To supplement existing salmon stocks, CIAA releases salmon fry or smolts to various locations throughout the Cook Inlet drainage.  Additionally, CIAA has built up several terminal fishery locations in lower Cook Inlet.  Terminal fisheries occur when salmon are released to a lake with a migraional barrier such as a waterfall.  Depending on the location, fry and smolts are transported and released in several ways; from transport truck to boat to float plane.  During lake stocking, fry or smolts are released directly to the lake.  However, fry that will be released to creeks or streams are often held in oxygenated tanks, fed with creek water.  This method of imprinting assures, with some certainty, that the resultant adult salmon from these fry will return to the creek or stream of the release.

     Smolt release Homer Spit             Fry release Hidden Lake             Imprinting sockeye fry

At present CIAA releases sockeye salmon fry to Hidden Lake, Bear Lake, Big Lake, Leisure Lake, Hazel Lake, and Kirshner Lake.  Sockeye salmon smolts are released to Bear Lake and are slated to be release to Tutka Bay Lagoon this spring.  Coho salmon fry and smolts are released to Bear Lake.  Yearly releases of coho smolts also occur at the Homer spit.  The Alaska SeaLife Center has contracted CIAA to release coho smolts to Resurrection Bay.  CIAA also plans to release coho somlts in Seldovia this year.

 Cick on the name of a specific salmon release project to learn more.