Coast Mountain News Thursday, September 11, 2013
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Vol. 29 | No. 19 Thursday, October 10, 2013
Serving the Bella Coola Valley and the Chilcotin CoastMountainNews.com
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Hospital wins big with Loonie Auction donation.
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Mike Wigle photo
DFO's Chris Willis and Haakon Hammer crowd adult Atnarko Chinook salmon in preparation for the spawning demonstration.
The Coho Festival a Good Catch! SANDY MACLAURIN On September 29th lots of folks braved the cold weather and threat of rain to “migrate” to Snoolti Hatchery for the semi-annual Coho Festival jointly hosted by the Central Coast Fisherman’s Protective Association and DFO staff. Participants could enjoy a delicious lunch of BBQ’d troll caught coho donated by CCFPA member and fisherman Croydon Lansdowne and take in the many fishy activities offered. There were informational
displays by the Bella Coola Watershed Conservation Society (BCWCS)and BC Parks plus games for small fry and adults alike. Everyone got 3 spins on the WHEEL OF DEATH salmon survival game that illustrates the challenges of survival for pacific salmon and then could “Eggstimate” of the number eggs in a dish with each game awarding a prize for the lucky winner (or survivor…). The pre-festival coloring contest posters were displayed on the freezer building wall for all to admire and though judging was difficult, the prize winners were: Fry (age 4-6),
1st Shaylan Moody, 2nd Sage Gray and 3rd Morgan Boileau; Fingerling (age 7-9), 1st Torger Mathews, 2nd Ross King and 3rd Elsie Carlson; Smolt (age 10-12), 1st Haydan Nygarrd, 2nd Byron Knox and 3rd Kai Gunderson. For little fisher folk there was the “FISHIN POND” where every “cast” was a lucky one. The more avid sport fishers tried their hand at the FISH ON simulator where through a video activated controller hooked to a fishing rod, they could hook and play a coho salmon as seen on a TV screen and get scored. The top fisher of the day was Aaron
Schieck with 2075 points. Aaron took home a lucky fishing hat and a couple of Kitamat Lures (barbless of course) to use on real coho right here on the Bella Coola River! Everyone on hand took an interest in the Chinook salmon eggtake demonstration by Haakon Hammer, Marshall Hans (Snootli Hatchery staff) and Croydon Lansdowne (CCFPA) and Kaila Willis (a very able volunteer using her skills from several years as a summer student at Snootli Hatchery!). The eggtake is a perfect tool for folks to learn about the physiology
and life cycle of salmon and a great opportunity for some “small fry” to fertilize the eggs by mixing eggs and sperm together. They know that “their” eggs will become fry in late February or early March of next year. The crowd was quite impressed with the fact that each of the Chinook salmon females had approximately 5,000 eggs and that it takes only a couple of drops of sperm to fertilize them all. As always at the Coho Festival there was a Leaky Wader Fisherman’s Relay and this year we had four enthusiastic teams. SEE FUN ON PAGE 7