First Day of Test Fishing

Waking up before the sunrise, the crew paddled out to the trap for the first day of test fishing! With the spiller deployed and the tunnel open the trap was finally operational. Almost immediately salmon began to swim into our spiller. Within the first half hour we had produced a catch of over 70 Chinook, coho, and steelhead. Spilling the fish into our live-well, we began the process of pit tagging and gathering genetic samples. By the end of the day, we had exceeded our goals, tagging over 130 salmonids and capturing more than 200 salmon. We are absolutely thrilled to see the trap working so efficiently. If today’s fishing had been conducted in a commercial setting, we would have tripled our fishing time and likely tripled our catch.  So proud of the crew for all that we have achieved and firmly standing up against the status-quo…