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Ensuring there is always salmon for the future

Sooke Salmon Enhancement Society nets yearly brood stock
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Volunteers from the Sooke Salmon Enhancement Society catch their brood stock in the Sooke River.

Ron Larson

Special to the Sooke News Mirror

This past weekend, Sooke Salmon Enhancement Society volunteers did their annual brood stock take from the Sooke River.

The idea is to increase the survival of indigenous fish. The hatchery raises and releases thousands of natural salmon into local spawning streams from where they migrate into the Strait of Juan de Fuca and into open water.

A dedicated group of men, women, and youngsters were able to successfully harvest a good number of mature male and female Chinook salmon and transport them to the Jack Brooks Hatchery. After it was all said and done they harvested eggs from 30 females totaling approximately 135,000 eggs. With a few more females holding out, the work at the hatchery will continue through the week. The society produces both Chinook and Coho salmon for enhancement of natural stocks in the Sooke River and DeMamiel creek.

When the salmon return to spawn in the fall, SSES  seine nets a pool to capture live salmon. Chum and Coho are Released and Chinook  are put into tanks and transported to the Hatchery to be incubated, reared and then released back into the Sooke River

The Sooke community continues to be a premier location for sports fishing for Pacific Salmon.

As the volunteers say, “We hatch them. You catch them.” Jochen Moehr, one of the volunteers states, “if we have a fair number of Chinook and Coho - and even some Steelhead - in the Sooke River, it is largely to the credit of the Sooke Salmon Enhancement Society.

For more information on the society go to: www.sookesalmonenhancementsociety.com/