Okanagan sockeye 2023

[Skaha]

Bummer the fish stalled at Brewster...was looking forward to the fishery. The only complaint I have about the management is the lack of timely information available to the public as to what is going on. Information has been very difficult to get about fish stocks and what the plans are for the future. In past years there were several articles about the fishery but not this year.
Also interested to hear what is happening with Skaha kokanee size and numbers. I am catching mostly small kokanee and also very small kokanee that are in spawn mode. This is distressing if these smaller fish are spawning...would be nice to know if these smaller fish are younger or if they just did not grow to a significant size in 4-5 years. I would hope some samples for age will be taken in the Okanagan channel. Some decent sized kokanee in Penticton Creek from Okanagan lk stock.

 

[sly_karma]

Good comment in the posted article about the importance of the hatchery in difficult years like this one. We had the same situation, in 2015, and the number of spanners was even fewer than this year. Yet here we are two cycles later with 350K entering the Columbia. A lot of other things have to go right for that return to happen, of course, but without the hatchery supplying fry that would be otherwise absent, none of the in river and ocean conditions matter.