The Board of Directors of The North Umpqua Foundation wish to extend a huge Thank You for being selected by the Flyfisher’s Foundation to be the recipient of the funds raised during this year’s Keith Hansen Memorial Paddle Raise which took place at The Flyfisher’s Club of Oregon’s Annual Dinner and Auction in May. We also congratulate the Steamboaters and their partner Trout Unlimited for also being selected.
The North Umpqua Foundation received funds in recognition of the FishWatch program. In 1992, poachers, again, dynamited the Big Bend Pool (aka the dynamite hole) on Steamboat Creek, killing many fish on the river’s most important spawning tributary and threatening the long-term viability of the river’s wild fish stock. The first meeting of FishWatch partners occurred in 1993 under the U.S. Forest Service Challenge Cost-Share project titled, “Fish Poaching Abatement Project” which included both the North and South Umpqua Rivers. Participants were responding to critical levels of returning wild steelhead on the North Umpqua River and spring chinook salmon on the South, making protection of adult spawners of those at-rick stocks a high priority.
Beginning in the summer of 1999, the North Umpqua Foundation (TNUF), has helped to coordinate the North Umpqua FishWatch program and has provided, annually, a FishWatch caretaker at the Big Bend Pool. The caretaker arrives the end of May and stays until the winter rains enable the fish to travel up to their spawning streams in late November/early December.
The North Umpqua was one of Keith Hansen’s special places and we are honored to be the recipient this year.
