Nanoose Streamkeepers

May 14th Saturday. While the rest of the volunteers were spending the morning at the hog Weed site, Katlyn and myself went up the mountain to the smolts box. We counted 23 Wild Coho smolts all in the 90 mm to 120 mm range, nice healthy wild coho. Last week I took our local bands fisheries manager Howie Edwards with me to the box where we fished out 19 wild coho all around the same size as todays but for one which was around 8 to 10 inches. Too big to put in the measuring bag and being that it was large we did not want to keep it out of the water any longer than a quick picture before releasing it back into the stream so that it can join the rest on their long journey downstream. This Wild Coho was a 3+ year old which must have decided to remain in the Beaver pond and with luck will be returning as an adult this next fall after spending only part of the year at sea. A few years ago before we had put any salvaged fry into the pond we were checking our box just prior to removing it along with the fence from the stream we found several small wild coho fry in the box. At the time I speculated that some of the fish had residualised and probably spawned in the upper reaches above the Beaver pond. Finding that big one last week now makes me think that was the case. Around the end of May the beaver tends to begin work on repairing the dam which coincides with the amount of Wild Coho leaving the pond. Years ago we put a pipe through the dam to aid the passage of the late fish which increased the numbers as the weather tuned hot and the fish quit migrating downstream. Since someone stole our donated boat we have been unable to go out on the pond to check our pipe so we hope it is still working.