Onalaska High School aquaculture students release juvenile coho, steelhead into Gheer Creek 

Onalaska High School’s 20 aquaculture students released 75,000 coho salmon and 35,000 steelhead into Gheer Creek on Tuesday. 

The first day of April is traditionally when Onalaska High School natural resources and aquaculture teacher Kevin Hoffman’s students release their fish, which the students received as eggs through the Skookumchuck Hatchery in Tenino in late 2024. 

Students raise the fish in Onalaska High School’s hatcheries until they’re big enough to go into the net pens at Carlisle Lake, where students continue to check on and feed the fish daily until their release. 

“At this time, they’ve smolted,” Hoffman said, referring to the process where juvenile fish undergo physical changes in preparation for migration to saltwater. 

“What we’re doing is just working with a bunch of students, trawling all the fish and pumping them out of the net pen, out of Carlisle Lake and into Gheer Creek, so that they can make their way out to the ocean,” Hoffman said. 

At this stage in their development, the coho measure at about 17 fish per pound and the steelhead measure at about five fish per pound, Hoffman said. Paul Groppel of the Skookumchuck Hatchery was on hand Tuesday to measure a sample of fish released into Gheer Creek to confirm their size. 

A tributary of the Neuwaukum River, Gheer Creek typically sees between 1.5% and 3.4% of the released fish return as adults, Hoffman said. 

In addition to the coho and steelhead released Tuesday, Onalaska High School’s aquaculture students will release 10,000 rainbow trout into Carlisle Lake for recreational fishing ahead of season opener April 26. 

While Onalaska High School has been teaching aquaculture since the early 1990s, the school’s hatchery program didn’t begin until after Hoffman took over the program about nine years ago. 

“Throughout that time, it’s kind of changed,” Hoffman said of the program. “Net pens used to be floating in the center of the lake. We had to pull them over. We had to access them by boat.” 

The program recently received surplus equipment from the state that the district was able to refabricate into a more accessible net pen area. 

“Now, it’s just a lot easier and safer with the railings and the wide walkways,” Hoffman said. “It’s a lot easier to bring out the whole class instead of a couple on a boat, and we can actually see what’s going on.”  

For more information about the aquaculture program, contact Hoffman at khoffman@onysd.webnet.edu or at 360-978-4111.