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[clarki]

A couple/few years ago I posted about a chinook spawner survey that I am involved with on the Little Campbell River. http://www.fishingwithrod.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=44751.0

Between mid October and late November, teams walk the river twice a week to collect data from spawned out chinook. A number of measurements and observations are taken of each carcass as well as scale samples, DNA samples of adipose present (AP) fish, and the heads of adipose fin clip (AFC) to look for coded wire tags (CWT)

During the fall of 2025 I was involved with the survey for a fourth year and I thought FWR members might be interested in what we have learned.

In 2025, 1,134 chinook were counted past the hatchery fish fence: 222 adipose present (AP) and 912 adipose fin clipped (AFC), and our survey teams recovered and sampled 345 chinook.

Here are some interesting numbers from the 2025 survey:

The largest chinook sampled was 69.9 cm. This is a post orbital-hypural length (POHL) from the eye socket to the last vertebrae. Nose to fork I'm guessing this fish would have exceeded 85 cm. Big fish for a small stream.

Surveys during the week of November 4th had the most recoveries: 101

Number of individual scales taken: 1,460 (10 scales per fish from 146 fish)

We recovered 35% of the AFC fish past the fence, but only 14% of the AP (Note: it continues to be a mystery why we recover a much greater percentage of AFC than AP. I think it's due to predation. The AP fish appear to enter the river earlier than the AFC when the river is a lower and we see heavy predator affected carcasses during the month of October.)

We haven't received from DFO the analysis of the 2025 data but I can pass along some of the things we learned from the first three years:

We learned from scale sampling that the age class structure of the returning chinook are aged 2 to 5, with most returning salmon aged 3 or 4

We learned from DNA sampling that AP Little Campbell chinook are genetically more similar to Puget Sound chinook than they are to Boundary Bay chinook (namely Nicomekl and Serpentine River chinook)

Through CWTs, we learned that there are a number of AFCs from the Samish River in WA state that stray into the Little Campbell.

Anyways, fun project to be involved with and I thought others might enjoy reading about what we are learning.

[Dave]

Interesting stuff Clarki! Thanks for posting this.

[RalphH]

Thanks for passing on this info Clarki and for your personal effort in collecting this data. It's very interesting and good to see Chinook returns are in relatively good shape.

I have very limited experience on the Little Campbell (LC) but quite a lot on the Serp and Nic dating back into the 60s. Based on my experience and what I have read, Chinooks in the Serp and Nic have been extirpated since early in the last century. I never saw one until the late 80s. While initial introductions 30+ years ago were Harrison whites, AFAIK stocking is originally sourced from the LC and is  based both from there and from hatchery fish collected at the Nicomekl and Tynehead hatcheries. My understanding is there is little or no natural reproduction in the Nicomekl or Serpentine so I am puzzled why LC fish  are genetically different. I'd also note hatchery returns to both the Serp and Nic is relatively low (maybe a couple hundred at best) and I encounter them infrequently.

[clarki]

Yeah, that LC fish are more genetically similar to Puget Sound fish than other Canadian Boundary Bay streams is certainly intriguing.

Perhaps if the Nicomekl R and Serpentine R hadn't had introductions of Fraser River chinook stocks then all three rivers might show a genetic similarity to Puget Sound fish.

And perhaps the straying of Samish R chinook tells us something too.

And since we know that Nooksak R and Chilliwack R chinook show a genetic similarity but became two different populations post glaciation, and since the tributaries of the Nooksak R and Little Campbell R are within spitting distance at points in South Langley Township, perhaps there is a similar experience with salmon species in the those systems.

Which reminds me of the Salish Sucker, a remnant of the Chehalis fauna that, during the Pleistocene glaciation period, survived and evolved into a unique species in an ice-free refuge in Washington State in the Chehalis valley. Post glaciation these fish migrated north and are now found in Southern BC, including the Little Campbell.

I'm going a bit overboard in my speculation and I suspect it's due to the introduction of Fraser R stocks into the Nicomekl and Serpentine, but yes, it's very interesting and maybe the final DFO report will shed some light on that

[RalphH]

Well I meant nothing other than it is a curiosity.

However there does seem to be solid evidence that hatcheries influence genetics. From what little bit I read online the Samish has 2 hatcheries that produce a return on the order of  10,000 chinook instream or about 10 times total LC returns at the least. If some of these wander north to Dakota Creek just south of the border (but has headwaters in BC) and to the LC in Canada that may introduce their genetics into the LC. However if as I understand the Serp and the Nic' have no natural reproduction of chinook, their genetics will tend to reflect genetic of their hatcheries which tend to concentrate from a narrow broodstock and so less likely to include Samish chinook genetics.

But that is just my surmise.

[wildmanyeah]

My understanding is they got brood from US hatchery's in the past after the whites failed to produce any real numbers.

[clarki]

Possibly, but I don't think so.

The Little Campbell was chosen as the study area for the Boundary Bay chinook recovery project because, unlike the Nicomekl and Serpentine, according to DFO there has been no known genetic introduction from other stocks through hatchery production. 

[bigsnag]

Fascinating stuff clarki.  Thanks

[RalphH]

My understanding is they got brood from US hatchery's in the past after the whites failed to produce any real numbers.

that was what I heard as well but since at least 2019 brood stock have been sourced directly from the 3 streams per the IFMP Brood production plans.

[RalphH]

As Clarki mentioned the genetic connection between Nooksack and Chilliwack River's naive chinook runs, there are geologists who believe evidence indicates the Nooksack flowed north in Sumas lake and so shared a confluence with the Chilliwack as little as 300 years ago.

https://www.kuow.org/stories/500-years-ago-the-nooksack-flowed-permanently-into-canada-someday-it-may-try-to-again

[clarki]

I was recalling this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M3MmDyKk0I&t=188s about the Chilliwack R spring run Sxotsaqel chinook that Matt Foy surmises are genetically related to the Nooksak chinook given that the Chilliwack River is believed to have once flowed through Cultus Lake and the Columbia Valley and into the Nooksak due to an ice dam in Sumas Lake, plus or minus 10K years ago.

After watching the video again, his genetics surmising is less definitive than I recall, but still fodder for curiosity