Summer Chum Restoration

Summer Chum are in Chimacum Creek!

2011-10-04T13:51:00.000-07:00

Kasha checks out the gill condition of this 10 pound male salmon. Summer Chum Spawner Surveys in Chimacum Creek are happening every Thursday. Contact alahti[at]nosc[dot]org if you'd like to get fishy.

2010 Summer Chum Survey Graph

2010-10-14T15:25:00.000-07:00

With one week of surveying to go, the number of returning Summer Chum is anticipated to surpass last year’s by more than 500 totaling approximately 1,500 (see graph above).

2010 Summer Chum Survey along Chimacum Creek

2010-10-13T13:27:00.000-07:00

The volunteers collected otiliths and scale samples to be used to age the salmon and collect DNA information. If you are interested in volunteering in this project next summer, contact Kai Wallin at volunteer@nosc.org or visit our website for more information.

2009 Summer Chum along Chimacum Creek

2009-11-16T14:51:00.000-08:00

The 2009 summer chum moved up through Chimacum Estuary and fought off the eager river otters to spawn in the waters of Chimacum Creek. With the help of our wonderful volunteers and the Washington Conservation Corps' Crew we were able to count ~1000 live summer chum spawners in the creek.

Summer Chum Restoration on JCL, Salmon-Snow and Chimaucm Creeks

2008-10-24T14:31:00.000-07:00

Welcome to NOSC's Summer Chum Restoration Page!

Here you will find updates and spawning numbers from surveys, as well as info on the Salmon Creek adult trap, and Jimmy-come-lately supplementation...

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UPDATES at the Salmon Creek Trap

Above: A wild coho in the summer chum trap at Salmon Creek - early arrivals...

Total fish estimate for the Salmon Creek run was 1,568

NOTES:

Salmon Creek trap is finished out out for the year -- (removed on Oct. 23rd) -- thank you to all who helped this year!

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UPDATES from
JIMMYCOMELATELY CREEK
Above: a graph showing JCL's escapement for 2008 spawning season, in relation to Salmon, Snow and Chimacum Creek escapement...Blue line for Salmon Creek, Red for Chimacum, Yelow dotted for Snow Creek, and Green dotted for JCL...
Total fish estimate for the JimmyComeLately Creek summer chum run was 1,054.

NOTES:
The last summer chum salmon was passed upstream on October 17 (the day we took the trap out). Here are the season totals for Jimmycomelately creek:

Total return - 1,054 (graph shows 1,029 which is the trap total)
Fish spawned for supplementation program - 72
Fish passed upstream - 957
Fish spawning downstream of trap - 10 (5 redds)
Fish lost to predators downstream of trap and intertidal area - 15
Females spawned for supplementation program - 35
Egg take - 103,550

In other words, the 2008 return was a good one, 400 more fish than last year and the third largest return since the recovery project started back in 1999. We have around 250 scale and otolith samples to analyze for age and origin so, several months from now, we will know how many of the fish were from the program and how many were from the first fish spawning in the new channel back in 2005.

Eighty-eight per cent of our eggs made it to the eyed stage and most of them are already back at the remote incubation sites . . . the hatch has begun. The Jimmycomelately Creek summer chum salmon crew will be watching over them all winter. We will report back in the spring, when it's time to release the fry!

Above: A summer chum on it's way home in JCL creek...

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CHIMACUM CREEK
Summer Chum Run Results

Above: Graph showing weekly spawning count totals for Chimacum Creek spawning surveys, from 2000 to 2008. To see numbers more clearly, save as jpg onto your desktop and open up -- please feel free to contact us if you would like a hardcopy of any of these graphs!
Total escapement for Chimacum Creek summer chum run was estimated at 741.
NOTES:
Thank you to all the survey volunteers that helped with the surveys on these creeks -- it was a good season -- ! We look forward to hopefully a good coho season - call us at (360) 379-8051 if you are interested in surveying for coho this November/December...