On a brisk Sunday morning, approximately 15 people gathered above and below the Edmonds fishing pier to release the coho salmon that have spent the past several months growing in a pen.
On hand were men and women from the Puget Sound Angler Association SnoKing chapter (PSA) and a few employees from the Port of Edmonds. After several attempts to get the net up to the pier, with pauses to release it from sticking points, they were successful in their endeavor.
Long before the net was raised, the approximately 30,000 coho slipped out of the pen when one side of the net was lowered. Ultimately the fewer than a dozen fish that were stuck in the net when it was brought up were also released to the water below. When asked about what size the salmon are now, fisherman Stan Duncan replied “oh 7 inches or so.”
According to PSA Vice President Dan Stauffer, the next step is to “take the net to the fish hatchery to hang up so it can dry. Sea life comes off easier when it’s dry.”
As for the rest of the cage, Port of Edmonds employees used a boat to push it over to Olympic Beach, and PSA members immediately went to work dismantling the pen for reuse next year.
— Story and photos by Julia Wiese
That was pretty cool. I was surprised a dry net was better than a wet net. Interesting. Good job off they go to save so much. I suppose many here don’t realize the importance of Salmon to us and also to the Alaska area where the bears and seals etc depend on these fish that will swim that far north. I didn’t know I had to read up on it and then the importance of Salmon here made complete sense to me.
Good job. Thank you.
Some of these fish will return in a couple years to be caught by lucky and good anglers fishing off the pier and from boats. Some of the returned adult fish will hang around the pier, the port and our local beaches in the Fall with spawning on their mind and eventually find one of the local fresh water streams to try to spawn in. Very few will ever make it that far, however. A Pacific salmon’s life is short and not easy. These particular salmon have just a little better crack at survival due to their larger size when released into open water.
It was a good day on the waterfront! All the good folk passing by are always super supportive during our net pen activities, both set up and tear down. Many thanks to My Edmonds News for keeping the community in touch with all the awesome happenings on the waterfront. In a couple of weeks PSA SnoKing will pressure wash the dried sealife off the net and repair and rents in the mesh so it will be ready for more baby salmon in February of 2023. The Edmonds Coho Derby is Saturday September 10th, perhaps one of the fish we released in previous years will win a prize!