Kris Kringle may be done, but there’s another Kris in town and this one keeps on giving.
It’s Kris Kisutch, aka, Christmas coho-ho-ho.
Yes, a salmon that just keeps on giving through Christmas, New Year’s, and on.
Stymied by all this rain and rising rivers?
Consider:
At this very moment, in a stream, culvert, side channel, or anywhere rainwater flows within their reach, coho-ho-ho are working their genetic magic – nosing into not only their natal waters but also pioneering into the most unexpected locations.
We won’t know until February when coastal spawning counts are finished, but local indications suggest this year’s coho were all very good boys and girls.
After a successful coastal wild-retention fishery, I can also, fortunately, point to another great showing of coho into the upper Clackamas watershed, courtesy of PGE, its many partners, and the state-of-the-art passage system at its North Fork dam. (My wife and I are as fretting as everyone else about rate increases, but also recognize the extraordinary collateral benefits – heat, lights, wild fish.)
Wild coho returns at the dam are the second-highest on record and fortunes also bode well, too, for wild steelhead and spring Chinook.
The Clackamas coho run is so good, in fact, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife may expand angling bag limits to allow retention of unmarked fish.
A friend who owns timberland has a small stream running through his property, which his family nurtures for coho. He recently recorded an amazing video of wild salmon returning to those protected waters.
No one needs to tune in to National Geo Wild’s Alaska films to see the unbridled determination of the will to spawn. It’s happening right in our own backyards.
Of special interest are the mini-jacks, precocious juvenile males acting like chihuahas in a room full of Great Danes. They not only out-leap their larger cousins, but they even make it across the thundering falls.
Need more?
Consider the coho’s pioneering effort into the upper Willamette system, where a fish ladder at Willamette Falls now allows salmon to move upriver almost at will and leave their marks in valley tributaries where they historically couldn’t enter because of low water in late summer and fall.
This year’s run at the falls shattered all previous records and prompted the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to open any-coho fishing in most major valley tributaries upriver from the falls.
Need more?
The Sandy River Fish Hatchery also recorded a record run of coho – so far, with more on the way.
Wild coho are also scoring upward trends on the Oregon Coast.
Unfortunately, while these surging returns are more than encouraging, budget problems loom for the state’s hatchery system.
The Fish and Wildlife Commission is mulling the findings of an extensive hatchery review, which pointed out the need for significant upgrading.
On the bubble and likely to be shuttered are both the Rock Creek Hatchery (Umpqua system) and the Salmon River Hatchery near Lincoln City.
Rock Creek was nearly destroyed by fire, so perhaps that makes sense.
Salmon River hasn’t performed up to snuff, although it’s a vital source of surplus salmon for local food banks and contributes to offshore fisheries.
Firm resistance to the elimination of any other hatcheries is a must. They’re the most stable keepers of salmon genetics, given all the natural challenges to habitat.
And coho aren’t the only pioneering species…
Virtually all salmon and steelhead have learned to adapt to change.
While human intervention accelerates the need for that adaptation (habitat loss, climate change, dams, etc.), salmon have managed to meet many obstacles we’ve thrown their way.
Writing partner Buzz Ramsey is on his way to Chile, where Chinook salmon have been introduced from North America.
Buzz reports (and we’ll see it here soon) that Chinook have not only flourished beyond the wildest expectations, they’ve also moved around Cape Horn and are spreading into rivers entering the Atlantic Ocean. Salmon are far from becoming museum specimens.
In memoriam: Many of you will remember Mark Freeman.
He was/is hard to forget.
Mark, a close family, professional, and personal friend, died last Saturday after a month-long battle with a previously undetected cancer.
For decades, Mark was a significant outdoor presence in Oregon, working from his desk at the now-defunct Medford Mail Tribune.
Despite our long competition for news scoops on the outdoor front (truth-be-told, he probably had the edge), we easily bonded.
Despite his gravelly, insistent personality, Mark’s heart was golden.
While I managed to eke out a presence with both reporting and personal experiences chronicled in The Oregonian, Mark took a different tack. He was a true reporter, not a columnist.
“No one wants to hear my opinion,” he often told me. “They can form their own.”
And he often found out plenty, always spurring me to keep up with the ever-changing outdoor world.
We took turns over the years playing “Beavis and Butthead” to each other; brothers bumping bellies.
I don’t recall which one I was toward his end.
But the bond between us is timeless…