History
On May 31st, 1989, the Langley Rod and Gun Club hosted a public meeting for Dave Evans, a Langley resident who wished to organize a group of Langley area volunteers towards the goal of restoring and enhancing the troubled Nicomekl River watershed. From this meeting a group was formed and adopted the name, Fish for your Future.
In 1990 with the assistance of Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) Community Advisor Joe Kambietz the group set up a temporary salmon egg incubation tank on private property on the lower reaches of Anderson Creek. In their first year 125,000 Chum fry where released into the Nicomekl River system.
Because of the poor rearing site the group decided to look for a more suitable location and moved onto private property at 232 St. and 48th Avenue. Here, 95,000 Coho fry were raised and released. The group seeing the successes of their hard work and the publicity it generated decided a rename was in order and incorporated on April 4th, 1991 under the Society Act as the Nicomekl Enhancement Society (NES). Membership in NES at this point was mostly from Langley Township and Langley City. Then in the fall of 1991 NES moved from this location due to the sale of the property and could not find another site for the 1991, 1992 incubation year. Although still catching spawners, NES paid a small fee to another hatchery to incubate and release their Coho fry.
In the spring of 1992, NES was invited to operate the high profile Children’s U-Catch Trout Pond at the Fraser Valley Boat & Sportsman’s Show at Abbotsford Tradex. This trade show is the largest exhibition of its kind in BC and affords NES much public exposure and is a key fundraiser. NES still continues in this and provides 3 full days of lively fishing action for kids and parents with prizes and photo for every 50th fish caught.
At this show, Bruce Coulter a well known Langley outdoorsman noticed the NES displays and asked about our work. Bruce obtained a membership and after knowing the members better offered a portion of his land (1.66 hectares) to NES as an incubation site with a Nicomekl tributary (Hatchery Creek) running through it.
In September 1992, NES volunteers with the help of many local businesses constructed a temporary hatchery building on this our present site and raised 180,000 Chum. For the first time, Coho salmon eggs were provided to local schools for the “Classroom Incubation Program”.
In 1994 amid much fanfare Bruce Coulter graciously deeded this parcel of land to NES.
Over these years, NES volunteers have re-established permanent runs of Chum, Chinook and Coho salmon after an absence of 80 years. There is still much enhancement and habitat restoration work to be done to reach sustainability of your future salmon stocks within the Nicomekl River watershed.