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 demerits I should’ve been out there slaying coho
 
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Correct me if I’m wrong but the SF coho come in earlier than other spawning populations in the system right? Or are those the NF coho? 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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skyrise said:
Why not take fish from the SF run ? Plenty of fish over the falls to fill the need !
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I would think that "robbing" coho from Sunset Falls would be a dangerous move!

With the establishment of the Sunset trap and haul facility in the late 1950s coho gained access the South Fork basin and have thrived. Currently the coho spawning above Sunset are an important part of the Snohomish wild coho escapement (remember the Snohomish is only one of a handful PS basins managed for wild coho). In recent years those spawners above Sunset represent an increasing share of the total basin escapement.

You may remember the coho situation on the Snohomish in the late 2000s teens where the population was considered to be over-fished would in turn limited access to the Snohomish coho including the hatchery fish. The trigger for an over-fished status is when the running 3-year geometric mean is less than 50,000. It looks likes if this year's Snohomish wild coho escapement fall below about 43,000 (last year's escapement was just under 39,000 with 15,042 adults over Sunset) an over-fished status could be triggered. Even the managers squeak by that trigger the population status in 2027 will likely be an issue again and limited Snohomish coho access to avoid triggering that over-fished status.

curt
 
johnnyboy said:
Correct me if I’m wrong but the SF coho come in earlier than other spawning populations in the system right? Or are those the NF coho? 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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Historically north Puget Sound coho had a very diverse coho run timing with returns to the river from early summer into early winter (some 50 year ago I caught coho in freshwater as early late June. It would be easy to believe that the Snohomish wild coho have a wider return timing that the hatchery fish. Perhaps more importantly is the difference in spawn timing between the hatchery and wild coho in the basin. Typically, the hatchery spawning is completed by late November while the wild spawning would be just peaking with the late spawning tail extending well into the new year (spawning into February). On the Skagit wild coho are spawning into March and some year into early April on several upper tributaries.

An aside the some of the wild coho returning to the South Fork above Sunset are 4-year fish. About 8% of thecoho smolts trapped at Sunset were 2-year-old fish. Similar aged smolts would be expected in other upper tribs in the Snohomish and other north Sound basins. For those that are wondering those 2-year smolts returned after spending another year and half in the salt just like the 1-year smolts and at roughly the same size.

The life histories of some of our anadromous wild salmonids are just darn interesting.

curt
 
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Big increase in Wallace hatchery coho to 3,850 collected. The egg take quota should be easily reached this year. Nice to see the Skagit hatchery coho numbers surge to 14,653 fish counted at Marblemount hatchery. Nearly 14,000 "wild" coho shipped over Sunset Falls into South Fork Skykomish as of October 30th. Those numbers will increase as November rains have pumped up river flows.

I think the concerns about the coho run size can ease a bit now 😀. Low river flows had them stacked in deeper pools below hatchery take points.

wdfw.wa.gov

Hatchery escapement reports

Escapement is the total number of adult fish returning to a hatchery or stream to spawn. Reports are released weekly, and annual reports are also
wdfw.wa.gov wdfw.wa.gov
 
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