Snow Creek Fish Weir

One day during work, we met up with our best  friend Cheri Scalf, a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Technician.  She showed us the fish weir at Snow Creek.  The fish weir is a sort of trap that stalls salmon as they are swimming upstream to spawn.

It basically stops them in a 10x10 steel cage so that we can count them on their way upstream.  We drop a person down into the cage.  That person nets a few of them and passes them up .

The fish are then sedated. measured, counted and sex is identified. They are then released upstream by sending them down a large pipe back into the river.  This allows WDFW to gather info on how many and what type of fish are running up the creek.

We all got help Cheri that day working at the fish weir.  At that time it was coho salmon running, I believe it was a good year for the number of fish running in Snow Creek.  It was an overall awesome experience.  I hope we get to help with the out migrating smolts in Spring!