Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Fort Peck fisheries and hatchery staff wrapped up the annual Chinook salmon egg-taking efforts this past week. A total of 895,131 Chinook eggs were collected, which filled all available egg incubation jars and space at the Fort Peck Multispecies Fish Hatchery.
The average size of Chinook salmon females collected was an impressive 15.1 pounds. In comparison, in 2024, females averaged 18.9 pounds. The difference in weight can be attributed to the abundance of younger Chinook salmon collected in 2025. Age analysis for the salmon captured this fall still must be completed, but it seems that a majority were age three. In 2024, 92 percent of the females captured and used during the spawning process were age four salmon. The large fish this year resulted in an average of 2.60 pounds of eggs per female. These healthy females produced an average of 4,662 eggs per female, which is slightly down from the 4,708 eggs per female, seen in 2024.
Barring any major setbacks at the hatchery, the number of eggs collected in 2025 should be more than enough to ensure at least 200,000 fingerlings will be stocked back into Fort Peck Reservoir in the spring of 2026. The Fort Peck Fisheries Management Plan calls for a minimum of 200,000 fingerlings be stocked annually, but this number can increase depending on egg and fingerling survival.
Water quality and quantity issues at the Fort Peck Hatchery limit the number of salmon that can be produced on any given year. FWP is working to alleviate the water shortage and sediment issues by working with the US Army Corps of Engineers on a new water delivery system. This new line would deliver cold, clean water from the Fort Peck dam penstocks and provide more water for hatchery use, allowing the hatchery to possibly utilize more space and raise more and larger fish. This project will also reduce the sediment load entering the hatchery (water is currently pumped from the Dredge Cut Ponds), that is detrimental to fish egg and fish fry survivability.
Last year, a total of 842,709 chinook eggs were collected and 232,369 Chinook were stocked back into Fort Peck Reservoir in the spring of 2025. Many anglers assume that the more salmon stocked, the greater number will be available to anglers in future years. Although this is important, the number of cisco (the primary forage fish of salmon) that hatch in the spring during salmon stocking appears to be one of the main drivers to salmon survival and success over the ensuing years.
For example, a very large year class of cisco hatched in 2023 that resulted in some excellent growth and survival for the salmon stocked that year. Those are the same salmon that were caught this past summer and fall by anglers. Unfortunately, cisco recruitment (i.e., spawning and hatching success) since 2023 has been very low, which may have negatively impacted Chinook survival in those years.
Early data analysis indicates that the numbers of smaller, two-year-old salmon caught in 2025 were lower compared to the 2024 season. This would suggest that fewer 3-year-old salmon will be around in 2026. However, there is a good chance that not all 3-year-old Chinooks spawned this season and could carry over into 2026 as larger, 4-year-old fish much like what occurred in 2024.
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