Fall Index Stream Kokanee Spawning Surveys, CPUD. Chelan PUD has conducted annual Lake Chelan spawning ground surveys for kokanee and land-locked Chinook salmon since 1984. The purpose of these surveys is to document the annual trends of kokanee spawning populations within the Lake Chelan drainage (Stone and Xxxxxxx 2004). Two tributaries of the Stehekin River, Company Creek and Blackberry Creek, have been used as index reaches since 1984 because a majority of kokanee production from the Stehekin originates from in these tributaries. Additional tributaries to Lake Chelan that have been included in the annual kokanee spawning ground surveys are: Xxxxxxxx, Gold, Grade, Safety Harbor, Prince, Fish, First, and Twenty-five Mile creeks. Surveys had been conducted approximately twice monthly between August 31 and October 30. However, sampling methodology was altered as described in Section 3.2.8 in 2013 due to availability of survey crews. Crews conduct surveys by walking in or along the streams and counting all live kokanee. Tally counters are used to keep track of fish numbers. Large masses of kokanee are estimated in some pools located in Company and Blackberry creeks (Stone and Xxxxxxx 2004). Kokanee spawning ground surveys were not conducted in 2013 by Chelan PUD due to: 1) inability to access Company and Blackberry Creek survey index reaches from closure of the road due to slides; and 2) unavailability of Chelan PUD staff. Chelan PUD staff will coordinate with NPS staff to ensure that kokanee spawning surveys can be conducted in 2014 to the greatest extent practicable. Results of kokanee spawning ground surveys prior to 2013 can be found at the following link that will navigate to the Chelan PUD Lake Chelan License Implementation webpage under Projects, Monitoring and Evaluation Activities: xxxx://xxx.xxxxxxxxx.xxx/lc- Resource-Documents-LCFF.cfm
