CONTENTS Introduction Intensively Monitored Watersheds Smolt/Adult Monitoring Skagit River Lake Washington Green River Deschutes Hood Canal Dungeness Grays Harbor Lower Columbia River Wenatchee River Trapping Gear Publications Data Salmonscape

Smolt/Adult Monitoring: Skagit River Location: Lower mainstem at RM 17.0, near Mount Vernon, Washington; just below and anchored to the Burlington Northern Bridge. History: WDFW’s Wild Salmon Production Evaluation Unit began measuring wild coho smolt production in 1990.  The Skagit River Chinook work group, composed of state, tribal and federal fish biologists, formed in 1995 to address declining chinook stocks in the Skagit Basin.  In 1997 Seattle City Light, in conjunction with the multi-agency Skagit Non-Flow Plan Coordinating Committee, provided additional funding to extend our trapping season and begin quantifying chinook production from the Skagit River. The Skagit River was included in the Intensively Monitored Watersheds Project (IMW) in June 2004. Click map to enlarge   Methods: Downstream-migrants are captured using two floating traps: an inclined-plane screen trap (scoop trap) and a screw trap, in adjacent pontoon-barges.  The traps are fished nightly and every third day, throughout the trapping season (flows and associated debris loads permitting).  The traps are installed in mid-January and operate at least to the end of July, operating throughout the main portion of the chinook and coho smolt out-migration periods.  In each year beginning in 1990, numerous weir traps were operated in tributaries upstream of the floating mainstem traps to capture and mark wild coho smolts.  The proportion of marked fish recaptured in the mainstem traps represents their capture rates, and is used to estimate wild coho smolt production.  Over the years, the Skagit System Cooperative and the National Parks Service partnered with WDFW to operate these tributary weirs.  In 2001, all tributary trapping programs were discontinued except for the WDFW weir trap on Mannser Creek, which we have operated since 1993. In addition, we have coded-wire tagged coho smolts at the trap at the outlet of Baker Lake.  This annual operation provides a wild tag group that, in conjunction with the upstream trap below the dam measures marine survival, harvest and escapement rates. Skagit River mainstem traps, below the BNSF railroad bridge Skagit River scoop and screw traps Mannser Creek weir Smolt trap at the Upper Baker Lake Dam Available Publications & Data: 2006 Skagit River Wild Salmon Production Evaluation Annual Report 2006 dataset: catch, trap calibration and size for chinook and coho captured at the mainstem trap and Mannser Creek weir