Yup its true that Cutties and Dollies will eat proportionally more sockeye smolts and fry than the pikeminnow, but its the volume of pikeminnow that is of concern. There aren't many trout and char in the lake but they are there and I've seen them in the last couple of weeks on the surface slashing as fry schools as the chum and pink fry are heading out. Quite the sight. Even larger kokanee jumping to rid themselves of parasites. I've caught Cultus pikeminnows that have regurgitated their stomachs this winter/spring and the digested remains of smolts have come up. The pikeminnow use the deeper water (+100 ft) in the winter time which is the same habitat as the sockeye use all year round. Incidently, smolt fence has just recently counted 300k juveniles migrating downstream which is well over what the estimates were originally. More to come too, so its looks like the efforts of the seine boat, plus all the derby participants is showing signs of paying off.
The pre-spawn winter conditioned pikeminnow is actually quite a beautiful fish. I've caught many that are as silver chrome as can be (as well as amazingly golden) but they do eat sockeye especially during the winter months when there is not much else available to them. Once water temps warm up, they will switch to redside shiners, bugs and sticklebacks as the pikers move closer to shore. Plenty of suitable foraging habitat in all that milfoil that is in the lake.
The program is essentially in effect to give the sockeye a better head start. Most of the factors that cant be effectively controlled are interception from the commercial fleets, recreational bycatch, disease (like parvacapsula), ocean survival and degraded spawning habitat.
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Topic: Cultus Lake (Read 6663 times)