Coho run coming up short?

speedbird said:
The amount of fish I saw rolling on the surface at possession made it look like a pink year. I would hope there are test fishers, sonar and underwater cameras helping us figure out if the fish we saw in September are still staging or if they’ve died in the salt. It is now the first week of November- the Wallace is at 1700ish fish down from over 7000 last year, the cascade is at 7000 down from 23000ish. At least on the green, the chum run is far smaller than I would expect it to be this time of the year too. Additionally most of the fish I’ve seen have been very dark making me wonder when the last time fresh fish came through was
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There certainly are gillnets checking if the fish are still staging.
 
Smalma said:
Took at the latest escapement report (11/4) for the Wallace hatchery coho. They currently have 869 coho on hand which well short of the number needed to meet program egg take goals, The hatchery is programed to take 5,64 million eggs. Last year they spawned 3,904 fish to meet that goal. With the forecasted rain over the next week there may be a push of some coho to the hatchery rack though it is becoming more likely there will be short fall in the egg take this year. The 11/7 count will be interesting.

The Wallace coho program is pretty important regionally and any significant short fall would likely affect your fishing if you fish center or south Puget Sound. Of that 5.64 million coho eggs 1.2 million are for on-site release, 1.6 million go to the Tulalip program and 2.3 million are destined for the South Sound net pens. I would think that WDFW could back fill the South Sound needs from the Marblemount hatchery egg take. The coho fry destined for those net pens typically from Wallace eggs shipped to the Marblemount hatchery for hatching and early rearing before transfer to the net pens. The Marblemount coho have returned earlier and at a smaller size than the Wallace which often have the largest average size of the PS hatchery coho.

Curt
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Why not take fish from the SF run ? Plenty of fish over the falls to fill the need !
 
skyrise said:
Why not take fish from the SF run ? Plenty of fish over the falls to fill the need !
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They opened up the weir on the wallace. I assume they wouldn't have done that if they didnt get their take. This rain pushed a bunch of the fish holding into the hatchery. The ones that didnt go in have pushed farther up. Will see what the escapement report says Thursday.
 
Coho over sunset at about 12,000 almost double that of Marblemount and much higher than Wallace. Same with last year. Maybe they should mix some of those SF fish in at Wallace since they are so prolific at reproducing ?
 
the_chemist said:
They opened up the weir on the wallace. I assume they wouldn't have done that if they didnt get their take. This rain pushed a bunch of the fish holding into the hatchery. The ones that didnt go in have pushed farther up. Will see what the escapement report says Thursday.
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So what you’re saying is instead of complaining and hooking boots I should’ve been out there slaying coho
 
Correct me if I’m wrong but the SF coho come in earlier than other spawning populations in the system right? I know fish get up there in August/September and sometimes even July and just hold in the river for months.
 
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