The 2024 spawning season has wrapped up, and while state hatcheries exceeded their egg take goals, Coleman National Fish Hatchery tells a different story. Thankfully there was some Holiday gift giving from the Mokelumne, Feather, and Nimbus River Hatcheries when they collectively transferred a little over 8.5 million eggs to Coleman to help reach their production goal of 12 million juvenile salmon. Coleman only had 1,100 females return which left them with about 5.5 million eggs – much of this is attributed to the same salmon-choking water management practices we’ve seen from the Newsom administration.
Mokelumne Hatchery set a new record with nearly 35,000 returns, marking the highest number in history. The Mokelumne River is also showing great signs of success with natural spawning salmon. Mokelumne release strategies of trucking smolts to the Bay have proven effective, and they will continue using this method, including releases at the GSSA-identified prime location of Ft. Baker.
To date, about 40,205 fall-run Chinook have passed upstream of the Fish Monitoring Station near the Thermalito Afterbay on the Feather River. The Feather River Hatchery collected enough eggs to reach their goal of six million smolts plus an additional six million to increase production. An undetermined number of those fish will be released as fry – last year it was about 2 million and the same is expected this year. Some of the smolts will be released directly into the Feather River, depending on water conditions, with the majority getting a truck ride to the Bay.
Nimbus Fish Hatchery also received enough eggs to reach their production goals plus enough to help Coleman reach their goals.
Final numbers of fall run Chinook returns to the Central Valley will be announced in late February and presented at the CDFW Public Meeting on California Salmon in early March.