Yumi and I did our regular Wednesday spawner patrol on Byrne Creek this frosty morning. We saw 12 live coho and processed 1 dead coho today.
Area covered: John Mathews/Byrne Creek confluence (Tag 506) to a little upstream of the Hedley outfall (Tag 530). Sunny, clear skies.
We saw 9 live coho in the sediment pond, nothing dead or alive in the artificial spawning channel.
On our way upstream, we ran into three women who were staring at a dead coho just u/s of the wooden footbridge (Tag 516) in the ravine. We had a lengthy conversation with them about how we monitor spawners. Yumi went in, got the fish, placed it on the bank, and it suddenly shuddered. Oops! Not quite dead yet, back you go in the creek!
By the time we came back down from our ravine ramble some 1-1/2 hours later, it was already getting stiff.
1 dead coho, E-T 57cm N-F 68cm, all fins, female, completely spawned. We planted it in the creek up near the slide.
On our way upstream we saw the 1 live coho that has been hanging in the middle of the slide for several days. Then on our way back down, we took another look, only to see 2 live coho there, and they were different fish. At first we thought it was a spawning couple, but then we realized they both appeared to have the more slender bodies and white abraded tails and anal fins of females. They were pushing each other around, so perhaps it was 2 females claiming protection of the same redd?
Excited about all the coho in the system, and also based on a chat with an elderly man the other day who claimed to have seen "big fish" going upstream past the bottom of the ravine stairs, we made our way up the creek all the way to the Hedley outfall (Tag 530), and took the steep path just upstream of Hedley back up to the bottom end of Ron McLean Park. Aside from a possible redd at Tag 522, unfortunately we did not see any spawners, alive or dead, upstream of the stairs (Tag 521).
C'mon you coho! Get your butts out of the sediment pond and up that creek!