Wisconsin's Kewaunee River weir tallies 763 Chinook; first coho spawning day set for Oct. 28

Wisconsin's Kewaunee River egg-take season is moving from Chinook to coho. In its Oct. 23 update, the Department of Natural Resources says the Besadny Anadromous Fisheries Facility, which opened to fish on Sept. 30, has held three processing days this fall: Oct. 10, 14 and 21.

Crews processed 303, 127 and 333 Chinook salmon on those three days, for a total of 763. Coho counts climbed each time, from 7 to 49 to 87, for 143 total. The DNR also lists 9 rainbow trout, all passed upstream, and no brown trout yet. The table shows 864 coho now held in the ponds for spawning.

The first coho spawning day is Wednesday, Oct. 28, starting at 9 a.m. Late October also starts the DNR's seeforellen brown trout collection. Crews use electrofishing boats on several Lake Michigan tributaries to gather fin-clipped seeforellen adults and bring them to Besadny for weekly spawning from mid-November to mid-December. The agency's goal is 1 million eggs, which supports roughly 400,000 seeforellen stocked each year in Wisconsin's waters of Lakes Michigan and Superior.

This is a The Gillnet news desk summary, not a reprint.

Source: Wisconsin DNR — Besadny Anadromous Fisheries Facility Report (report for Oct. 23, 2026).