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[fic]

All this coho in Rice Lake discussion is causing me to double check the fish pictures I took at Rice Lake.  I'm pretty sure I never encountered one myself.   

[HamidSeshadri]

so i contacted FFSBC and the seymour hatchery (waiting for them to write back)
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this is from FFSBC:

Yes, I there is indeed resident coho in Rice Lake.  I've seen the odd report and picture from years past.  However this year I've seen several pics from several different anglers, just this season alone!  FFSBC does not release coho. 
 
My guess is that these fish came from the Seymour watershed.  However, the nearby Seymour Salmonid Society releases coho into the Seymour River.  They may have a better understanding of where these fish come from.  Although Rice Lake is part of the Lynn Creek drainage. The falls below Rice Lake are not passable.  During high water there is most likely some connecting watercourse from the Seymour watershed which supports coho.
 
Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC

[cutthroat22]

Better coho fishing at Rice Lake this year than Capilano 

[Speyfitter]

I know this topic is almost 9 years old now. I found it when I was searching something else and I can definitely answer the questions in this this thread.

I used to volunteer regularly at the Seymour fish hatchery from 2000 to 2002. From February 2002 to February 2003 I was hired for a one year contract as a junior fish culturist at the Seymour Hatchery as they had money available and I was one of the most keen volunteers at the time. This gave me a good chance to see if a career in fisheries was for me (it wasn't......but it was good life experience!).

When I started volunteering there in 2000, the year prior (I think spring of 1999?) the Seymour hatchery had begun stocking coho fry into Rice Lake.  The intention was to use the habitat available in the lake, since it has better insect life (aka food) generally then most coastal rivers/creeks to rear these coho where they would then smolt the following Spring, leave the lake via Rice Creek (which drains into the Seymour River) and go out to the ocean.

They installed a smolt trap on Rice Creek and one of my first times volunteering we checked the trap where I got to see some of the most beautiful coho smolts the lake had produced that were out migrating to go to the ocean. The program from my recollection has been a success in producing additional coho smolts that the river/creeks wouldn't produce and that don't need to be fed for a year in the hatchery with hatchery resources.

I think the one problem though is there is times of the year when the creek is low flow and coho might not be able to migrate easily out of the lake. There are also some that become residuals which this coho pictured obviously is. Residual coho are found in Kawkawa lake in Hope alongside Kokanee and are also apparently found in Cultus Lake in some numbers as well from what I recall reading.  They are likely found in other areas. They probably serve as a life history "insurance" like kokanee do for their Sockeye cousins when they share the same system.

The other problem is Rice Creek is relatively steep from the service road down to it's confluence with the Seymour. I don't believe Coho adults can make it back to the Lake. We did hike it one time to see if it was worthwhile for carcass recoveries and the forest around Rice Creek is extremely dense and the creek from my recollection is choked with debris in places and has some serious gradient. I believe we wrote it off for future carcass recoveries for this reason (IIRC).

[coastangler]

Thanks Speyfitter for solving the mystery after all these years and sharing that - I will look at Rice Lake differently after reading this cool post :-)

[Speyfitter]

Thanks for the kind words Coastangler.

I'm just curious for those who fish Rice Lake regularly how many coho are you getting say compared to catchable rainbows? Also Is it a regular thing or just entirely incidental?  I've heard they have found coho residuals while doing seine netting in the lake in the past as well, apparently.

[coastangler]

I've caught several dozens of fish at Rice Lake over the years and never encountered any species other than stocked rainbows.

It's true that I've always focused my efforts in the dock area as I always found it the most productive - maybe because stocked rainbows don't move a lot in the first year. HamidSeshadri's original picture seems taken from the dock though but I doubt it's common to catch them as I personally never heard of it. Maybe finding those residual Cohos is an excuse to walk around the lake a bit more .Sorry I cannot be more helpful!

[Knnn]

I don't fish Rice much but have caught and released 2 coho and seen a third bonked by a new angler who did not know the difference, all from the dock.  The last one I saw was 2 or may be 3 years ago.

Not sure if any get to be resident, since all the ones I have seen were similar sizes to the stock rainbows.  Maybe they get bonked too quickly to grow bigger residents or are food restricted?

