Salmon jammin’: A peak behind the scenes as Montana crews net, milk chinook to raise fish at hatchery

BILLINGS – It’s an in-the-boat ballet.

Long-handled dip nets held upright, Heath Headley, Bill Viste and Matt Baxter stand shoulder to shoulder at the front of an aluminum boat. Dragging in the water ahead of them are the octopus-like tentacles of electrodes sending out 8 amps of electricity to temporarily stun chinook salmon that have arrived in Duck Creek Bay to spawn.

Minutes of unfulfilled anticipation pass on the cool but clear October morning. Geese and sharp-tailed grouse fly overhead. Seagulls circle. The three Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks employees stand at the ready, searching the waters for fish, as Jordan Frye slowly pilots the boat.

When the netting starts, it’s a quick eruption of action as the men strain to collect the fish that, although stunned, aren’t lifeless. Lifting up a net loaded with a thrashing fish averaging around 10 to 15 pounds isn’t easy. The salmon are transferred into a large livewell until it’s full. On this day, the crew collects 10 females and six males in less than an hour by cruising through the small bay.

Spawn on

“When the spawn is on, it’s on,” said Headley, fisheries biologist for Fort Peck, Montana.

That typically occurs when the water temperature nears 55 degrees in October. When that happens, it doesn’t seem to matter what time of day it is, the fish are cruising into the areas where they were planted three to four years ago. Unfortunately, they can’t successfully spawn in the lake waters, so FWP captures live fish for transfer to the nearby Fort Peck Hatchery. Like other salmon, chinook will die after they spawn.

The agency once used fish ladders to collect salmon, but it was labor intensive, Headley said. About 12 years ago they started electro-fishing for salmon, allowing the crews to be more mobile when seeking fish.

FWP caught more female salmon in the first few weeks of this year than all of last year, Baxter noted. About 40 females were caught in 2021, compared to 149 this year.

‘Love shack’

When the livewell is full, Frye pilots the boat back to the beach. A hatchery truck loaded with water is backed down the boat ramp and the fish are transferred for transport, females on one side, males on the other.

“Welcome to the love shack,” Baxter jokes as he climbs atop the truck to unload the salmon into separate raceways back at the hatchery.

Once all the tools are ready – like a scale to weigh the fish, bowls for the eggs and a UTV loaded with ice to chill dead fish – a different ballet begins.

Ripe males are pulled from the raceway first, quickly killed with a thump to the head and then milked of their milt. The sperm of five to eight males is mixed together into a plastic bottle to fertilize the eggs, ensuring genetic variety.

Once milked, the males are transferred to Headley, who weighs and measures each fish and then makes a hacksaw cut just behind the fish’s skull to remove the otolith bones, tiny scale-like flakes that reveal the fish’s age.

Egg take

Likewise, ripe females are removed from the raceway, killed and taken to a portable meat hook. While hanging immobile, a needle attached to an air compressor is inserted into the fish’s stomach. With a little air, the salmon eggs come pouring out into a net. Each female may produce around 4,000 eggs on average, said Wade Geraets, hatchery manager.

After the eggs are transferred from a small net to a large stainless steel mixing bowl, Geraets adds a squirt of milt and fish culturist Lars Sorensen gently stirs the mixture with a turkey feather. The process is timed for 2 minutes to ensure the eggs are properly fertilized before they are placed in separate mesh containers floating in a large tub of water.

The addition of water hardens the eggs, Geraets said. There’s also a tincture of iodine in the water to kill off any disease. Once the work is completed, the eggs are transferred to plastic tubes that are continually flushed with fresh water.

It will take anywhere from 30 to 45 days for the fish to eye up – when eyes become visible inside the egg. In comparison, walleye take only about 10 days to reach the eyed stage, Geraets said. Then it will take another few weeks for the salmon to hatch, compared to four days for walleye.

After hatching, the fish are transferred to eight outdoor concrete raceways. The hatchery has capacity for about 500,000 salmon eggs. Any amount collected above that amount may be transferred to hatcheries in South Dakota and North Dakota.

The small fish are released into Fort Peck Reservoir in the spring. Last June, 53,232 5-inch chinook salmon were planted for anglers.

Weigh-in

This fall, the female salmon are averaging 15 to 18 pounds, with the largest a 23-pounder. The males tend to mature earlier and are therefore often smaller, about 14 to 15 pounds with some bigger 4-year-old fish, Geraets said.

“There’s not many other places anglers can have that opportunity,” Headley said. “Twelve to 14 pounds, that is tremendous growth in only three years.”

The hatchery crew finished up the salmon season with 785,344 eggs, the third most collected since the salmon program began.

Headley said the quality of the fish eggs and amount of fish available determine when FWP’s spawning effort should finish.

As a bonus, after the spawning work is conducted, the hatchery gives away the whole salmon for free to the public at 3 p.m.

“You put that word ‘free’ in front of it, and they go fast,” Viste said.