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I've had people confuse really red silvers with sockeyes.

 

There are Sockeye in The NF Stilly.

 

I have heard that there are many streams/rivers in our area that have sockeye in the even years, just not that many and I don't remember exactly which ones they were. My guess is their off limits though. Wouldn't it be great to have them every year? What fun, huh?
Jim J.

 

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Interesting stuff. Thanks very much for digging that up. I'll try to get a response from some NMFS folk as well.

Rod

 

Did you see em in the water or were there dead ones? So far this year, I've seen pinks and kings, and a few silver/chinook jacks, but nothing that even closely resembled a sockeye's colors. How big would you say they were? Coho get pretty red, but it's still early for them. A coulpe years ago, a friend of mine also saw what he though for sure to be sockeyes on the n/fork. They are an a anodramous fish, so it's possible.

That would be cool if we could get all 5 pacific salmon in the sound streams.

 

There are quite a few in the deep hole at Hazel. Deep red body, bright green head. I saw them last year too.

 

I've seen them in deep holes the last few years and this summer I watched a friend catch one.

 

I saw them in 3-4 places between Fortson and Hazel. Never more than 15-20 at a time and ranging from kokanee size up to 3-4 lbs. Mostly in slow tail outs 2-4 ft. deep. They were definitely sockeyes, bright red body/deep green head. It looked like some were on their redds.

Guess I need to get out more. The salmon ecology class I took taught me that sockeyes didn't go to streams without a big lake in the watershed. Always neat to see fish though.

Rod

 

Salmon colonize streams everyday. Not only do salmon stray on a regular basis, but there are 3 types of sockeye salmon---Riverine type (no lake in their life cycle), ocean type (immediately heading for saltwater as age-0), and the typical lake type (spawning in a river, migrating to a lake, spending one to two years rearing in the lake, then heading to the salt).

Of course there are the non-anadromous residualized sockeye, that resulted in kokanee. Residual sockeye are derived from one or more anadromous parents, while kokanee originate from parents that do not migrate to the ocean.

Fascinating stuff. . . :THUMBSUP

 

It's interesting that this topic came up because I saw the exact same thing this summer on the North Fork of the Sky. It was definitely a sockeye, bright red body and green head. I've fished the North Fork a couple years and this is the only one I've ever seen, most likely it was a stray. By the way, I'm new to the board, so hey to everyone.

 

I guess I'll thow my observations in as well. On two seperate trips to Fortson I saw Sockeye hooked and brought to hand. One fellow caught several(unintentionally) in about an hours worth of fishing. Deep red bodies and a green head. I was surprised to see this since I figured the Stilly didn't hold Sockeye. Pretty cool though.

 

Seems to me that this subject has come up before. Yes there are sockeye in the Stilly and in most other major northwest rivers. Commonly known as "creek sockeye" they occur in insignificant numbers (defined as not enough to support a commercial fishery); I can recall seeing them in the Stilly as far back as my first ventures to the North Fork forty-odd years ago. Perhaps they are nature's way of having a few fish in place should some geological event create an accessible lake in the drainage. I recall getting into an argument with a guy who had been educated as a fisheries biologist (though he was working in another field) about this very subject.

 

A few years ago I saw sockeye in the green river by Hwy 18. So I'm not suprised that they would show up on other rivers...

 

There were small numbers of river sockeye in the westside Olympic Rivers. They were bigger and later timed than the Lake Quinault Sockeye run. Typically they weren't as bright red as the Bristol Bay sockeye or Lake Washington sockeye. Commercial buyers on the Olympic Rivers often misidentified them and bought them as chum.

Once some habitat biologists for WDG were absolutely convinced they saw river sockeye in the Humptulips, but I showed them they were red sided coho.

Some of the initial ESA lists in the late eighties had some of these river sockeye runs on there for possible inclusion. I remember Queets sockeye on there. But I wonder why those river runs didn't get listed. Could it be that NOAA/FWS decided it was way too disruptive to list these runs, even though we know less about them than bull trout, and they're less abundant than the listed Puget chinook?

 

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My cousin caught a 7 pound sockeye out of the north fork stilly last month while fishing for steelies up at fortson with a really big brown stonefly.We got a picture of it I will send it to chris maybe he will post it on this site.

C&R

Anyone get there deer this year yet? UNNO

 

Guess I need to get out more. The salmon ecology class I took taught me that sockeyes didn't go to streams without a big lake in the watershed. Always neat to see fish though.

Rod

usually this is true but I know a few rivers that get a sockeye run without lakes I think the juveniles rear in marhes in these streams (one has a lake now due to a dam) as well as sockeye runs that have survived after their lake has been cut off by a dam

 

I'm surprised there are as many Sockeye around then we know. I few years ago I witnessed hundreds spawning in the Bumping lake/river area and also in Greenwater/White River area, awesome to watch...

 

I have seen them fish in the N/F as far back as I can remember. But like most salmon in the rivers I tend to leave them alone and let them do their thing. If one was to go to the WDFW and look at the web site,one would find that they also truck sockeye up over the falls. There seems to be a few in every river system.

Jim

 

While fishing the Cowlitz a couple of weeks ago with Steve Buckner, we both saw a sockeye in full red dress. It was too bad she was a stray and did not have a partner. They are beautiful fish.

 

Here is a link with some background info on River sockeye -

http://wdfw.wa.gov/fish/sockeye/riverpuget.htm

In addition to the rivers mentioned there I have those sockeye in Deer creek, South fork Stillaguamish, North Fork Skykomish, Snoqualmie and have heard of some in the South Sound rivers.

As mentioned in the above link the riverive sockeye through out the Pacific seem to similar genetically with some bios thinking that they represent the colonizing population(s) for the species. They are constantly probing various rivers and whenever they encounter a "new" system with the appropriate habitat (lakes) for a large population they quickly colonize and adapt to that environment and become a genetically unique population in a few generations. It is likely that is how sockeye got in most of our systems as the ice receded after the last ice age.

As always fish can be pretty interesting and adaptive.

Tight lines
Curt

 

I've seen those n/f stilly sockeyes at least the last 9 years every year. is it possible(pretty sure i've seen them there) they will head into the fortson hatchery ponds via the fish ladder to spawn??

 

Anyone get there deer this year yet? UNNO

I haven't caught a deer creek native for 3 years...............It worries me.........I suppose I should fish the Stillie more in October, I just love the lazy Stillie summer days so I fish there in June/July. Anyway, I ain't never seen a sockeye in that river in 10 years but maybe I should stop trying feverishly to catch steelhead and look around for a minute.