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Excess fish head to the hungry Photo from AP George Spaulding unloads a truck with surplus coho salmon at CERVS in Medford. Coho salmon salvaged from Rogue hatchery By MARK FREEMAN The spirit of the Thanksgiving holiday began Wednesday at Cole Rivers Hatchery, where the first of many excess coho salmon were transferred from bulging holding pens to hungry hands. Hatchery workers reached into their coho cornucopia Wednesday and provided about 2,200 of the excess salmon to two agencies that feed the hungry of Jackson County. CERVS of Medford processed about 35,000 pounds of the fresh Rogue River coho and distributed the fish to many of its clients, fellow agencies and other groups that all benefitted from the hatchery's excesses. "If I don't get fish this way, I don't get fish," said Louise Kelley, who was joined by her daughter, Elizabeth, in hauling away 10 of the coho from CERVS. "We're going to eat some of them and smoke some of them, and enjoy them all until they're gone," Kelley said. This is the sixth consecutive year that the state-run hatchery has held its coho giveaway to handle its excess fish. The hatchery routinely captures more returning adult coho and spring chinook salmon to meet its production needs. The excess chinook are sold to a Bellingham seafood processor that was highest bidder in the annual sale of excess chinook carcasses. In past years, the coho salmon didn't sell as well as the Rogue chinook, hatchery Manager Bill Otto said. Where chinook bids were close to $7 a fish, coho bids in recent years have been less than $1, Otto said. This year, the hatchery received no bids for the excess coho, Otto said. "Instead of throwing them away and seeing them go to a landfill, we'd rather see them go to people who benefit from them," Otto said. "This way, they're not going to waste. It makes us feel good." Hatchery workers collect the coho from the collection ponds along the upper Rogue near Trail. The snouts are cut off the fish as part of an ongoing analysis of coded-wire tags embedded in the fishes' heads. The tags were imbedded when the fish were infants and before they were released from Cole Rivers into the Rogue River. CERVS and the Gleaning Network brought in an army of volunteers to haul the carcasses away and clean them for distribution. They were aided by Dick's Towing of Medford, which donated use of a truck for the fish-hauling over 33 miles of Highway 62. Volunteers then cleaned and packaged the salmon, most of which was given away on the spot, said Krystal Olivares, a CERVS outreach worker. What was not given away immediately was cut, packaged and frozen, she said. Some volunteers like Mary Beecher hauled pickup truck loads of salmon for delivery to needy individuals in the community, a few fish at a time. "I drive up, give them a few fish, and they say, `you've blessed me,"' Beecher said. To get the salmon, the groups must agree not to sell the fish for profit or use them in any fund-raiser, Otto said. As more excess coho enter the hatchery's ponds, other community-based food groups will be called, Otto said. If the Rogue's coho salmon run turns out as predicted, Cole Rivers Hatchery may be able to give away as many as 4,000 excess salmon to hungry people this year, Otto said. The excess fish are from adult returns of coho to the hatchery, where about 200,000 infant coho are released annually. The hatchery-raised salmon used to be caught primarily by recreational and commercial fishermen in the ocean, and rarely contributed to sport-fishing catches in the Rogue as steelhead or chinook salmon. Wild coho in Southern Oregon and Northern California is a threatened species. Therefore, there are only very limited ocean fishing seasons for coho, increasing the returns of adult hatchery fish to Cole Rivers. The coho program comes following last month's conclusion of the spring chinook season at the hatchery. Of the 16,169 chinook that entered Cole Rivers collection ponds, 11,700 were sold to Ocean Beauty Seafoods of Bellingham, Wash., the top bidder in the annual carcass sales. The firm bought 11,700 fish for a total of $77,894.76, for an average of $6.66 per fish. Last year, Ocean Beauty bought 9,140 fish for $53,290.75, or an average of $5.83 per fish. The money from chinook sales goes into the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's Carcass Fund, which helps pay for hatchery projects and operations across Oregon. Cole Rivers Hatchery also supplied 183 chinook to Native American tribes this year as part of Oregon's treaty obligations, Otto said. Last year, the hatchery supplied 151 chinook to the tribes, he said. (Staff writer Mark Freeman covers the outdoors for the Mail Tribune. Call him at 776-4470, or e-mail him at [email protected] ) Outdoor Journal main page Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA