salmon life cycle?

Question. It was brought to my attention that small salmon 20-25" could be 3yrs old (having small egg sacks) and go upstream and die. I've always thought that the small ones are juveniles and just hang out w the larger in the ocean not necisarily going upstream.
If this is the case I won't feel as bad killing 20"ers.

Probably 2 year olds, or basically around 1.5 years old or a bit more.  A certain percentage of them go upstream and some spawn, but most of them stay in the ocean and become 3 year olds before spawning.  Some fish stay out and become four year olds, and drought years may even cause fish to stay out and age as much as 6 to 7 years.

I want good spawning cycles, but catching a 7 year old salmon would be insane!  60 pounder anyone?!   

Come watch salmon spawn with me this December for your full indoctrination.   

Love to just let me know where and when. Thanks Eric

I wonder if the small ones hanging around HMB are from the net pen project there?  And if so, they are just going to go into the harbor and die without spawning.  So don't feel back about keeping those ones!

-Allen

"Jacks"(male) and "Jennies"(female) are salmon that reach reproductive maturity at an early age (and smaller size) than average. They're usually in the 20-25" ballpark and the 1.5-3 years in age range. Some will move in from the ocean and just hang out in the estuaries amd lower portions of river systems for another six months to a year while others will simply continue right upstream to spawn and die with the run as normal. The key though is that these fish are indeed capable of reproducing.

Good question though.

"Jacks"(male) and "Jennies"(female) are salmon that reach reproductive maturity at an early age (and smaller size) than average. They're usually in the 20-25" ballpark and the 1.5-3 years in age range. Some will move in from the ocean and just hang out in the estuaries amd lower portions of river systems for another six months to a year while others will simply continue right upstream to spawn and die with the run as normal. The key though is that these fish are indeed capable of reproducing.

Good question though.

I don't think I'd consider a small 3 year fish a jack, although any Chinook <22" in the Klamath-Trinity watershed is considered a jack.

-Allen

"Jacks"(male) and "Jennies"(female) are salmon that reach reproductive maturity at an early age (and smaller size) than average. They're usually in the 20-25" ballpark and the 1.5-3 years in age range. Some will move in from the ocean and just hang out in the estuaries amd lower portions of river systems for another six months to a year while others will simply continue right upstream to spawn and die with the run as normal. The key though is that these fish are indeed capable of reproducing.

Good question though.

I don't think I'd consider a small 3 year fish a jack, although any Chinook <22" in the Klamath-Trinity watershed is considered a jack.

-Allen

Great point - what constitutes a "jack" really varies by the watershed. Each watershed has unique timing and duration of salmon life cycle stages so a 24", 3 year old fish could be considered a normal spawning adult in one river or a jack in another. The more I thought about the question, I did a little reading and was surprised to see how widely the definition actually varied.

I want good spawning cycles, but catching a 7 year old salmon would be insane!  60 pounder anyone?!   

I've seen a couple 6-7 yr fish jump and tail dance out in rio vista that were well over 60lbs. Might see a few big floaters later upriver.

I was reading about Coleman Fish Hatchery on Battle Creek, their goal is to release 13,000,000/year (Chinook and steelhead), only 1% (130,000 fish) actually make it back to hatchery to spawn after 4-5 years.

They spend 1 year to 18 months in creek/river 3-5 years in ocean before returning.