surveys by snorkeling the rivers

in the Grande Ronde and Imnaha sub-basins.

In the summer of 2007, he was given an opportunity to try out management as acting assistant fisheries biologist for four months in ODFW’s Prineville office. The Crooked River, the main waterway in the Prineville region, lacks anadromous fish due to lack of passage. The dominant species is the red band trout.

“The Crooked River is a spectacular fishery,” Yanke said. “Red band trout can reach 18 inches, but that is on the rare side.

“Working in the Prineville office was a good primer to this job. It offered management experience including working with diverse stakeholders,” Yanke said. “In Wallowa County we have a very engaged group of stakeholders including the Nez Perce tribe, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service and the Grande Ronde Model Watershed.’’

Having worked in research, Yanke is excited to “optimize resources more holistically for both conservation and recreation to benefit both the resources and the people using them.”

ODFW recently released the 25-year Recreational Angling Enhancement Plan. Yanke said the district’s job will be to implement that plan.

“We will look at our resources to make them stable and productive for families and youth anglers,” he said.

Balancing conservation, recreation and American Indian cultural aspects of the fisheries will be Yanke’s focus. Local fish hatcheries concentrate on reproducing steelhead and Chinook that are released in Wallowa County’s rivers.

“The state’s goal is to achieve sustainable, naturally producing populations,” Yanke said.

Hatchery steelhead and Chinook smolt are used in an ongoing supplementation program.

“When supplementation started 10 years ago in the Wallowa Valley and 20 years ago in the Imnaha, the goal was to release hatchery fish that would spawn with naturally produced fish,” he said.

The program is to study the “efficacy of the societal and scientific impact all over the Snake River Basin.”

Some of the steelhead smolt will “residualize,” Yanke said, meaning a portion will stay in the local rivers and not migrate to the ocean. These hatchery-tagged fish, though genetically identical to rainbow trout, are actually steelhead that stay in the county’s rivers. “We still don’t know why this happens,” Yanke said.

In the “put and take” fisheries that include forest ponds, alpine lakes, valley ponds and Wallowa Lake, hatchery fish are more heavily stocked because there is a limited impact to federally listed species. This is because these waterways are geographically isolated.

Creel surveys held in both summer and winter by ODFW seasonal employees determine the equilibrium between hatchery and wild fish. Under current law, only hatchery fish can be kept — all wild fish must be returned to the rivers. A clipped adipose fin can determine hatchery fish.

“The creel surveys tell us how many people are fishing and our ability to provide protection for federally listed species,” Yanke said.

The diversity of the district fisheries biologist’s job includes harvest management, hatchery management, recreation, habitat restoration and land-use issues.

“I’m never doing the same thing every day, and if I’m not learning something each day I’m not doing it properly,” Yanke said.

Primarily a fly fisher, Yanke has dabbled with hardware.

“I will be using worms when my son is old enough to learn to fish,” he said.

His son, only 16 months old, currently accompanies his parents when they fish.