Hidden Lake no secret to biologists replenishing salmon

September 25, 2009|by Scott Jensen

Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association biologist Tom Prochazka. (Scott Jensen/KTUU-DT)

HIDDEN LAKE, Alaska — Every fall season the biologists and technicians who make up the Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association collect salmon eggs and milt to replenish the popular Kenai Peninsula fisheries.

Hidden Lake is a unique site for this annual egg harvest. Its panorama didn't make any of those top 10 autumn location lists the national magazines put out this time of year.

Maybe it's because their editors only consider the colors they can see on dry land.

"The ones that ready to spawn are usually darker red with the green heads," said biologist Tom Prochazka.

These sockeye salmon survived.

Each one with battle scars telling stories of adversity endured, all for a single purpose -- to return to the water of their parents so they too can pass on the privilege of life.

Each one is perfect for Prochazka to fulfill his purpose.

"It's special. I think we all like it or we wouldn't be doing it," he said.

Prochazka and his Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association crew protect the peninsula's salmon resource.

"We produce a lot of fish for commercial fleet," he said. "We produce fish for the sport fisherman, all the way up -- all user groups."

As enhancement projects go, the one here at Hidden Lake is a gem.

"It can rear a lot of juvenile fish," said Prochazka. "There is a spawning limited, but the food resource is very abundant. It gets pretty heavy pulling the net along the beach."

That means Ron Carlson is free to snatch about 4,500 sockeye salmon right from the over-crowded spawning beds -- and thousands more will immediately move in and take their place.

"This one should be a nice ripe female," said Prochazka. "When you give it a little bit of a squeeze the eggs should just come right out."

The eggs - some 6 million of them -- will be fertilized at the Trail Lakes Hatchery. Come spring they'll deposit 1.3 million fry back into these waters, with the rest released in other lower Cook Inlet lakes and into Tutka Bay to replenish the salmon resource.

And Hidden Lake's excessive food source will sustain the entire population until a quarter-million sockeye smolt move out to Cook Inlet the following year.

It's the circle of life so many Alaskans rely on for income, leisure and survival.

"This is kind of the last of the field season out here more or less," said Prochazka. "Fall -- I mean it's all symbolic."

And Prochazka's tailored team gladly does it part.

"Actually I have a degree in commercial art, but ended up working with fish so go figure," Carlson said with a laugh.

And it doesn't hurt they get to enjoy Alaska's autumn.

"We get to be places that a lot of people would pay to come see," said Prochazka.

And all the colors that go with it.

Contact Scott Jensen at sjensen@ktuu.com

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