The field season began this year on May 16 at the Bear Creek Weir. Smolt numbers really picked up after the ice came off Bear Lake about a week after counting started.
The weir crew counted just under 460,000 sockeye and 67,360 coho smolt leaving Bear Lake. The crew switched to adult counting, letting about 12,500 sockeye pass to Bear Lake for broodstock. The crew is currently counting the coho salmon return.
Headed to the Susitna Watershed
Our mobile pike crew was first scheduled to go to Shell Lake for northern pike harvesting and smolt counting. This was delayed until early June because the ice seemed to have a grip on the lake for so long this spring. Between June 2 and June 26, our crew counted 42 sockeye and 2,100 coho smolt. While at Shell Lake, the crew was also harvesting invasive northern pike.
Once the counting was over at Shell Lake, the crew moved over to Whiskey and Hewitt Lakes to continue harvesting northern pike, and then finished up back again at Shell Lake. Northern pike harvesting on Shell Lake resulted in 71 pike netted from the lake and one caught at the weir as it was moving downstream. Harvesting at Whiskey and Hewitt lakes ended with a total of 522 pike in one month!
The crew finished out the season at Shell Lake, harvesting pike and monitoring a video weir for the return of adult salmon at Shell Lake.
Unfortunately, due to some computer issues we were not able to capture video footage through the weir this year, that issue is being worked out this off season with the goal of successful operation in 2025.The footage is currently under review.
The mobile pike crew also performed surveys for the waterweed elodea. Fortunately none was found at Shell, Whiskey, or Hewitt lakes this season. All of the work performed by the mobile pike crew this season was under year one of a three-year grant granted to CIAA by the Alaska Sustainable Salmon Fund.
Operating the fish ladder and flow controls
We opened the Paint River Fish Ladder on June 22 as well as installing the video weir. This is the earliest we have been able to get the weir in. Not being able to get the video system running last year, we were eager to see what moved into the system this year.
The day before opening the ladder, we walked the ladder to inspect it. On our walk back up we noticed some fry in the ladder, including a few sockeye fry. We have only been able to count a handful of sockeye salmon that have made it into Paint River with the aid of CIAA’s fish ladder. But this year the crew saw signs that those adults have been successful spawners with a few sockeye fry found in the fish ladder early this season!
In August we returned to Paint River and found that the video system was working great with no power interruptions.
The weir footage revealed that 90 salmon had passed through the weir (9 sockeye, 30 chum and 51 coho)! We plan to visit the site toward the end of September to close the ladder and weir; and to obtain the remainder of the video footage.
Other habitat activities this summer included limnology sampling at Leisure, Bear, and Hidden lakes. We also visited Daniels Lake in north Kenai several times to ensure ample water flow over the flow control. We didn’t visit the Packers or Marten lake flow controls because no adjustments were necessary as reported by our partners in the field.
Helping our partners
In early June, we assisted Tyonek Tribal Conservation District’s (TTCD) habitat team with a mark-recapture northern pike project. The goal of this project is to study the effectiveness of the suppression measures and to estimate the population size.
The crew captured pike, tagged them and let them go for them to be recaptured and counted during pike suppression. The results should be available from TTCD in the near future.
The last field activity we have scheduled besides closing down Paint River is to assist our partners in surveying Crescent Lake on the Kenai Peninsula to determine the spread of the elodea infestation there.
It’s always a cause for celebration when the field work is finished and everyone returns safely and with lots of data for us to start reviewing. Now we move onto report writing season!
