Sockeye

[Jim]

100,000 of these silver bullets have gone over Bonneville....where are they going?? Does anyone know...are they naturally spawning fish or is there some hatcheries propogating sockeye???

Help!!

Jim

Good Q Jim. I have often wondered this about the Columbia sockeye too. (Unless they spawn where snagging can easily occur - then better not publicly known). They do prefer spawning in systems with streams running into lakes up in B.C. and AK, and I think perhaps down this way too. 2 places they do that for sure is the Lake Washington run up the Cedar River and a Salmon River run that spawns in a small stream that runs into Redfish Lake in Idaho's Stanley basin at the foot of the Sawtooth Mountains. It's this run that is the most endangered of the Columbia sockeye - and most kept careful watch over to protect them. A few years ago they had only one pair return! The following years Idaho bios trapped the few that returned and spawned them as broodstock fish are, to help the chances at saving this remnant run from extinction. The last I heard was that more fish were returning, marked from that program; along with some other nates. I haven't heard about last year, and am really interested in how many make it back up to Redfish this fall! With the better ocean survival I am hopeful and optimistic they will get the most back in many years. That would be a great story - "Saved From The Brink". Hey, who wants to write that book? Or STS article on that interesting story? If someone wants to do the research and go take pictures of that beautiful lake, stream, and mountains, I will recommend it to STS editor Nick Amato and see if they are interested in publishing such an article in one of the STS mag issues; before anyone did the work on it. I'm betting they would. ...

As for where the majority of the Columbia run spawns I don't know and would like to. If nobody in the know posts the answer, I think a call to ODFW's Col. bio Steve King, out of the Clackamas office, likely would know the answer. But would they want the general public to know this answer? With so many snaggers, maybe not?

RT

[jawbreaker]

These fish are going to Redfish Lake, Idaho which is the deepest lake in Idaho if I'm not mistaken. The name Redfish because of the Sockeye's deep red color when they get that far into fresh water. When I was a boy we used to go to Redfish on the weekends and fish on the Lake. There used to be a lodge there that had a lot of information about the history of this fishery and if I remember correctly, 15 million sockeye used to swim up in the lake fifty plus years ago. In the early nineties I remember the Sockeyes had been practically wiped out. Only two fish made it back to the lake in 91' or 92' one buck and one hen. The next year or so none made it back to the lake. The Fishery was written off as extict by many with no chance for recovery. My understanding is that there is a hatchery program that is the driving force behind this success story. I'm not sure if the sockey are native or not. Someone will have to confirm this but I think they are. Never the less, this has to be the biggest comeback in the shortest period of time for any fishery. If you ever get a chance to go to Redfish Lake it is one of the coolest lakes I've ever been to. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] JB

[Fish4Fun]

I am guessing the bulk of the fish that are being seen on the Columbia are heading for Lake Wenatchee. This used to be a good fishery once they get to the lake. Just like Lake Washington they can be caught on the same gear. [img]images/icons/cool.gif[/img]

[Backlash2]

Most of these sockeye are bound for North Central Washington. Lake Wenatchee, Osoyoos, and Chelan. There are still naturally producing fish, with the majority being of hatchery origin....

[ 07-03-2001: Message edited by: Backlash2 ]

[Hoosier Daddy]

Jawbreaker -- 15 million seems a little high, you sure about that number?
As for the sockeye, I couldn't tell you where they were going for sure. Here are possiblities, likely there are fair amounts going to each. One would be the Redfish Lake stock, there are also sockeye that return to the Wenatchee basin and Lake Okanogan, in central Washington. For a long time, the central Washington lakes were the only ones getting fish back. I have also heard rumors that a few end up back at Wallowa lake, as there used to be a run to the lake that is now mostly resident kokanee, I can't confirm whether they get sockeye or not. A few (up to 100 I think) sockeye return "by mistake" to Pelton Dam on the Deschutes each year. No one knows for sure if they are strays or kokanee that decided to make the run. I would suspect (wishfully) that most of the fish are destined for Redfish Lake. I worked up there in the early 90's and this is what little I know (unofficially): They were getting very few fish, like RT said. There was (probably still is) a huge effort to save the stock which included genetics research into the kokanee and sockeye from Redfish and nearby lakes, and development of a broodstock program, among a bunch of other aspects. As I recall, they collected the eggs and milt from as many fish as they could over several years, and spawned them the best they could. They raised the fish in hatcheries, one in Idaho, and one in Washington, so all there eggs wouldn't be in the same basket. I believe they tried a couple different courses from here. One was that they released some of the first generation as adults into Redfish Lake in hopes that they would spawn naturally. A second was release of pre-smolts into Redfish in hopes they would outmigrate and return. They also held onto some of the first generation fish in the hatchery and spawned them there, raising the offspring. Not sure how many generations they have raised. But I think they were trying every combination of strategies that looked likely to save the fish. So, while the majority of these fish may be from Redfish stock, I have no clue which of these strategies they are from (probably all of the above). I think the harvest is restricted to UNMARKED fish, which is a little backwards from usual, but necessary because all the Redfish sockeye raised in hatcheries would be clipped. Obviously, one should seriously check the regs on this though. I can't vouch for the accuracy of any of this, but that's the best I can remember of what little I knew about this stuff!!

[Point-of-Sale Clerk]

Chnookie…

Thank you for that very thoughtful post. I had noticed the strange regulations regarding the requirement to release fin-clipped sockeye and thought it was just a typo. I did not know it was also for sport fishing as well. If it is so important to protect the Redfish Lake stock why was there a non-native commercial sockeye salmon harvest on the Columbia this year? What is the survival rate of sockeye captured in gill nets and released? It is nice to know at what level authorities will finally make substantial efforts to protect native runs… two fish. Would they have come to the rescue if Three fish had returned?


Link: http://www.dfw.state.or.us/ODFWhtml/...ne22notice.pdf

[Hawgwash]

Great topic. Here's a little history from a year ago.
http://www2.state.id.us/gov/pr/2000/Sept/Pr0906.html

[Hoosier Daddy]

***, in short, I couldn't tell you. I'm not even certain about the regulation aspect of it, that was just what I recall hearing or seeing somewhere. No clue on survival of gill net released sockeye or what the politics behind allowing harvest were. We could probably start a long thread about whether or not that should happen. My guess would be that "estimated impacts" to Redfish stocks were anticipated to be low enough to get away with it, but what those levels are, etc., I got no clue.

Kempthorne and fish reminds me of another famous Idaho politician's comments. Helen Chenowith, circa about 1993 or 94: "How can sockeye salmon be endangered when you can buy it in cans at the store?"
Classic. [img]images/icons/mad.gif[/img]

Thanks for the URL Hawgwash. That's very interesting info! Still only 235 socks returned last fall. I am hopeful that will more than double this year if the netters can be curtailed. If they can take the seeds of a handful of fish for brood, and keep the genetics intact, and wind up with thousands of them returning to Redfish in a few years that would be one of the all-time coolest stories. I hope someone out there will take up the effort to write an article with good pics to augment it. The above URL is a good start for info gathering. A future followup article would great if it brought news of hundereds of thousands of these fine fish returning home once again from the longest journey - both from the brink and from the ocean.

RT