| Summary: | Big Sockeye Run Expected Soon On After Lean Years. Big Sockeye Run Expected Soon On After Lean Years OLYMPIA, July 15.—(Special.) — Four thousand humpback salmon have put to sea carrying tags showing that they were released this summer from the Hood Canal salt water feeding ponds of the state fisheries department. An unusually high tide accompanied by a strong wind flooded the feeding ponds and released several thousand other humpies that were due to be tagged. The fisheries department hopes to learn when these tagged fish return whether the humpies will come back to the stream where they were hatched or raised to fingerling length before being released. The salt water feeding ponds already have proved that humpies will thrive better in salt water than they do in fresh water ponds. Reports to the fisheries department show the traps on Puget Sound were taking sockeyes this year as early as July 1, or at least two weeks before fishermen expected them. This is the "big run" year and fishermen have hopes of an improved sockeye catch. However, the sockeyes have fallen off ever since contractors on the Canadian Northern in 1913 blew a part of the mountain into Hell Gate canyon and blocked the upper Fraser river so the sockeyes that year could not reach their natural spawning beds. Canadian and American fisheries officials this fall will investigate to determine whether the sockeye run on the upper Fraser is improving.
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