Where there's a way there's the will to spawn -- as tule chinook salmon are proving in the gravels of southwest Washington's White Salmon River.

Researchers in recent weeks have identified about 69 salmon redds in reaches above the river's Condit Dam. The salmon eggs likely nested in those gravels are the first deposited above the dam in nearly 100 years.

"As a fishery biologist, if you're not excited about this you might as well retire," the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Rod Engle said of a collaborative project carried out this fall that involved trapping adult fish in the lower river and transporting them above the impassable dam for release.

This year's effort is a test run. The dam is scheduled to be removed, providing numerous permit approvals are granted, in October 2009. The goal next fall is to snatch up as many naturally produced spawners in the lower river before the demolition so their eggs won't be inundated by the certain wave of sediment that will be loosed from behind the dam.

Those wild fish, and potentially hatchery tules that have strayed to the river, would also be transported upriver and released. Ultimately fish and wildlife managers hope tules, coho, steelhead, and perhaps spring chinook, will naturally recolonize the reopened river. The dam was built in 1913, equipped with a fish ladder. But the ladder washed out in 1918 flooding and was never replaced.

During a 3 1/2 week period that started in early September, USFWS biologists employed a variety of gears to snare 87 fin-clipped tules that strayed to the river from nearby Spring Creek National Fish Hatchery, which is owned and operated by the USFWS.

Gill-nets were tried initially but produced little catch. But 200- to 220-foot seines worked better. In addition to the hatchery fish a similar number of unmarked tules were also netted but were released, Engle said. The netting took place just over a half mile upstream from the White Salmon River's confluence with Columbia River, just above the bigger river's backwater.

The 87 trapped hatchery fish and 333 tules that returned to the hatchery were loaded aboard a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife tanker truck.

The fish were released at two sites. One was just above the head of Northwestern Lake, which is the reservoir created by Condit. The other site was just below 6 to12-foot-tall Husum Falls at river mile 7.6. The dam is located at river mile 3.4; the head of the lake is 5 miles from the White Salmon's confluence with the Columbia River.

After watching the first load flood into the river, "that's when a light went on – how cool this is," USFWS biologist Joe Skalicky said of the prospect of salmon once again filling the White Salmon, which flows 45 miles from its beginnings on Mount Adams' south slope.

Engle said the reaction from local folks encountered along the river was nearly 100 percent positive. Some who witnessed the releases "just stared at them – happy," he said.

A total of 35 female fish and one male were outfitted with radio tags so researchers during rafting sweeps could monitor their movements. The tules were spotted from the head of the lake up to Husum, but not beyond. Skalicky said that there's no known evidence that the tule fall chinook had ever been able to leap the falls, though steelhead and coho likely can.

Farther upriver is BZ Falls which steelhead and coho also could potentially clear. Next upstream is Big Brother, a definite salmon stopper about 16 miles from the river mouth.

"One of the things we really wanted to learn is if they'd go above Husum," Skalicky said of the need to know just how much habitat would be available to the tules. The river "is not a super, super productive" stream for the fall chinook except in some mainstem stretches.

The reachable territory above Husum has steep, slot canyon geography with the river bottom mostly bared bedrock and with little of the gravel the mainstem spawners need.

The tules are being reintroduced to the upper river. The other species will not likely be.

"The other species, they'll do what they do," Skalicky of potential colonization of the newly opened habitat, which includes tributary creeks.

The multi-entity work group involved with the project has estimated that the suitable reaches could hold potentially about 500 tules though those estimates need more refinement, Engle said.

The fish are finding gravels in their chosen downriver reaches. Of the 420 fish released, roughly half were females and about 69 of them to this point have spawned or attempted to spawn.

"There's some absolutely huge redds out there," Engle said. Some are as much as seven meters in diameter, Skalicky said.

Fish and fish carcasses spotted during the surveys "are in terrible condition from digging redds," Engle said.

Any product from this year's spawning will have a tough go of it next year when they attempt to migrate to the Pacific Ocean. The only passage route at Condit is through its hydro turbines.

Past studies indicate that "the mortality will likely be up toward 70 percent" at the dam, Engle said.

The proposed "salvage" plan was developed by the parties of the Condit Work Group: the USFWS, NOAA Fisheries Service, WDFW, the Yakama Indian Nation and PacifiCorp. They will next begin planning for next year.

"It's really been great fun working with everyone in this work group," Engle said.

If the dam removal is still scheduled for next fall, the trapping effort will target unmarked fish, most of which are probably at least a generation or two removed from the hatchery. Spring Creek's tule production was started 100 years ago with broodstock from the White Salmon River.

A "rotary screw trap" run by the U.S. Geological Survey the three previous years found both young tule and "bright" fall chinook in the lower reaches of the White Salmon.

Genetic testing of the tules showed them to be "extremely similar to our hatchery stock," Engle said. That operation will be restarted next year to gauge the productivity there.

"We're seeing a pretty good number of wild fish," Engle said.

The tules now share the available lower river spawning areas with bright fall chinook. Chinook carcass counts of spawned out tules have averaged 1,600 during the 1994-2003 period, according to the WDFW's Joe Hymer. The counts ranged from a low of 39 in 1996 to a high of almost 12,000 in 2003.