salmon age

[wasabi]

I've done a search and haven't found what I'm looking for. So I post a question.

When a immature chinook leaves the stream, how long is it a feeder for? What age and size before they move on to richer feeding grounds such as off shore banks?

Just been catching winters lately and would like to know about their habits.

Thanks all

 

[scott craven]

My understanding is that they are feeder's till their final year of life. (usually 5th year)
They are considered mature fish when the eggs/milt are fully developed and they are headed for home river's to spawn.
Feeder's usually start moving offshore towards end of April and return in November.

 

[wasabi]

Oh, so if I'm catching 10 lb winter feeders near the Fraser river estuary, what year would these fish likely be?

I'm guessing they haven't moved offshore yet so these fish put on roughly 10 lbs a year. So, soon these fish will be headed offshore(other than the ones I bonk) returning as 5 year olds to spawn and die off?

 

[scott craven]

Guessing here, but i'd say your 10lber's are 2 year olds and they may be back in the same piece of water next year weighing 15-20 lbs.
I'm not sure where their migratory patterns take them ,but if it's a 5 year fish it will eventually head for it's native stream
to spawn and die.

 

[drhook]

I have to dissagree with you on this one 'r.s craven'. I think that the majority of the winter springs we catch are 3 and 4 year olds as the majority of spring salmon when they return to spawn are 4 year olds. Be interesting to hear what others with more experience and knowledge have to say about this.

 

[scott craven]

Chinook are the most long lived species and vary from 3 -7 years
in the ocean (on average)
You could be right DrHook, maybe the winters are 3 & 4 year olds.

 

[Pablo2079]

I've read that a good number of "inside" chinook stay in the strait throughout their life... moving counter clockwise around the strait. Wish I could remember where I read that.

 

[wasabi]

I thought the recent slot limit issue for Victoria area and also the closing of the mouth of the Fraser was to protect early run springs. This leads me to believe these fish are migrating offshore past SVI in numbers.

 

[wasabi]

On second thought, these fish may not even be Fraser fish...

 

[alley cat]

"Pablo" that position was taken by some very old Native Commercial Fisherman that I knew , many of them insisted that there was method and definite route for the near maturing chinook.

AL

 

[Captain Dudds]

my understanding is the vast majority of them spawn at 3-5 years, with the bulk being 4 years. there are a few unique rivers that get older fish, such as the skeena and kenai - up to 7 years.

I think most of them simply head north and hang around for a few years feeding - so what we catch here are likely from the south, which makes sense because it sounds like their are alot of hatchery fish around. Also, the winters you get will be around in the summer too - look at the eggs or milt - lots of fish in the teens will have tiny eggs etc. and wouldn't have spawned this year - they also have really silver tails and just sort of a different look to them.

If all that is right, then i think craven is right that the feeders we get here are 3 or 4 - although a guy i know once got a 36 lbs feeder - i wonder how big that would have ended up being eh?

but as far as their migration route goes i'm not really sure - i think every other species heads to the north pacific but maybe springs stay on shore? i'd like to know too.

 

[chris73]

I think this is way more complicated than you can explain in a few sentences. I know scientists who studied salmon migration all their life and still insist they know little...

From what I have learnt, most Vancouver Island chinooks and also most Fraser chinooks return after 3-4 years to their natal stream. There are a few VI streams and a few Fraser strains that have a portion of 5 years too. Very few chinooks here follow the 6 or 7 year cycle. I have heard that northern BC, Alaska, and apparently the Columbia River has some of those monsters. Georgia Strait chinooks used to live mostly just within the strait all their life but apparently this has changed over the last few years. Whether that is because of food shortage...scientists have no answer yet why things have changed but now those Georgia Strait chinooks go way up north and travel in irregular patterns all over the pacific. That is why the scientists and DFO are so helpless in coming up with a good plan on how to protect the endangered Cowichan chinook - they show up all over the map. As a general rule, chinooks travel north to grow and then migrate southbound on their way home. That means here in south BC we typically have Washington and Oregon feeder chinooks hanging out. Good proof of that is that we typically catch a lot of fin-clipped feeder chinooks which originate from US hatcheries - Canadian hatcheries do not mass fin-clip - only the wire-tagged fish. Our south BC fish would typically travel to northern BC waters or Alaskan waters. That's what screws up most salmon management measures - to protect our fish we need the Alaskans to cut back and for protecting lower 48 US salmon we would have to give slack... I think that's how it works in a broader sense. Of course there are millions of local exceptions from these general migration rules but to get a general sense of what is happening I think that's how you should look at things.

 

[dog]

I met a guy (skiing) a week ago who said the biggest Spring he ever caught was what they used to call a 12 year fish. He commercial fished around Vancouver and up the Strait as early as 1940. He is 80 something years old. I assumed he was talking about a 12 year old fish. Anyone else heard that expression before?

