KELSO — Smelt have started trickling into the lower Cowlitz River.
Officials of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe stationed a small-mesh net in the river on Nov. 23 and retrieved it after a 24-hour soak, according to Nathan Reynolds, a tribal ecologist. The net had eight male smelt and one female.
“While setting the net, field techs observed four harbor seals and some double-breasted cormorants and seagulls working the river at Gerhart and below, and suspected there might at a small entry already under way,’’ Reynolds wrote in an email. “Our fyke net results confirm it.’’
Reviews of plankton tows from Sunday showed eggs in the sample, he added.
In 2014, the tribe collected its first adults on Dec. 2 and first eggs on Dec. 15.
Fishing for smelt is closed in the state of Washington.
