They keep calling for rain, but it just doesn't come and river keeps staying fishable so nothing is getting done in this house.
Chum salmon abundance in the lower river continues to climb, from observations at the same spots daily. It will be interesting to see the data from stock assessment after the season. One thing that was pointed out last night was that we are seeing a good percentage of chum salmon quite a bit smaller than average. Perhaps test fisheries are not getting these fish due to mesh sizes, which result in a lower estimate. That said, overall abundance in the Vedder does appear to be lower than previous good years.
Water clarity is excellent, river level is quite nice right now too. Some very fresh coho salmon are still being caught, just not by me.
I want to deliver what the Chilliwack River Hatchery has updated us so far for 2021 at last night's meeting. Many thanks to Alex Klingemann, the operation manager, for always taking the time to provide the numbers and facts.
As of November 4th, the hatchery has had about 20,000 coho salmon returning to it. There are still a few more thousands holding in the channel and waiting to be sorted. Once the season is completed, there will be a final number, which I suspect will be close to 30,000. This number is similar to 2020 (30,363) and 2019 (27,701).
So far, just over 10,000 fall chinook salmon have returned to the hatchery. This is almost double of the returns in 2020 (5,946) and 2019 (5,564). The main reason behind this, as mentioned in an earlier post, is the doubling of the juvenile release from 1 to 2 million fish in 2020, and these numbers include jacks. The numbers of jacks returning to the hatchery in 2019, 2020 and 2021 are 1,935, 1,944, 6,054, respectively. Next year, we should see strong fall chinook salmon returns for both adults and jacks.
The summer chinook salmon return number is fairly similar to the previous two years. This year’s return number is 2,001. Last year’s return was 2,439, and 1,455 for 2019.
Chum salmon returns, like coho salmon, are still happening until the end of December. To date, 1,785 chum salmon have made it to the hatchery. The last four years, the returns have been between 3,000 and 4,000 fish, with the exception of 2018 when 9,004 reached the hatchery.
The production target for 2021 are the followings.
Summer chinook salmon
Egg target: 550,000
Release target: 500,000
Release size: 7 - 8g
Fall chinook salmon
Egg target: 2.8 million (730,000 to Capilano Hatchery)
Release target: 2 million
Release size: 5 - 6g
Coho salmon
Egg target: 1 million
Release target: 800,000
Release size: 20g
Chum salmon
Egg target: 3 million
Release target: 2.6 million (2 million fed fry and 600,000 unfed fry)
Release size: 1g (fed fry)
Winter steelhead
Egg target: 200,000
Release target: 125,000
Release size: 80g
Keep in mind that these adult return numbers are the numbers of fish back to the hatchery, not the total run sizes for the Chilliwack/Vedder River.
All hatchery coho and steelhead are adipose clipped.
The hatchery currently remains closed to the public, but hopefully things will be back to normal next year.
I hope this gives you a better understanding on what the Chilliwack River Hatchery does. If there are other questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments and I’ll do my best to either answer them or relay them to the hatchery.
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Topic: 2021 Chilliwack River fall salmon fishery information & water condition updates (Read 78839 times)