Project Summary 



Kleinschmidt, a spring creek tributary with a base flow of ~9 cfs joins with Rock 

 Creek at mile 0.1 before entering the North Fork of the Blackfoot River at mile 6.2. 

 Kleinschmidt Creek has a long history of stream degradation involving livestock over-use 

 and channel alterations related to instream rock dams, undersized culverts and highway 

 channelization (Pierce 1991). Restoration of Kleinschmidt Creek began in 1991, and 

 expanded substantially in 2001 when 6,250' of the stream was reconstructed to a longer 

 (8,494'), narrower, deeper and more sinuous channel. Restoration continues to expand 

 upstream where 



grazing changes and 

 limited channel 



reconstruction are 

 planned for 2006. 

 Summaries of pre-and 

 post-project fisheries 

 and channel 



measurements are 

 described in Pierce et 

 al. 1997; 2002; and 

 2004 



11/9 



Figure 25. Summary of flow measurements at four locations in 

 Kleinschmidt Creek (data from USFWS, 2004). 



Fish Populations and 

 other monitoring 



During the 2004 and 2005, we monitored fish populations, water temperatures, 

 whirling disease and spawning substrates in Kleinschmidt Creek. Fish populations were 

 resurveyed at two locations (mile 0.5 and 0.8) of lower Kleinschmidt Creek established in 

 1998 prior to channel reconstruction. These sites were established not only to assess the 

 fisheries responses to 

 restoration, but also to 

 assess restoration 



techniques involving the 

 placement of large 

 instream wood into E4- 

 type channels. We 

 placed no instream 

 wood in the 



reconstructed channel at 

 mile 0.5, whereas the 

 rest of the cheinnel, 

 including the mile 0.8 

 survey site, included 

 instream wood 



placements. 



Both sites show 

 higher densities of age 

 1+ brown trout 



9 



9/20 



Figure 26. Pre-project (2001 -green) and post-project (2004-blue) 

 restoratioh water temperature comparison for Kleinschmidt Creek. 



37 



