Monthly Archives: October 2017

Commercial and Sport Fishing for Coho (Silver) Salmon

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Last week, I wrote about the life cycle of a coho salmon, and I mentioned cohos are the most aggressive species of Pacific Salmon. Their aggressive nature makes them a favorite target for anglers. Cohos can be caught in the ocean and their spawning streams. They hit a lure or a fly hard and are tenacious fighters, often leaping out of the water and running fast both away and toward the fisherman. Coho salmon are also an important commercial species, but there are not nearly as many cohos as there are pink, chum, or red salmon, so cohos are not as economically valuable to commercial fishermen as these other Pacific Salmon species. In this post, I will cover both the commercial and sport fisheries for coho salmon, and I will discuss the current status, threats, and trends of cohos in their native range.

Commercial Fishery for Cohos in Alaska

 In most of the state, commercial fishermen catch coho salmon together with other salmon species by purse seining and gill netting. In Southeast Alaska, though, the majority of coho salmon are caught by the commercial troll fishery.[9] In 2017, commercial salmon fishermen in Alaska harvested nearly 225 million Pacific Salmon. Five million coho accounted for 2% of the harvest, but due to their large size and a price of nearly $1.20 per pound, the commercial coho catch was worth 38 million dollars, or 6% of the total salmon harvest value.[10]

Sport Fishery for Cohos in Alaska

The coho salmon is one of the most sought-after game fish in Alaska, and since the decline in king salmon numbers over the past few years, the sport fishery for cohos has become even more popular. Cohos are targeted by anglers in salt and fresh water from July through September in Alaska, and sport anglers catch nearly 1.5 million cohos every year in the state.[9]

In salt water, cohos are mostly caught by trolling or mooching. Herring is a popular bait, and any jig that looks like a small fish works well. Cohos are not particular about the bait or the jig as long as the angler keeps the jig active. The biggest challenge of catching cohos in the ocean is finding them. They may be at any depth from the surface to eighty feet or deeper.

Cohos are more finicky once they enter their spawning stream when their bodies change shape and color, and they stop eating. They will still aggressively hit a lure or a fly even after they gain their spawning colors, but they often become shy of lures, especially on a sunny day. Popular freshwater lures for spin fishing include Pixee spoons, golf tees, and spinners.

Status and Threats for Cohos

 Many coho salmon populations in California and the Pacific Northwest are threatened or endangered, but coho populations in Alaska are healthy.[9] In the southern part of their range on the west coast of the United States, humans have altered much of the coho’s habitat by urban development, constructing dams, diverting streams and rivers for agriculture, recreation, mining, logging, and other human-related activities. Studies show that in most western states, 80 to 90 percent of the historic riparian habitat has been destroyed, and 53 percent of the wetlands in the lower 48 have been eliminated. California has lost 91% of its wetland habitat, and wetlands in Oregon and Washington have been diminished by one third.[9] How can coho salmon with their complex lifecycle in fresh and salt water possibly thrive when much of the habitat they need to survive is gone?

Throughout their range, including Alaska, coho salmon will likely be impacted by warming ocean temperatures.

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I am very excited to announce my new novel, The Fisherman’s Daughter, will be available at online booksellers on November 1st. I am nervous but thrilled as I await its release. I want to again thank all of you who pre-ordered my novel.

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Coho or Silver Salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch)

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Coho salmon, often called silver salmon due to their beautiful bright chrome color, are the most aggressive of the Pacific Salmon species. There aren’t as many cohos as there are pink salmon, chum salmon, or sockeye salmon, but coho salmon manage to spawn in tributaries and small headwaters inaccessible to other salmon species. A Coho can leap vertically six feet (1.8 m) to overcome obstacles such as rapids or waterfalls on its return journey to its spawning stream, and cohos usually migrate to their spawning streams later than other salmon species at a time when fall floods allow them to access areas not available during lower water levels.  Even young cohos are aggressive, and they often eat the young of other salmon species. This aggressive nature of coho salmon makes them excellent fighters on a rod and reel and an important species for the sportfishing industry in Alaska.