 

[Charter Tofino]

quote:Originally posted by dog

I met a guy (skiing) a week ago who said the biggest Spring he ever caught was what they used to call a 12 year fish. He commercial fished around Vancouver and up the Strait as early as 1940. He is 80 something years old. I assumed he was talking about a 12 year old fish. Anyone else heard that expression before?

I think 9 is the oldest spring recorded might be wrong. Only hatch we sent in was a 5 year old that was 30#. Cant imagine a 9 or 12 year old

 

[drhook]

quote:Originally posted by Pablo2079

I've read that a good number of "inside" chinook stay in the strait throughout their life... moving counter clockwise around the strait. Wish I could remember where I read that.

You are right. At the last SFAB meeting, DFO biologists pointed out that virtually all the Cowichan chinook went up to Campbell River and then back down in a clockwise (or counter clockwise, not sure which) rotation through the Strait of Georgia. (Chris73 referred to that in his post)
Unfortunatly, they have changed their habits and are not doing that any more.

 

[wasabi]

Wow, some good info here to the mystery.

 

[agentaqua]

To add some info on this thread:

Chinooks are broken into 2 groups, with respect to their juvenile rearing and life history patterns: "ocean-type", and "river-type".

River-type chinooks typically spend one full year in fresh water before migrating to the ocean; while ocean type chinook migrate to salt water in the first year of their life - often after a freshwater stay of less than 3 months (often called the 90 day wonders).

It's thought that having the extra time in a stream to grow larger - works better for juveniles that have a long ways to travel, such as the interior rivers, and also in the northern rivers, grow rates are slower - it takes a longer time to get to be a larger smolt. It may also have to do with how being an adequate size triggers the migration to the ocean.

By looking at growth patterns on the scales - you can determine whether or not that this salmon was an ocean, verses a stream type.

The ocean-type juveniles move around quite a bit (hundreds of km along the coasts), including going North. Most sub-adult "winter" chinook are ocean-type. These fish would be at most risk from marine nearshore industrial development, including increases in sea lice loading from fish farms.

After 1 year in the freshwater, river-type chinook smolts then rocket into the Gulf of Alaska away from the coasts, unlike the ocean-type.

River-type chinook are found in interior rivers, and rivers north of the Skeena, while ocean-type are more coastal and southern. Due to their extended stay in the freshwater - these river-type stocks are at most risk from degraded freshwater habitat, and elevated summer stream temperatures from global warming or removal of canopy from logging and human development. Elevated stream temperatures may also stress chinooks, then making parasites like Ichthyophonus more lethal for Yukon chinook.

Winter- and spring-run chinook are river-type (the returning adults need more time to travel all the way up the long rivers, like spawning grounds near Whitehorse on the Yukon River some 2700km upstream of the mouth), while ocean-type are fall-run (typically).

The interior rivers (i.e. river-type, winter- and spring-run) typically take longer to produce the larger juveniles, and often return at a later age (i.e. 5-7 year olds), while coastal and southern rivers often have earlier maturing stocks (i.e. 3 yr old jacks, and 4-5 year old spawners).

Groot and Margolis (UBC Press 1991) "Pacific Salmon Life Histories" lists both the age at return and the life history type (river- verses ocean-type) by watershed areas for those interested.

It's interesting that Chris73 and others noticed these differences in age at return, and the age of the winter springs. I'm impressed. You guys must've caught quite a few smileys to notice this on your own....

 

[Rum Buddies]

quote:By looking at growth patterns on the scales - you can determine whether or not that this salmon was an ocean, verses a stream type.

how?

 

[agentaqua]

Poppa Swiss, you ask how you can determine whether or not that this salmon was an ocean, verses a stream type.

Scales grow (like all bony components) - like rings on a tree trunk. You can see the winter (narrow band) alternating with the summer (broad) bands of growth - and guess the age of the tree you just cut-down.

It's the same with guessing age with fish. You need a microscope, and some experience - but it can be done (easier to be more accurate with younger fish). You can also see the length of time in freshwater at an early age (narrow bands near the center), with faster marine growth at an early age (wider bands). Looking at what amount of time spent in the ocean verses freshwater as a juvenile gives you what catagory (ocean-verses river-type).

It's more accurate using otoliths (verses scales), and even more accurate nowadays using new methods like Strontium isotope and Sr/Ca ratios. These last new methods can even tell you what part of the ocean the fish reared in.

 

[Captain Dudds]

my girlfriend is in chemistry at UVic - one of her profs is quite renowned for isotopic dating - which is what is used for analyzing otoliths. Basically, any area of water - whether it be a specific tributary or a region of water in the ocean - has its own strontium isotopic signature. This signature shows up in the otoliths so it can be determined quite accurately where a fish has been and when it was there.

Anyways, I say all this because the prof recently analyzed a spring from the columbia, taken from above the ladders, and it was found that it has spent all four years of its life in fresh water. pretty weird stuff - makes me wonder if this was a freak thing or if the ladders don't work as well as they are thought to.