Sockeye 2008 - Biology
As we all await the announcement that there will be a Sockeye season on Lake Wenatchee this year we thought we would get everybody in the mood by talking fish. Sharp eyed readers will notice we added a Tumwater Fish Count as of 7/16: 1299 to the Picture of the Day entry on the top of the web site. As we see updated numbers we will update the count. The magic number is expected to be in the vicinity of 27,000. Note the per day count was 2, 7, 137, 491, 662 so the count is moving in the right direction. For those that can’t wait for an update, you can read the most recent source data, look at the bottom of the Sockeye column(Sock) at: Tumwater Fish Count
We asked Rollie Schmitten, a long time Lake Wenatchee resident and retired director of both the Washington State Fisheries and the US National Fisheries to give us some background on the biology, management strategies and history of the sockeye in Lake Wenatchee This is the first installment of a planned multi-post series.
Biology:
Sockeye salmon, also called Reds or Bluebacks, are among the smallest of the seven Pacific salmon. They average around 8 lbs in saltwater and are between 24-33 inches in length. They are prized for their florescent red flesh and perfect size to bar-b-que. Like all other salmon, they are hatched in fresh water, but have two major differences from other salmon in that as juveniles they require a lake to live in and stay in the lake for up to three years. Their life span is from three to five years. Some sockeye spend their entire lives in fresh water and are known as “kokanee”. Lake Wenatchee used to have kokanee. The old timers will remember fishing in Lake Wenatchee for “silvers/kokanee” off of the Telma or Bill Pulse’s docks. No one has seen a kokanee redd (fish nest) during spawning ground surveys for sockeye in either the White or Little Wenatchee rivers for almost ten years. It appears that stocking supported the kokanee population. Once stocking ceased the kokanee population was lost. Lake Chelan currently has a viable population of kokanee. Sockeye are not traditionally bait feeders, but feed mainly on zooplankton/krill which imparts that beautiful red flesh. In ocean condition they are silver sided with a bluish back from whence the term “blueback” comes from. In spawning colors they are very distinguishable with their bright red bodies and green heads. The males form a distinct hooked jaw (kipe) with prominent teeth.
Bottom line: Sockeye have an amazing life history; they travel hundreds of miles to return to their natal waters to spawn, and are highly prized as “the” salmon to bar-b-que.
Photo: Peter Essick, National Geographic
What Triggers a Lake Wenatchee Fishery?
It is important to remember that the first rule in fisheries management is that the fish come first. This means that you must meet your escapement goal if the fish are able to sustain themselves. The spawning escapement goal for Lake Wenatchee sockeye is 23,000 fish. To have a fishery requires from 1-4,000 more fish to allow for harvest mortality. In 2004, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, set 27,000 sockeye as the number to open the season. While there have been record runs tracked over Bonneville and Priest Rapids Dams, the actual count that matters for fishing on the lake is taken at the Tumwater Dam.
Be aware that the posting for the Tumwater count is slow and can range from 5-10+ days late. Our last two-sockeye openings occurred in 2001 (10 days/3265 fish caught) and 2004 (7/24-8/31/5410 fish caught). The run size for 2006 and 2007 was 9658 and 2586 respectively; well under escapement.
Bottom line: Although record numbers of sockeye are reported over Bonneville Dam, the real count occurs at the Tumwater Dam and they have just started to arrive. So, it will be another week or two before we will know with certainty if we will have a fishery.
Seeing 30,000 sockeye cross over Rock Island Dam and not Rocky Reach dam, I am hopeful of a fishery on our lake this year!
I am also reminded of Joseph Stalin’s comment: It doesn’t matter what the votes are, it matters who does the counting!
Who is counting at Tumwater????
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:14 amSo, I took my family to the Tumwater dam three days ago to watch the sockeye returning through the ladder! As an avid fisherman and someone that is more than excited at the chance for a sockeye season on lake wenatchee this year, I was very disturbed by the counting that was taking place at the counting station! I would watch as the sockeye passed through the ladder yet not all of them were being tallied! I don’t know if this is due to laziness or direction! Yes, I did watch to see if they were keeping track then adding them all at once but this wasn’t the case! At one point I watched as the counter was only pushed 8 times for 13 sockeye that had came through! I guess we will see what happens to the 32,837 sockeye difference between Rock Island and Rocky Reach dams! As of 7/22/2008 32,837 was the difference…..so if this isn’t the number over Tumwater…What happened?? Did the fish get lost?
July 23rd, 2008 at 1:43 pmI was at Tumwater Dam from 4:14 to 5:00 on Friday 7/25. I saw two gentlemen diligently processing a number of chinook salmon. It was quite interesting as it looked like they were tagging the salmon electronically, taking scale samples, measuring and weighing the fish and releasing them. There was a woman with a group of kids who was narrating the action for them and it was a pleasure to eavesdrop on the “tour guide.” The woman said it would be two weeks before the sockeye came over the dam in earnest.
My earlier comment on Joe Stalin was meant to encourage more information on how the fish are counted. Is there some electronic counter? While I was there for 45 min on Friday there was no water running through the sluice box and the station with the hand counters on the railing was unmanned. This is NOT to disparage the two fellows obviously doing other research at the time.
July 26th, 2008 at 8:33 amJust spoke to the dept in Wenatchee monitoring the count, as of this morning 7/29 it’s 18,600 but is showing signs of slowing. Cross your fingers!
July 29th, 2008 at 9:55 amSo, they are saying there are signs of the count slowing huh?!?! Well, that just goes to prove my earlier point!! The people in charge of the fish counting at Tumwater dam are not counting all the fish!! As of 7/28/2008 the difference between Rock Island Dam and Rocky Reach Dam is still holding strong at 32,830!!! Now, folks running the show have said they only need a 23,000 fish escapement and anything above that would be the harvest quota! If the numbers were true it would give us a nearly 10,000 fish quota!! Lets face the fact that the many departments that have there hands in this believe that we are all a bunch of idiots that would never catch on to what they are doing! Those 32,830 fish that have not went over Rocky Reach Dam have no other place to go besides Lake Wenatchee! I guess they don’t think that anyone will really pay attention to the numbers! Even if they do end up opening the season you will see that they don’t give us a quota near what the run is! This is so they can get the money out of people then cut the fishery short. In the last two Sockeye seasons on Lake Wenatchee, there have not been near 10,000 fish caught! I believe in 2004 there were aprox. 7,000 fish harvested in a month long season! So, you watch, we might get a 2,000 to 3,000 fish quota…just long enough to get us through the first weekend and part of a week! That way they will get there money to waste from the westsiders that didn’t get a fishery this year!!
July 29th, 2008 at 10:56 amAlso, why are we even raising Sockeye salmon for the Lake Wenatchee system??? Is it to feed the Bull Trout population that is endangered everywhere else in the state yet over run in our system??? Or is it to feed the thousands of Squawfish that sit under the net pens waiting of an easy meal!! This lake is filled with salmon destroying populations of fish that the game department is not managing! Maybe this is just to waste money that could be used somewhere else!! Another point to this waste is the Coho salmon run that the Wenatchee river system returned last year! These Coho are all hatchery raised fish that our tax dollars go to raise. Last year there were 12,414 Coho salmon returning to the Wenatchee river system….Why was there no fishery for these fish?!?! Guess the department didn’t realize anyone was watching the counts!
Maybe it is time to show the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife that we the public are watching them! And just maybe they need to realize that we the taxpayers are the ones that are paying there checks!!