Range

The natural range of coho salmon is from Monterey Bay, California north to Point Hope, Alaska, west across the Bering Sea to the Anadyr River in Siberia, and south along the coast of Asia to Japan. Cohos have been introduced to the Great Lakes and other lakes in the Continental U.S. Cohos spawn in ponds, lakes, and pools within streams and rivers.

Description

Coho adults usually weigh between 8 and 12 lbs. (3.6-5.4 kg) and range from 24 to 30 inches (61-72 cm) in length, but fish weighing up to 31 lbs. (14.1 kg) have been caught. During their marine phase, adults are bright silver and have small, black dots on the back and the upper lobe of the tail fin. In their marine phase, cohos look very similar to king (Chinook) salmon, but king salmon have spots on both lobes of the tail, while cohos only have spots on the upper lobe. Another way to distinguish the two species is cohos have white gums, while king salmon have black gums.

When cohos return to freshwater to spawn, males turn dark to bright green on the head and back, bright red on the sides, and dark on the belly. Breeding females are not as brightly colored as males. Spawning males develop a hooked jaw called a kype.

Life Cycle

In Alaska, coho salmon return to their spawning streams from July to November, usually during periods of heavy rain and high runoff. On Kodiak, most cohos return from late August through October. A female coho selects a suitable spot and then begins to dig a nest, or redd. She turns on her side and gives several powerful flips of her tail to remove silt and other debris and then continues to dig for two to five minutes until she has a shallow nest. While she is digging her nest, she aggressively drives away other females. Meanwhile, a male coho stays near the female while she digs the nest, occasionally swimming close to her. He may also stop beside her and quiver, swim over her and touch her dorsal fin, or nudge her side with his snout. When the female has finished excavating the nest, she drops into the deepest part of the depression, and the male immediately joins her. The two fish remain side by side in the nest while they open their mouths, quiver, and release eggs and sperm. The female then moves upstream and begins digging a new nest, covering the eggs in the first nest with the gravel she dislodges from the second nest. Nest digging and spawning may continue at intervals over the next several days, until the female deposits all her eggs. The male might then leave and seek another female, but the female will continue the digging process until she grows weak and dies.

A female coho lays between 2,400 and 4,500 eggs. The eggs develop over the winter and hatch in the early spring. The alevin, with the yolk sac attached, remains in the gravel until May or June before emerging. Young silver salmon fry usually spend between one and three winters in fresh water, but some spend as many as five years in a lake before migrating to the ocean. Young silver salmon in Karluk Lake on Kodiak Island often stay two, three, or even four years in fresh water before migrating to sea. The length of time spent at sea also varies for coho salmon. Some males, called jacks, mature and return after only six months at sea, but most cohos remain in the ocean for 18 months to three years and return as full-size adults.

Prey and Predators

Cohos are aggressive feeders. In freshwater, they eat a wide range of aquatic insects and plankton. They also eat salmon eggs, and as they grow, the fry also consume smaller fry. In the ocean, cohos eat herring, sand lance, other fish, and squid.

Young coho are eaten by birds, larger fish, and a variety of other predators. Killer whales, sharks, sea lions, seals, bears, humans, and other land mammals prey on adult cohos.

Next week, I will cover commercial and sport fisheries for cohos as well as threats to coho salmon populations.

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Announcements

The publication date has changed for my novel, The Fisherman’s Daughter. Now, both the e-book and print versions of the novel will be released on November 1st. You can still pre-order the e-book, and it will be delivered to your device as soon as it is released. If you pre-ordered my novel, thank you!

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Chum Salmon (Oncorhynchus keta)

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Chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta) are the most widely distributed Pacific Salmon species and can be found throughout Alaska. They range along the east and west coasts of the North Pacific Ocean, from the Mackenzie and Anderson Rivers in Canada to the Lena River in Russia.

