We have continued our efforts to breed the returning Coho in Chapman Creek this fall. We have had a strong return run, with sufficient Coho diverting to our trap to allow us to build up a good number of Coho eggs to care for over the winter. Our first take resulted in over 13,500 Coho (from five mothers), and the second take was 5900 eggs (all those from just two moms!). We will continue to breed the Coho as the…
The last of our Coho were ponded into our small tanks and put in floating nets. Now all of our Coho are out of incubation and will be with us till May 2024! All 24,000 Coho are now in one tank. We took the Coho from the incubation trays and put them into a bucket full of water. Then walked the bucket over to the small tank and put the Coho into the floating net to separate them from the…
We released 13,000 Chum into Chapman Creek! The eggs were fertilized and brought into incubation in November/ December 2022 and they left incubation in May 2023. The Chum stay with us for a very short time in our small tanks from May 2023 till June 2023 when they were released. The fish were released from the small tanks where they were in floating nets and netted them into buckets and brought them out to our rearing area to the box.…
65,000 Chinook were released into Chapman Creek. The eggs were fertilized and brought into incubation in October 2022. The Chinook left incubation in February 2023 and were reared in our tanks until they were released. To release the fish we used a sein net and had two people on each side of it walk the net around the tank from one side of the other to wrangle all the Chinook to one side. Once the fish were all together in…
39,013 Coho were released into Chapman Creek Hatchery. Tanks 29 and 31 were full of 39,013 Coho all together. The eggs were fertilized in October 2021 and were in incubation. They left incubation from March-May 2022. The fish were then reared in the tanks until May 25, 2023 when they were released as smolts. These Coho will spend the next year-and-a-half in the ocean, and then will return to spawn as adults in Chapman Creek in the Fall of 2024.…
On May 20, 2023 we had our 2nd annual Salmon Release Festival! With the help of the public, we released around 1,000 Coho salmon into Chapman Creek. The Coho eggs were fertilized in October of 2021 and were in incubation till March-May 2022. The Coho were reared in tanks once they came out of incubation and were then being released as smolts on May 20, 2023. The Coho will spend the next year-and-a-half in the ocean, and then return to…
This week was an exciting week here at the Chapman Creek Fish Hatchery. Over the past several months our team, led by Bill our Hatchery Manager, has been raising a number of salmon eggs harvested from the Chapman Creek run this past year, and, from our sister hatchery in Chilliwack. The team in Chilliwack provided us with chinook salmon eggs and we’ve been looking after them in our incubation building since their arrival in the fall. Now that the chinook…
This year with the help of Sean, the Fish Whisperer, we are offering a new Gear Loan program for people who want to come and try their hand at fishing in Chapman Creek. For a voluntary donation to the fish food fund, which we use to purchase food for the fish we raise and release from the hatchery, Sean will provide you with fishing tackle and some quick tips on locations where you can catch returning fish. We have all…
It was a real pleasure for us to have 91.7 Coast FM stop by and interview Bill about our ongoing hatchery operations. Enjoy this interview on video from them. Summer operations continue as we work towards improving our infrastructure before the fall runs begin. Enjoy the warm weather everyone! https://fb.watch/dRYmGgZXYa/
Here are some updates on the development of our fish. Juveniles: We have one tub going in the rearing area with 22,600+, 12 gram Coho salmon slated to be released this May. These fish are fed only 3 days a week (Tues, Thurs and Sat) due to the creek water being very cold, 0.77C this morning. As the creek water temperature warms the frequency of feeding will increase and more days of the week will be added as feeding days. Incubation: 70,400+…
