February, 2007 Roundtable Report
By Eric Carlisle
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For the second year in a row, greatly diminished coho returns to many South Coast streams continue to be a concern to anglers and conservationists alike.  Due to the wild weather which was experienced in November and December, 2006, the obtaining of meaningful observations from creek walks was extremely difficult.  Therefore, in order to obtain a reliable picture of what was happening, we have to look mainly at returns to major hatcheries.
Capilano Hatchery’s returns are very interesting.  I have ballpark figures, not the actual returns down to the last fish, but they will suffice.  The total return was 6,700, which is low for Capilano. However, those of us who attended last May’s Coho forum will remember that Manager Reid Schrul pointed out the various complicating factors for Capilano—low summer and early autumn flows, native Indian fishery, sport fishery, etc.  The breakdown of the returns is puzzling.  The early return (until early July) was well over 2,000 and was the best early return since 2002.  The mid return was well over 3,000.  However, the late return (early September on) was only 750.  This situation was seen by those of us who fished the West Vancouver beaches (rivermouth, Cypress Creek mouth area) last summer.  There were good numbers of coho showing through August, and then the numbers dropped a bit. But after the weekend following the Labour Day weekend, the coho, essentially, disappeared.  For the remainder of September and into October a few coho were present at the rivermouth and Cypress Creek mouth, but only a few.  At times, jacks were noticeable, and hatchery staff appeared encouraged by the jack returns.  Still, Capilano Hatchery easily reached its brood target and was able to transport 2,500 adults (earlies and mids) to the upper river for natural spawning.
Most years, fresh coho stop entering the Capilano sometime in late October-early November.  There have been years in which the coho run has continued well into November and, rarely, into December.  Usually there is a lag time from the date the run ceases entering the river until the time the last coho swim up the fish ladder into the hatchery.  In 2005, for example, I found the run ended after November 3, but some coloured coho entered the hatchery in December and one group of about 200 reached the hatchery in early January.  In 2006, however, no coho entered the hatchery after the middle of November (I can’t remember the exact date but it may have been November 9).  There has been no explanation for the steep decline of the late run coho at Capilano and other rivers, and I can’t think of any reason for the late run to suffer such a drastic drop but the early and mid runs didn’t do all that badly.  In the ocean Capilano coho go to many different locations, so I don’t think it’s likely that most of the late run came through Johnstone Strait at the wrong time—during a commercial opening for sockeye or chum.
Concerning the neighboring Seymour River, I have been advised by Seymour Hatchery staff that the preliminary population estimate for the 2006 return of Seymour coho is 1,450. This number is below average, but given the gloomy reports I was hearing throughout the season, it is better than I expected.
Bob Stanton, Manager of Chilliwack Hatchery, told me that the 2006 swimup return to the hatchery was ~6,800, which is slightly better than the 2005 return of ~6,500.  Bob also said stream walks saw few coho. However, he said, “the number of jacks increased
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proportionally” and “I hope this bodes well for this fall.”  I fished the Chilliwack-Vedder extensively (nine angling days) from September 6 to October 25 and actually caught just one wild coho male (released, of course).  On a few occasions I saw coho (small numbers only), but they refused to bite.  I also caught five hatchery jack coho of which I kept four.  I saw just one other angler carrying a coho, and another angler told me that he was carrying a coho in his fishing vest.  When the coho fishery was productive, I commonly observed anglers catching coho, with coho they had landed, or carrying coho to their vehicles.  Yet, the creel census estimate was 2,289 harvested and 5,234 released.  Like many other anglers who fished the Chilliwack-Vedder in 2006, I feel this creel census estimate is wildly optimistic.  I was creel censused once and was able to report my one coho released and a 6 pound chinook harvested that morning.  There were plenty of chinook in the river, but very few coho.
I queried Brian Klassen, who works at Tenderfoot Hatchery, about the 2006 coho returns to the Squamish system.  Brian said, “Tenderfoot coho returned at about the 30-35% rate vs. the 25 year average (we had about 670 coho vs. 2,000 in an average year).  The other Squamish system streams were similar without any ‘hard’ data to back that up.  A MoE friend of mine who walks streams lots in the fall and keeps diary notes on what he sees said that based on what he has seen this year, it’s about 10-20% of what he would see in a ‘normal’ year.  An example would be the Mamquam where, in a peak one day count he would count 400+ coho while this year he saw 45 fish.  Shovelnose was a big time bust!  I was there three times this year at a time when there should have been a reasonable amount of fish spawning and I saw none.  Nor did I see any redds to suggest that I had just not seen the fish.  There were fish later but I don’t think the total exceeded 200 fish.  A far, far cry from what we have seen the last few years and what I would have expected to see. Since all of the Shovelnose work has now matured and it is now seeing returns from all of the Forest Renewal work, there have been coho escapements as high as 8,000…Most years, there are easily 2,000 fish in that creek…On a plus side, we saw increased jack returns as did most other sites.  The fish were also larger with some very large animals in the population.  I spawned a couple of Cheakamus coho and one of them had an egg fecundity of 5,700 while another fish contained 6,500 eggs. That is what you see in chinook so it was nice to get that in the coho as well.  These females were easily over 20 pounds and the bigger was most likely about 22 pounds.”
The following is excerpts from the minutes of the recent meeting of the North Coast Subcommittee,
SFAB.

DFO’s David Peacock reported
on north coast coho:
 Prior to this year abundance was consistent in the North.
 Areas 8, 9 and 10 had very poor returns based on Docee fence counts and sport
catches.  Had about 20% of what have had the last few years.
 Areas 1 to 7 had relatively good abundance.
 South coast was dismal and if the effects are creeping north is a grave concern.
 Are trying to get a target harvest of 40-60% for Skeena and Nass stocks.  Are
currently there for Nass stocks but at a lower level for Skeena so have some room to move.
 Have developed a tag group for Bella Coola this year and are trying to get a tag group for Rivers Inlet and after that lower Skeena.”
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Elsewhere in the minutes, there were comments about the lack of a coho indicator stream on the lower Skeena and one report that the Skeena coho fishing was good early but poor later.
What will happen in 2007 remains to be seen.  You will have noticed several references to improved jack returns in 2006, and that could mean increased adult returns in 2007.  Reid Schrul told me that the Ricker (DFO research vessel), sampling in Georgia Strait last fall, had found increased numbers of coho grilse.  However, I have heard that at an OHEB meeting in late November, DFO’s Carol Cross said that 2007 may be worse than last year.