Fisheries, Subsistence, and Habitat
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Division: Sport Fish
Title: Assessment of coho salmon from the Kenai River, Alaska, 2006.
Author: Massengill, R.
Year: 2008
Report ID: Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Fishery Data Series No. 08-21, Anchorage.
Abstract: Wild coho salmon smolt Oncorhynchus kisutch were captured within the Kenai River drainage in spring 2005, marked with an adipose finclip and injected with a coded wire tag (CWT). These fish were recovered as adults from within the Kenai River in 2006. There were 79,932 live smolt released with an adipose finclip at the Moose River in 2005. Based on the 6,034 adult coho salmon examined for adipose fins from Kenai River fish wheel samples in 2006 and the 572 adults in the samples that were missing an adipose fin, an estimated 841,876 (SE = 33,309) smolt emigrated from the Kenai River in 2005. A fish wheel-based index was used to predict the end-of-season abundance of adult coho salmon passing the Kenai River at river kilometer 45 in 2006 into one of three ordinal categories (low, medium or high). The end-of-season abundance level was classified as “medium” based on an August 1 through September 30 fish wheel log-transformed cumulative catch per unit of effort (LnCCPUE) value of 5.78.
Keywords: coho salmon, Oncorhynchus kisutch, population assessment, fish wheel, weir, adult abundance, index, coded wire tag, Kenai River, smolt abundance, wild.