Chums are often called dog salmon, but experts disagree about the origin of this nickname. Some believe chums are called dogs because, in the Arctic, Northwestern, and Interior parts of Alaska, chums were and still are traditionally dried and used as a winter food supply for both humans and dogs. Others argue they are called dog salmon because of the enlarged “canine” teeth the males develop during the spawning season.

Chum salmon are the second-largest Pacific Salmon species. Only Chinook (King Salmon) grow bigger. An average adult chum salmon weighs between 8 and 15 lbs. (3.6 to 6.8 kg), but they can grow as large as 45lbs. (20 kg). During their marine phase, chums are dark metallic blue on the back and silver on the sides and belly. Tiny dark specks may be present, but chums do not have large spots like those on Chinook, coho, and pink salmon. The tail of a chum salmon is highly forked, lacks spots, and has silver streaks along the fin rays.

When chums enter fresh water on the return to their spawning streams, males darken to what is often described as a calico pattern. They turn a dark olive brown and have red to purple, wavy, vertical stripes. They also develop hooked jaws called a kype lined with large, sharp teeth. Females turn brown and have a dark, thick, horizontal bar running along the lateral line. Females also develop a hooked jaw with large teeth, but the jaw is less pronounced than it is in males.

There are two, distinct races of chum salmon that spawn at different times. Summer chums spawn in early to mid-summer, and fall chums, as their name suggests, spawn later in the autumn. Chum salmon usually spawn at the mouth or in the lower sections of a stream or river, but in large river systems, they may travel as far as 2000 miles (3219 km) upriver to spawn.

When spawning, a female chum digs a nest in the gravel of the streambed. She then deposits her eggs in the nest while one or more males release sperm to fertilize the eggs. The female may dig more nests upstream from the first nest, depositing her eggs in the nests until her eggs are gone. A group of nests is called a redd, and a female guards her redd until she becomes weak and dies.

Chum salmon eggs hatch after three to four months. The alevin that emerges from the egg remains in the gravel, receiving nutrients from its yolk sac for 60 to 90 days. When it emerges, a chum salmon fry is dark greenish-brown on the back and iridescent green below the lateral line. It also has 8-12 vertical, spaced parr marks on the upper half of its body, not extending below the lateral line.

Fry begin migrating downstream to the ocean within a few days to a few weeks after emergence when they are only one to two inches long. Young chums spend several months near shore before traveling to the open ocean. They stay in the ocean three to four years where they grow to a size of 8 to 15 lbs. (3.6-6.8 kg) or larger. They grow the fastest during their last year in the ocean. Like other Pacific Salmon, chums return to spawn in the stream or river where they were born, and after spawning, they die.

Juvenile chum salmon eat crustaceans, insects, and young herring. Adults feed on copepods, tunicates, mollusks, and fish. When adults return to fresh water to spawn, they stop eating, and their digestive tract deteriorates.

Chum salmon rank second to pink salmon in average annual catch in Alaska’s commercial fishery. Chum-salmon meat is commercially the least valued of the salmon species, and commercial fishermen are paid less or the same for chums as they are for pink salmon. Chum-salmon eggs, though, are the largest and most valuable of any salmon eggs and are sold in Japan as ikura salmon caviar. Chums are not usually targeted by sports anglers because they rarely aggressively attack a lure.

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Is a serial killer stalking women on Kodiak Island? My novel,  The Fisherman’s Daughter, is available for pre-order!


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Pre-Order The Fisherman’s Daughter

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I am thrilled to announce the e-book of my new novel, The Fisherman’s Daughter is now available for pre-order on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other online booksellers. Here is a short synopsis of the novel:

Seventeen-year-old Deanna Kerr fights to start her outboard engine as storm-tossed waves fill her boat with water. Panicked and crying, relief spreads through Deanna when a boat approaches her. She believes she is about to be rescued. Four months later, Deanna’s bones are found in a pile of kelp on the beach. Her ankles are wired together, and her skull crushed.

Alaska State Trooper Sergeant Dan Patterson fears a serial killer is stalking women on Kodiak. Including Deanna Kerr, three women have been murdered on the island in the past six months.  When a park ranger discovers the body of a fourth woman dumped in the park in the middle of a blizzard, Patterson contacts the FBI and requests their assistance.

