Agate Pass Coho pens

[shawn]

SUQUAMISH — Fish were flying in Agate Passage on Monday, as employees of the Suquamish Tribe began placing 265,000 coho salmon into a net pen in Agate Passage.

The fish will be kept and fed there until summer, when they will be released. In two years, when they return as adults, the coho will provide increased fishing for Suquamish commercial fishers as well as non-tribal sport fishers.

“They will home in on the net pen site,” said Mike Huff, the tribe’s salmon enhancement biologist. “They will stay in the area a month or so, just swimming around. The sport fishermen should do well in catching them, and the tribal guys will get them as well.”

The Agate Passage net pen had been an ongoing state-funded operation for years until the end of 2002, when it was discontinued because of state budget cutbacks. Further budget cuts last year left the state with an excess of coho at Minter Creek Hatchery without money for feeding. The Suquamish Tribe agreed to take the fish and feed them with tribal funds.

The coho were kept at the Bremerton-owned Gorst Creek rearing facility in Otto Jarstad Park until Monday, when they were trucked to Keyport. There, they were loaded onto a tribal barge and shipped out to the net pen south of the Agate Pass Bridge between Suquamish and Bainbridge Island. A water pump launched them a few feet into the air before they landed in the pen.

To move all the fish requires between six and eight round trips, according to Huff.

The metabolism of the 3- to 6-inch fish will change as they acclimate to salt water, a process caused smoltification. Over the next few months, these salmon will imprint on the Agate Passage area but not on a particular stream. When they return, the fish should be available for harvest for several weeks until they start looking for fresh water to spawn.

Ron Warren, regional fish program manager with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, said similar net pen programs for chinook were discontinued in 2000. Unlike coho, commercial and sport fishers could not effectively catch all the hatchery chinook before they headed into the streams and rivers, where they competed with wild fish. Wild chinook in Puget Sound are listed as a threatened species.

Warren said the Agate Passage net pen was approved by biologists who consider potential problems for listed species.

The coho in the pen were mass-marked by clipping off their little-used adipose fins. That will help determine how many of the fish make their way into local streams. Biologists walk the streams each week counting living and dead salmon. Puget Sound coho are listed as a “species of concern,” as opposed to the more critical “threatened” or “endangered.”

The Suquamish Tribe still rears 425,000 chinook at Grover’s Creek Hatchery near Indianola. Any of those fish that don’t get caught in the fishery tend to return to the hatchery, where they are harvested. Likewise for 500,000 chum at Grover’s Creek.

The Gorst rearing facility releases about 1.8 million chinook each year. Most of those fish are caught in an intense “dead-end fishery” in Sinclair Inlet.

Similar to the Agate Passage net pen, an operation in Elliott Bay delays the release of 500,000 coho. The Elliott Bay net pen is a cooperative effort between the Suquamish and Muckleshoot tribes. The Muckleshoot supply the fish from a hatchery on Keta Creek near Auburn in King County.

To load the fish onto the Suquamish Tribe’s barge Monday, the Navy allowed the use its dock at Keyport’s Naval Undersea Warfare Center.

“We are pleased to partner with the Suquamish Tribe on this important fish transfer,” Commanding Officer Captain Stephen Iwanowicz said in a statement. “This is a great example of how the Navy is committed to being good stewards of the environment, along with deepening the strong relationships we have with our Native American neighbors



Read more: http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2010/mar/ ... z0gzbKv4kV

[Blackmouth]

Cool. Thanks for Posting Shawn, I remember those pens before they closed them back in the early part of the decade....

Glad to see a project get back started. I hope fisherman get a fair chance, and the Suquamish don't get all of em...

[wintersteelhead]

I love hearing about programs like this. This should do well to boost the declining resident PS coho. The down side to this, they release them when summer fishing is in full swing. There will be a fair number of them caught as shakers while fishing for kings and adult silvers.

[Bodofish]

I especially love it when they get bored with their pet projects like this as the Lumi's did in the late 70's. They tired of their aqua culture (pond raised coho) so they just dumped a huge number of nearly adult coho at about 2.5# each into the Sound. This is where a lot of the little P dink resident coho come from. They now spawn in the streams and rivers around B'ham but go no where from generations of hatcheries and ponds. They will never get big, it's not in their genetic makeup.

[spindog]

I love hearing about programs like this.

Sad to say this is not a program, this is the result of cutbacks, tribal money is providing this to happen. I look at
it as more of a bailout-state couldn't afford to feed these fish from Minter hatchery and tribal involvement and money
saved the day. "Some Program"? Elliottbay rearing net pen opperated on a dual tribal involvement with tribal costs.
If and when WDFW and the DNR merge there will be no money for the fisheries, instead of hatchery, netpens, or
stockings it will be lets sell some "timber" and mabey we should plant some "trees".......unbelievable-Some Program?

