The return of the coho...

source:  Natasha Jones, Reporter, The Langley Times (Jan., '99)

    As recently as two years ago, officials with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans thought that chum salmon were extinct, or at the very least, rare in the Salmon River.   

    It came as a big surprise to the DFO and the Salmon River Enhancement Society to discover more than 1,000 chum which were caught in the fish trap on the river during the fall, and were then released.

    "In over 20 years of fishing the river I have never caught or seen a chum," said Salmon River Enhancement Society member, Gerald Reist.

    The river has long been known as the best river for coho and cutthroat in the Lower Fraser Valley, and while chum were likely present in the past, they may have been "fished out" at some point.

    But, said society member Doug McFee, the return of the chum "shows us how little we really know about the river and how difficult it is to see the fish."

    McFee added that fortunately, the chum should not interfere with coho and cutthroat as the chum tend to spawn in the downstream and main channel areas while the coho and cutthroat prefer the small tributaries in the middle and upper reaches.

    The estimated fall coho run is 3,000 which, despite the poor conditions with the lack of autumn rain, is a big improvement on the 2,000 coho seen three years ago, McFee said.

    Coho numbers are expected to increase further in three years as this year was the first that the one-year-old juvenile coho migrating out to the ocean in the spring did not face high mortality going through the pumps at the mouth of the Salmon River.

    The addition of a screw pump at the mouth this spring should dramatically reduce mortality.