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Umpqua Fishery Enhancement Derby Launches Live-Stream Video of Umpqua Fish

PRESS RELEASE: Live and in color, the "Underwater World of Umpqua Fish" is coming to your home, business, school, and mobile devices. The Umpqua Fishery Enhancement Derby ("UFED") is now providing a live-stream video of different sizes and colors of fish migrating upstream pass a window below the surface of water that is home to thousands of fish each year. Thanks to the many donors that provided funding support for the 2022 Derby auction "Frenzy" project, a remote waterproof camera system is now linked to a new website that captures a unique opportunity to encourage the public to spend a little time gaining better knowledge of our valuable fisheries resources. And what better way to do this from the comfort of your living room, favorite restaurant, or classroom. UFED has had this idea on its bucket list of potential projects for several years and continued to hear from many sponsors that this was a high priority for outreach and educational activities not only in Douglas County, but also statewide and beyond its borders. With the help of our local internet technology partners Douglas Fast Net, All Wired Up, and Ryan Finlay and Moses Finlay from Tracker, the first phase of the project is complete. We are excited to offer this viewing to everyone, and especially to folks that cannot walk up and down the 99 stair steps or visit the public viewing area near the Winchester I-5 exit. Future plans are to develop a software program that will record individual fish and update the counts on a regular basis that is not available now to the public. At the same time, UFED is planning to reach out to educational institutions and local community organizations that are interested in helping all of us young and old gain a better understanding of our fish populations and the watersheds that we share together. The start-up costs of this 2022 Project were paid by gracious donations from the Douglas County Commissioners and over 30 individual contributors. These dedicated funds and your donations will help provide matching UFED grants to complete more outreach activities with new partnerships over the next several years. UFED is a local non-profit organization that is dedicated to providing financial support for fish enhancement projects and educational activities in the Umpqua River basin. Over the past 31 years, donors and sponsors of this 4-day event held in February have contributed nearly 2 million dollars to hundreds of projects. By watching this video on our website (www.umpquafish.com), you will join our hundreds of UFED members and sponsors in continuing to help improve the homewaters of Umpqua Fish.

8,000th Winter Steelhead Counted in North Umpqua

8,000th Winter Steelhead Counted in North Umpqua

What's so special about this winter steelhead counted on March 10th at 8:05 PM by our project? It is the 8,000th fish for the 2025-26 North Umpqua River return and reported just a day after it occurred. There will be several more steelhead migrating upstream to spawn over the next several weeks to count and update for everyone. The total count could reach 10,000 by the end of April and be one of the highest number for this population in recent years. Thank you for watching our LiveCam Video.

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Umpqua Fish

Watch for Spring Chinook at Winchester Dam

Watch for Spring Chinook at Winchester Dam

Spring weather is here and that means Spring Chinook will arrive in the next few days. The water temperature just hit 50 degrees for the first time in 2026, which is a great predictor for the arrival of the first springer in the North Umpqua River.

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Umpqua Fish

Watch Steelhead Easily Traverse the Fish Ladder

Watch Steelhead Easily Traverse the Fish Ladder

Are you watching... 12 steelhead passing through the fish ladder in just 15 minutes. This year’s returns continue to be very high numbers and it is still 60 days away from the end of the migration period. A great start to the month of March.

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Umpqua Fish

New Live Fish Chart Features Added

New Live Fish Chart Features Added

Moses built some more features on the new live dashboard! There is now live season fish charts showing this year's run compared to last year as well as lots of other data. You can check it out at https://live.umpquafish.com/ Great job Moses Finlay!

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Ryan Finlay

Mid-Season Steelhead Count Tops 5000

Mid-Season Steelhead Count Tops 5000

The North Umpqua River winter steelhead strong returns continued last week with over 1500 fish counted. The mid-season number of steelhead to date is now over 5,000. Early predictions estimate the total runsize will be well over 8,000 fish by the end of April.

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Umpqua Fish

3,500 Steelhead Count at Winchester Fish Cam

3,500 Steelhead Count at Winchester Fish Cam

Another great day to watch several hundred winter steelhead move upstream through the fish ladder at Winchester Dam on the North Umpqua River. With almost 500 fish counted on February 10th and more observed yesterday, the 2026 steelhead return is now over 3,500 and not even halfway through the normal run timing for this population. There is no winter steelhead hatchery program for the North Umpqua and only a very small number of fish stray from the South Umpqua River hatchery smolt release.

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Umpqua Fish