{"id":27126,"date":"2023-10-31T22:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-01T04:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-kokanee-giveaway-canceled-nighthorse-stock-slim\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T23:52:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:52:17","slug":"dolores-kokanee-giveaway-canceled-nighthorse-stock-slim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-kokanee-giveaway-canceled-nighthorse-stock-slim\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolores kokanee giveaway canceled, Nighthorse stock slim"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Colorado
Colorado Parks and Wildlife is canceling the final kokanee salmon giveaway in Dolores this year and warning residents not to travel for fish at Lake Nighthorse given the limited supply. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Colorado Parks and Wildlife is warning that there will be limited fish available at the first Lake Nighthorse kokanee salmon giveaway of the year scheduled for this Friday.<\/p>\n

The agency is canceling the last giveaway in Dolores that was scheduled for Nov. 9, but will still hold the event scheduled for this Thursday.<\/p>\n

The fish, a landlocked variety of sockeye salmon that are stocked in lakes and reservoirs around the state, are manually spawned by CPW officials and volunteers and are handed out to members of the public for free.<\/p>\n

The agency previously scheduled an unexpected giveaway <\/a>in Dolores on Oct. 19.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a great early run of kokanee in Dolores and a great first giveaway there in mid-October. But the run has really slowed down after that earlier run,\u201d CPW spokesman John Livingston said in a text message Tuesday. \u201cWe spawned 23 females today after a similar spawn late last week, and we will have one more spawn Thursday before the giveaway. We will have a few hundred fish to giveaway at Dolores on Thursday. But that will be the end of giveaways there this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time, it was unclear whether the early arrival of fish indicated an early run or an extended run. Now, it was clearly the former.<\/p>\n

At Lake Nighthorse, southwest of Durango, Livingston said the few fish that have been caught so far are small.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will still do that giveaway Friday, but we don\u2019t encourage folks to travel from outside Durango to receive Nighthorse fish Friday because there will only be a few small fish per person,\u201d he said. \u201cA lot of times we get more than 100 people at these giveaways, and if there are only 200 fish to giveaway, we\u2019d feel bad if someone traveled from Pagosa or further to only get a couple fish.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said it was unclear why so few fish had returned to spawn this year.<\/p>\n

One theory is that a severe drought in 2020 left the hatchery low on water, meaning that the fingerling kokanee were stocked in January, rather than April.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had mostly what we\u2019ve been calling \u2018precocious males\u2019 showing up so far. They seem like smaller 2-year-olds that aren\u2019t sexually mature yet but have been showing up at the spawning dock,\u201d Livingston said. \u201cWe may just be missing a year class of fish because of that. 2020 situation. But we will keep up spawning operations to see what fish do arrive.\u201d<\/p>\n

People who hope to receive fish typically begin lining up an hour before the giveaway begins. Participants of the giveaway must hold a valid Colorado fishing license and should bring a container. Youths up to age 4 may receive kokanee if accompanied by a license-holding adult.<\/p>\n

Giveaways are also scheduled at Lake Nighthorse on Friday, as well as Nov. 10 and Nov. 17, at the boat ramp.<\/p>\n

rschafir@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This story has been updated with the correct day of the first Lake Nighthorse kokanee giveaway. The event will be held this Friday.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Officials reporting limited, smaller fish this year in Durango<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27127,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1031,44,28,2216,280],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-27126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado-parks-and-wildlife","tag-dolores","tag-headlines","tag-lake-nighthorse","tag-mcphee-reservoir"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27126"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79744,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27126\/revisions\/79744"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27126"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=27126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}