Took a trip into the upper Chilliwack this morning to check on pink numbers spawning on the gravel pads recently installed by the Fraser Valley Watershed Coalition, in partnership with DFO's Habitat Restoration Unit. Funding for these projects was largely from anglers entering the annual Wally Hall Jr. memorial steelhead derby. These pads have been monitored, and well documented, for steelhead (search FWR for steelhead enumerations) but afaik, have never been checked for spawning pink salmon.
Happy to say pinks love the new gravel at the outlet of Chilliwack Lake, with well over a hundred actively spawning, and many more hundreds staging. The light was bad but seriously, the river was black with fish. Possibly some were heading further up into the Upper Chilliwack, Depot,or Paleface Creeks but it was great to see.
On to Centennial Channel ... full of pinks and quite a few early coho. Again great to see, just wish steelhead liked it as much.
The last area of gravel augmentation was downstream of the Middle Creek bridge ... it too had a few dozen pairs.
So, if any of you anglers wonder if the money from this derby does any good for this system, the answer is yes.
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Topic: Chilliwack pinks benefiting from Wally Hall Jr. steelhead derby (Read 1961 times)