I don't think that coho smolts have be stocked there for a while, so it appears that a viable natural population has been established, which suggests to me they may be able to make it back up that creek, unless they do the koke thing and spawn in the creek and return to the lake?

[Speyfitter]

I don't fish Rice much but have caught and released 2 coho and seen a third bonked by a new angler who did not know the difference, all from the dock.  The last one I saw was 2 or may be 3 years ago.

Not sure if any get to be resident, since all the ones I have seen were similar sizes to the stock rainbows.  Maybe they get bonked too quickly to grow bigger residents or are food restricted?

I don't think that coho smolts have be stocked there for a while, so it appears that a viable natural population has been established, which suggests to me they may be able to make it back up that creek, unless they do the koke thing and spawn in the creek and return to the lake?

If Coho are as big or close to as big (10-12"?) as a catchable rainbow they have most certainly become residents. Coho typically smolt at a much smaller size (typically 20 grams - about 4-5" long) and if they don't leave by then, then they have residualised.

I"m not up to date on recent Coho fry stockings into Rice Lake - perhaps I should get in touch with my old coworkers to find out. I'm not gonna rule out that there may be some spawning going on by residuals, and it's not unheard of for salmon & trout to spawn in an outlet stream and for their offspring to move upstream into a lake or off channel habitat at some point after hatching, however I can't see this contributing to a noteworthy population of residuals and would imagine many of their offspring would naturally move downstream as well. Having said that I would be curious to try to understand the mechanism behind what makes coho become residuals much like Sockeye/Kokanee and are they more common than we think?

There also isn't a noteworthy feeder stream into Rice Lake. I know there was some minor talk years ago when they did the filtration plant that since the water between the Seymour dam and the filtration plant was no longer treated there was potential to pipe some water into Rice Lake to provide more stable flows into the lake and down Rice Creek but I don't believe this ever happened.

[HamidSeshadri]

Well I was going to keep this a secret and take it to my grave with me. But it’s been long enough that no one is going to get in any trouble….I did figure out the source of the mystery coho within a year of my original post.

On Father’s Day the Seymour hatchery used to do a “guess the number of coho fry in this aquarium” at rice lake. At the end of the day they’d pour the contents into the lake, rather than take the fish back to hatchery. I was told this by one of the long term staff who shall remain unnamed. After my original post word of these coho in rice lake got around and the dumping was stopped. It was actually brought up at some sort of round table meeting.

Curious where you ended up working Speyfitter… I started my fisheries career in 2007 working at West Van Labs, and currently I ended up at the Capilano Hatchery. The coho smolts coming out of the Capilano watershed (offspring of the adult coho we release up there) average about 10g.
And this year was the first year Seymour adult coho were released into the Seymour watershed so I’d be curious to see if they are a similar size.

[Bavarian Raven]

Hi. A slight side question, but are there fish (trout) in the upper Lynn river above the falls that blocks the salmon? And if so, are they wild or stocked?

[RalphH]

best I know there is no stocking of trout (excepting steelhead)in any river on the mainland of BC. The stocking of hatchery raised coastal cutthroat was stopped a few years ago. Checking gofishbc.com a stocked fish report for the Lower Mainland Lynne Creek does not appear on the report for last year & all trout are stocked into lakes.

[VAGAbond]

My home where I grew up was on a stream, hardly more than a ditch, where coho fry would show up every spring, far upstream from where the adults spawned.   There was a barrier of tree roots with a significant drop  downstream that looked like they would need a ladder to get past but they did.  I am not familiar with the Rice Lake stream but coho fry do get well upstream from where the adults spawn. 

However near our garden was a highway culvert with about an 11 inch drop and that was too much for the fry.

[RalphH]

My family lived on Enver Creek in Surrey. Downstream about 1/2 mile the creek went under 144th street through a pipe culvert. I never saw a salmon above that though I saw coho and possibly steelhead (large fish in early spring). There were cuttthroat, sculpins, stickleback and crayfish. I did catch coho parr in King Creek, transport them in a bucket and release them into Enver.