BEND, OR -- The end of the irrigation season means lower water levels and stranded fish in the upper Deschutes river.

Marisa Hossick from the Deschutes River Conservancy says teams of experts and volunteers move several thousand fish from the area between Lava Island and Meadow Camp, “It’s kind of a complicated process. Not for the faint of heart. People who have lots of experience with fish net them, and then we put them into buckets going back down the river trail to the boat ramp at Lava Island. We release the fish and then just get a count at that point of what species of fish we’re releasing and how many.”

The Deschutes River Conservancy helps coordinate the volunteer rescue effort that follows the end of irrigation season.

 “The water’s dropping down while flows are being stored for summer irrigation for farmers in Madras and Culver. It’s just a really complex landscape of water management, and this is one of the unfortunate things that happen. What we’ve seen over the last several years is that when the water drops there’s really large, deep pools that they get stranded in and they can’t get out of. And we usually get several thousand fish, some of them quite large. And so, it is really important to move those fish and get them back into the main stem of the Deschutes,” said Hossick.

Fish are taken in oxygenated buckets along the river trail near Meadow Camp and released at the boat ramp at Lava Island.