Marking juvenile chinook salmon in the Kenai River and Deep Creek, Alaska, 1995

Description

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is assessing the contribution of selected wild stocks of chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha to an expanding mixed-stock marine recreational harvest in Cook Inlet using a coded wire tag marking and recovery program. Chinook salmon stocks in the Kenai River, location of the largest freshwater sport fishery for chinook salmon in Alaska, and Deep Creek, a small stream near an expanding marine fishery for chinook salmon, were selected for assessment. An estimated 58,741 chinook salmon of Kenai River origin were marked and released during 1995. An estimated 13,568 chinook salmon and 9,671 coho salmon smolt of Deep Creek origin were marked and released during 1995. The number of chinook salmon marked in both rivers fell short of our anticipated goals. The harvest of these tagged cohorts of chinook salmon in marine fisheries will be estimated beginning in 1996. Chinook salmon smolt were present in lower Deep Creek throughout the summer with peak numbers emigrating between mid-June and mid-July. Two ages-classes of smolt were present in Deep Creek catches. We used a trapping efficiency method to estimate inseason abundance of smolt in Deep Creek during 1995, but estimates of efficiency were biased from the confounding effects of distance from the trap that marked smolt were released and time of day of release. A rotary screw trap was used successfully in the Kenai River delta to capture age-1 chinook salmon smolt.

Subjects

Series Statement

• Fishery data series -- no. 96-33.

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