Klob
Well-Known Member
Had this footage for years,
thought it was time to share it. Enjoy.
//www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2wXm1n3Bwcht
thought it was time to share it. Enjoy.
//www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2wXm1n3Bwcht
Awesome stuff. Tears me up to know that these kind of salmon are a thing of the past and will likely never be seen again. Who catches 40#ers these days anymore?
I bet however, that a substantial portion of these slabs weren't Campbell River stocks but rather tyees holding there on their way elsewhere; Fraser maybe? The CR with its short reach never had the natural potential for a big spring run. Would be interesting to know the origin of these historic slabs.
You'd lose that bet I'm afraid.
Campbell River Chinook evolved to be large fish mostly because of the large material that comprised their spawning areas plus it had the estuarine environment along with in-river habitat to support juvenile Chinook for their freshwater cycle before smolting and going to sea.
Only big fish could successfully move the large gravel/rocks/boulders in order to create a redd so over time the river "selected" for bigger fish.
And even in the glory years of Tyee fishing here the catch was only in the hundreds when the run was probably several thousand in number.
There's their origin for you, in simple terms.
Take care.
Interesting, thanks for that insight! So is it the hatchery production that watered down the big-fish genes or why are there so few of these slabs left today? Even without the dam there couldn't have been a lot more spawning habitat up to the falls so I assume the loss of spawning habitat is not really a factor why the springs are smaller today.
man those days are long long gone but still nice to see some tyee's are still being caught out there this year and years to come but im sure most fish caught back then were tyees .. thanks for the share great footage from back then