[wintersteelhead]

Either way, and for what ever purpose, someone is putting more fish in the system.

[fishnislife]

That will be sweet fishn under the bridge when they come back.....or combat fishing. Either way, it will interesting to see. I'm glad they're doing it and I hope this continues for years to come. I've only been able to catch blackmouth by Agate Bridge.




fishnislife

[Blackmouth]

That will be sweet fishn under the bridge when they come back.....or combat fishing. Either way, it will interesting to see. I'm glad they're doing it and I hope this continues for years to come. I've only been able to catch blackmouth by Agate Bridge.




fishnislife

No SRC's fishnislife?

[jbball50]

I love hearing about programs like this.

Sad to say this is not a program, this is the result of cutbacks, tribal money is providing this to happen. I look at
it as more of a bailout-state couldn't afford to feed these fish from Minter hatchery and tribal involvement and money
saved the day. "Some Program"? Elliottbay rearing net pen opperated on a dual tribal involvement with tribal costs.
If and when WDFW and the DNR merge there will be no money for the fisheries, instead of hatchery, netpens, or
stockings it will be lets sell some "timber" and mabey we should plant some "trees".......unbelievable-Some Program?

Well it was some program back then in the same area too. I don't know if it was the WDFW or Natives, but they had a pen for salmon back in the 90's and early 2000's in the same spot in Agate Pass. Like Blackmouth said, hopefully the Natives don't sit there in September netting them for a few weeks in the area or in the bay by Jeff's Head. That sure would be a cluster trying to drive your boat around nets and crab buoys.

[bionic_one]

What biologist determined that they would just sit around in the area and not seek out a stream when they're adults? I'm calling BS on that one - and we'll have to wait 2 or 3 years to find out.

[Blackmouth]

What biologist determined that they would just sit around in the area and not seek out a stream when they're adults? I'm calling BS on that one - and we'll have to wait 2 or 3 years to find out.

There are a few other programs in the sound that are similar, and while I'm sure some fish seek out a stream, the majority come back and hang out around the net pens... Lets just hope the indians don't net the living heck out of them....

[Bodofish]

I've been involved in a half dozen of these programs and every time, they've returned to the pens. Makes harvest real easy.

[wintersteelhead]

I think netting is the purpose of the pens. If the tribes want to raise them they should get to net them. We still get an opportunity to intercept them on the return trip.

[Blackmouth]

Ya but if the Indians are netting than you are going to see a very big bycatch of the Sea Run Cutts in that area as well as the other runs of salmon....

[jbball50]

Ya but if the Indians are netting than you are going to see a very big bycatch of the Sea Run Cutts in that area as well as the other runs of salmon....

Yup, I'm just wondering exactly where they're going to net at, over by Agate Pass and by the Keyport Base area or by Jeff's Head and northern Bainbridge. They're going to be catching a bunch of bycatch Kings if they're over in the 2nd areas.

[Bodofish]

Historically they will return to the exact spot where they are released. It's a very simple matter to use a purse seiner and just scoop them up. Any by catch can be tossed back into the drink. Don't get stuck on the idea of gill netting just because that's what most Indians do in the rivers. It is not fishing, it’s harvesting.

[G-Man]

This is the same type of program that is being pushed by CCA for the Columbia River. The idea is to raise salmon in pens in sections of the river where the commercial fishermen can net them without "accidentally" scooping up native fish, sturgeon and fish destined for the hatcheries. The idea is for easy harvest and a reduction in by catch. Of course this idea is being fought tooth and nail by the commercial fishermen, go figure. Fish that have been acclimated to an area return to it without a fault. Check out the Westport Boat Basin and Ocean Shores Boat Basin fishery and similar fisheries in Alaska.

[Blktailhunter]

Has anyone ever fished for the Kings that the article made mention of in the Sinclair Inlet?

[jbball50]

We used to fish Sinclair Inlet quite a bit in the 90's and early 2000's. We kind of stopped fishing there because it seems as if the fishing had dropped off. Also because one of the good areas where we used to pick up fish, we aren't allowed to fish now because of 9/11. It's too close to the naval boats, but the 140 hole in Sinclear Inlet used to produce well for Kings and an occasional silver, don't know how well it is now.

[shawn]

Has anyone ever fished for the Kings that the article made mention of in the Sinclair Inlet?

I have it's really slow fishing.But it is the first local runof the year.I catch few out there but it's not on fire like it used to be. Since it's a terminal run, all of the kings go up Gorst creek. To the hatchery at Otto Jarstad Park. Where they are milked and de-egged. You will know whrn this run is going good you will see the Natives out there netting. Give it atry.