John and Nancy Joyce’s property is located east of Manderson on the Nowood River. The Joyce’s manage their property with the help of their sons.  The species rich Nowood River meanders through their property for 7 miles supporting a cold and warm water fishery.  The Nowood River supports up to twenty different species of fish including sauger, burbot, flathead chub, mountain sucker, and  smallmouth bass, to name just a few. 

John and Nancy  maintain 1,500 acres of land where they graze sheep and grow crops using water from the Harmony Ditch  diversion off the Nowood River.  In 2006 and 2007 an en-trainment study was completed that esti-mated over 55,000 fish were entrained into the Harmony Ditch each irrigation season and permanently lost from the Nowood River fishery.   

The Joyce’s are conservation minded and wanted to prevent the loss of fish down their canal, allow for year round passage in the Nowood River, and eliminate annual maintenance to divert water.  They collaborated with the Department to develop solutions to meet these goals.  A project was designed that improved fish pas-sage and sediment transport, reduced fish entrainment and annual maintenance, and stabilized approximately 1200 ft of streambank.