Wallace River Fish Hatchery Tours

Today was day two of the Wallace River Salmon Hatchery tours for this season. The boys went through the annual training last weekend and were very ready for this year. Jon and Gabe both had the opportunity to help in the egg/milt harvest demonstration, Gabe spoke at the anatomy station and Jonathan roamed around and answered random questions. I got to go into the river to collect fish for the day. Buddy and Chris, the "fake brothers" helped. Here are some pics. and vids., enjoy. Tony.

P.S. For those of you who made it this far in the gallery of pictures, here's a treat. While we were fully involved in the tours this pair of salmon, let's call them Ying and Yang for short, decided to break the rules and spawn in the holding pen. Now usually the pen is prepared with a very sandy bottom to keep the fish from spawning (they look for gravely areas, as you can see). The past floods have washed away the sand and left the normal river bottom gravel and rocks. So nature took its course and they spawned before our eyes. We called a tour group over to witness the event and they were enthralled, as they just finished the tour station on spawning. So those that paid attention knew what they were watching. Ying and Yang circled for a few minutes and then deposited eggs and milt right there not five feet from shore. My video shows the female dropping eggs although it is hard to see the small eggs while the male circles above her; she even turns on her side and "kicks" some sand and gravel over the redd (egg nest). The male released his milt within seconds of my video ending, figures.