FBI, Special Agent Nick Morgan has been to Kodiak before on another case, and he volunteers to return to the fascinating island and its unique, independent people. He knows he also accepted this assignment because he hopes to see Dr. Jane Marcus, a woman he met on his previous trip to the island and hasn’t been able to stop thinking about since then.

Morgan flies into Kodiak on an icy, December day to offer his assistance to the investigation. Only 13,500 people live on Kodiak Island, but Morgan soon realizes the list of suspects for these crimes is long. Could the killer be the crab boat captain who knew Deanna Kerr and was the last person seen with one of the other victims, or is the murderer one of the coaches at the high school or the strange assistant coach who seems to have an unhealthy relationship with children? The killer could also be someone related to one of the victims. Morgan believes the killer is a person the victims had no reason to fear and he thinks they willingly met with him. As the investigation proceeds, Patterson begins to worry the murderer could be a police officer or a trooper and may even be one of the members of his task force.

When the murderer strikes again, tensions escalate, and Patterson and Morgan know they must catch this monster before another woman dies or before the killer leaves the island and begins preying on women somewhere else.

The Fisherman’s Daughter will be released as an e-book on October 17th, and the print version will be released on November 1st. If you are planning to buy an e-book of The Fisherman’s Daughter, it will help boost the book’s ratings if you pre-order it. As always thank you for your support!

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The Pink Salmon Return

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The pink salmon return to Kodiak was huge this summer, boosting the local economy, providing food for animals ranging from seagulls to killer whales, and offering a fish and wildlife lover like me a thrill.

I consider the life cycle of a Pacific salmon to be one of nature’s most fascinating enigmas, and I often wonder how a fish evolved such a complicated existence. Salmon face so many perils in their short lives; I’m amazed any of them manage to make it back to their birth streams to spawn.

Salmon lay their eggs in the late summer or early fall, just before the rainiest part of the year here on Kodiak. We often have rain for several days in a row in September and October, swelling the small streams and rivers to more than twice their natural size. The force of this excess water rushing downstream can wash the eggs from their nests before they have a chance to hatch. The flooding may also cause the river to change course, and when the flooding subsides, salmon nests that were previously underwater might now lie in a dry streambed.

A harsh winter can freeze the lower parts of a steam, killing the eggs or the small alevins after they hatch. Ice can also scour a river, taking salmon eggs with it as it moves downstream to the ocean.

Once a fry emerges from the gravel of the streambed, it is a tasty morsel for nearly any fish bigger than it is. It must sneak downstream at night and huddle with other young salmon nearshore in the ocean while it grows and readies itself for a trip to sea.

As a salmon grows larger, its chances for survival improve, and in the open ocean, it has fewer predators. Once a salmon begins its migration back to shore toward its home stream to spawn, though, everything wants to eat it. A pink salmon must dodge seals, porpoises, sea lions, sharks, killer whales, halibut, eagles, bears, humans, and other predators. It is not uncommon for us to catch a salmon while sport fishing and find the fish has marks on it from a commercial fishing net or a seal bite. I always feel bad for a fish that has escaped a net or a seal only to be caught by us.

While a salmon swims this gauntlet of predators on its return to spawn in its birth stream, it is undergoing incredible physiological transformations. Its color and shape changes, its kidneys must adapt from a saltwater environment to a freshwater stream, and it stops eating while its digestive system degrades. During the last few weeks of its life when it enters its natal stream to spawn, the salmon must draw on its stored energy reserves. After it spawns, its organs shut down, and the salmon dies a slow, ugly death.

I look at a salmon in the river in the fall. It is often covered with fungus and is so weak it can no longer swim against the current. While it is a sad sight, I can’t help but admire the fish. It made it home to spawn. It may not look like it, but this salmon is a survivor!

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I am excited to announce the e-book of my novel, The Fisherman’s Daughter, is now available for pre-order.  

                                                                  

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