Spring discoveries in Cortes creeks. Given the fishy spawning season in the 2024 fall, hopefully the creeks are alive with chum fry that have recently escaped their gravelly winter redds and are hiding in watery shadows as they make their way to saltwater. Chum fry typically head to sea after swimming away from their redds, either immediately or within a couple of weeks. Cortes Streamkeepers would welcome any observations of fry sightings sent to FOCI or Cec & Christine. They are easiest seen in small groups against light-coloured patches of the creek where the current is gentle, and sometimes in sunny patches, where their shadows give them away. Meanwhile, hungry cutthroat trout stealthily await a gourmet spring feed.

In addition to the fry in the creeks as a result of the natural spawn last fall, there have been 3 fry releases this spring. The 28,000 chum fry were ‘ponded’ from the Klahoose Hatchery into the outside troughs for a week’s feeding before their transfer to Basil Creek (Squirrel Cove) on March 6. Incubation, raising and release of these fry has been on ongoing and important collaboration between Klahoose Fisheries and FOCI Streamkeepers. This was an especially significant fry release because the fry were successfully hatched from brood stock from Basil Creek spawners. An added bonus was to work alongside the Klahoose Fisheries team of Byron Harry, Darrian Hachez and Brian Pielle, all young men who grew up on Cortes.

The Whaletown incubation box was carefully installed in an obscure creek site in the Whaletown Commons where 14,000 eggs from the Basil Creek brood stock were tucked away in the box and monitored throughout the winter. These fry were released into Whaletown Creek in early March.

Thanks to Mira Andrews, Josh Bannister, Jordan Trebitt, August King, and Monk & Babes for their new energy as upcoming next generation steamkeepers.

Five human-made redds in the fall of 2024 became homes for 10,000 of the Basil Creek chum eggs and saw the completion of the James Creek gravel project in the Children’s Forest that was started in 2020.

Thirty young, enthusiastic streamkeepers released the 95 coho fry into Hansen Creek in early April that were incubated and raised at the Cortes School as part of the Salmonids in the Classroom programme.
The school participation has been long-standing and a special opportunity for the students to directly connect to salmon through observation of a life cycle and stewardship.

In summary, we hope/expect that Cortes creeks this spring are carrying many chum fry out to estuaries in Squirrel Cove, Whaletown Lagoon, Carrington Lagoon and the Gorge Harbour, to return as spawners in 2028. FOCI Streamkeepers