Salmon Sport Head Recovery Program & Coded Wire Tag

Salmon Sport Head Recovery Depots

The sport fishing community has an important role in the recovery of coded-wire tags found in Coho and Chinook.

Coded-wire tags allow Canada to fulfill obligations for International Pacific Salmon Treaty initiatives and provide valuable information, including:

• abundance, distribution and survival;
• trends for planning next year’s fishing season;
• run timing in salt and freshwater areas.

Anglers can recognize the presence of a coded-wire tag because of the missing adipose fin (located on the dorsal surface of the salmon). If you have caught an adipose fin clipped Coho and Chinook, it is a simple matter of removing the head from the fish, completing a sport head label (available at a Sport Head Recovery Depot) and then submitting the head to a depot in the area . By participating in the Salmon Head Recovery Program, you will be contributing necessary information to allow for continued sport fishing opportunities. You will also be entered into the Sport Head Recovery Prize Draw which takes place annually.

In some cases, certain hatchery stocks are used to indicate the health of other stocks in the area. Tag recoveries not only help to indicate that stocks are healthy, but also that stocks of concern could be improving.

For several years, hatcheries located in the South Coast have been removing the adipose fin from all coho salmon. This marking of coho makes it possible for anglers to distinguish hatchery coho and provides opportunities for “hatchery only” coho fishing in southern B.C.

In addition to marking hatchery salmon, a very small number of wild coho and chinook (less then 5%) are also tagged and adipose clipped to help biologists monitor habitat enhancement projects associated with wild salmon stocks.

For these reasons, all heads from adipose fin clipped Coho and Chinook turned in by anglers become critical to the management of fish stocks in B.C. even if they do not contain a coded-wire tag.

It is just as important to turn in heads from terminal or freshwater sites as it is from marine areas. Even though anglers fishing close to hatcheries can be fairly certain of the origin of their catch, data will not be recorded unless the heads from fin-clipped recoveries are turned in. Without the data, the health of the stock and the value of the resource to anglers could be underestimated.

Directory of Salmon Sport Head Recovery Depots

By participating in the Salmon Sport Head Recovery Program, you will be entered into the Prize Draw which takes place annually.

To contact the Salmon Sport Head Recovery Program call 1-866-483-9994 (toll free).