Compared with the high-tech Cle Elum facilities for chinook, the coho ponds adjacent to the river seem primitive. But they allow the fish to get used to Yakima River water before fighting for their lives in the dangerous trip downstream. Many returning adults spawn in the Yakima and its tributaries, but the eggs from some fish were collected this year to ensure the continued survival of those that for one reason or another like to hang a left out of the Columbia River at Richland. The goal now, Hatcher said, is to figure out how the Yakima returners are different from the lower Columbia fish. Coho spend up to 18 months in fresh water, unlike many salmon species, which emerge from the gravel and head down river in less than a year.
Coho return to their streams and spawn in the fall.
But when they reach the main stem of the Yakima, they have plenty of battles ahead. Despite the efforts of irrigators and farmers in the valley, the basin still isn't very fish-friendly. Temperatures often are too high for fish, and sediment chokes the river during irrigation season. We've been turning many of our rivers into ditches. Copyright 1999 Tri-City Herald.