5piIyyJ"yi5P0iw .Spring. ...Oregon September 2001
Busy time
for fisheries
People who work in Warm
Springs fisheries programs are busy
throughout the year, but the end
of August and beginning of
September can be an especially
busy time.
Tor the past few weeks, the
workers at the Warm Springs
National Fish Hatchery have been
spawning the fish of the spring
Chinook run.
Also, last week a group of
fisheries workere were releasing
fish - about 2(H) that were ready to
spawn - into the Shitike. This was
part of a fish re-introduction on
the Shitike that began last year.
Visit by students
A group of Native American
youths from other tribes this year
visited the hatchery during the
spawning activity. The students
were part of a new OMSI summer
program, called the Salmon Camp
Research Team
The Warm Springs hatchery is
particularly interesting to students
because the facility uses the
leading hatchery techniques and
methods, said Marlene Schmidt,
who led the OMSI student team.
In controlling disease among
the young fish, in research of
returning fish, for example, the
Warm Springs hatchery is on the
cutting edge, Schmidt said.
During the week, she and the
students in the OMSI program
camped at Trout Creek Ranch,
which is owned by PGF and the
tribes, and maintained for im
provement of fish habitat. The
OMSI students visited the hatch
ery five times during the summer.
Earlier this summer, Warm
Springs youth Michael Van Pelt
; participated in the OMSI summer
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program. r
Hatchery process explained
The spawning program at the
hatchery involves collecting the
thousands of eggs from the fish.
The eggs are kept in colanders
in tanks of circulating water for
one month, explained Mike Paiya,
' hatchery manager.
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Photos and text by
Jerry Brunoe
and Dave McMechan
l or the next three months the
eggs go into incubators, where
they hatch. The juvenile fish are
then transfered to in-door tanks,
where the colanders earlier had
been located, Paiya said.
The young fish remain in these
tanks, where they're regularly fed,
for another three months, he said.
By this time it would be March,
and the fish are put into five
outside raceways.
They stay in these raceways for
a month, at which point the
hatchery workers place a coded
wire tag in each fish's snout.
The young fish by this time are
about three inches long. After
they're tagged, the fish are spread
out in 25 raceways.
They're fed for another year,
and then released the following
April. About six inches in length,
the fish then migrate to the ocean,
and return upstream as adult
salmon after one, two or three
years.
Shitike project
As the spawning program was
going on at the hatchery, some
fisheries workers transported 200
spring Chinook from the hatchery
to various spots along Shitike
Creek.
The fish were released along five
different sites on the Shitike, said
Bob Spateholts, fisheries biologist
for the tribes. Sixty percent of the
fish were females, and 40 percent
were males.
Most were four years old,
weighing between ten and 12
pounds, and were ready to spawn
about the time they were released,
Spateholts said.
A couple of weeks ago, summer
youth workers helped with the
Shitike re-stocking project, he said?
Last week, Spateholts was
working with Aldo Garcia,
LeiLani Tias and David Lucei.
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Above, Randy Boise weighs a fish at the hatchery;
at right, David Lucei tags a fish, as OMSI students
watch from a window above (photo at bottom right). ,
Below, Lucei and LeiLani Tia;releasa fish Into thew
Shitike. In the photo at bottom right, hatchery
workers demonstrate part of the spawning process
to a student.
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Fishing
season
under way
l'ishing began last month for
subsistence fall chinook salmon
and ends after 300 wild adult
chinook salmon have been caught,
as established by Tribal Council in
Resolution 10075.
As of this week about 100 had
been caught.
The Natural Resources Depart
ment expects 8,500 salmon to
return to the Deschutes, and 2,600
to migrate above Sherars Falls.
To assure fall chinook salmon
production above Sherars Falls
continues to provide a harvestable
number of fish to tribal members,
Tribal Council placed a 300
salmon limit on the fishery.
After the 300 salmon harvest
cap is reached, fishing will con
tinue for hatchery (fin clipped)
steelhead and lamprey until
December 31.
All wild (non-clipped fin)
steelhead must be released un
harmed into the Deschutes River
throughout the entire fishing
season.
This fishing season allows dip
net, set net, and hook-and-line
fishing to occur seven days a week.
All fish caught are for subsis
tence use only. No sales to the
public are allowed.
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