Every year in early January
maintenance staff readies the remote camp barges for transport to
SSRAA’s three remote rearing and release sites: Kendrick Bay, Nakat
Inlet and Anita Bay. And in every year the busy months that follow
include finding a site crew, towing the barges to the sites, setting up
the net pens, transporting fish to the sites, rearing fry to
approximately 10 times their original size, releasing the fry, clean up
and breaking down the equipment, and finally towing the barges back to
Neets Bay where they are kept when not in use.
Kendrick Bay is situated on the southern end of
Prince of Wales Island. Camp personnel will take care of the
20 million summer chum smolts held in the net pens at Kendrick. They
will spend most of their waking hours for the next three months (on site
from late January through early May) feeding fish, doing routine net
cleaning, camp repairs, and monitoring the condition of the fish in
their care.
The summer chum salmon reared at
Kendrick are the Carroll River stock that has been produced for more
than 20 years at Neets Bay Hatchery. Eggs are collected every August
from Carroll River summer chum returning to Neets Bay. The eggs are
incubated for about 50 days to the “eyed stage” at Neets Bay. Eyed eggs
for Kendrick Bay are transported by boat to Whitman Lake Hatchery on the
Ketchikan road system where they are incubated until fry emerge in
January. The fry are moved by truck from Whitman Lake to a large salmon
tender (F/V Seven Seas or Lynda) waiting at the Ketchikan City Dock.
The fry are siphoned from the tank truck to specially designed net pens
in the holds of the tenders. The fry are then transported by tender to
Kendrick where they are moved from the tender to net pens, and rearing
begins.
Chum salmon returning to Kendrick are
all intended for common property harvest
by the commercial salmon fleets of SE Alaska. As part of a large
allocation plan, the Kendrick fish are directed toward the seine fleet.
Most of these fish are caught as adults in the
traditional District 102 seine fishery along the southeastern coastline
of Prince of Wales.
