With affordable housing scarce in Oak Harbor, more than 30,000 coho salmon will be forced to bunk together in two separate net pens until the fish are released into Puget Sound.

The coho fingerlings were relocated Monday from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Marblemount Hatchery to the Oak Harbor Marina. Two netted pens will house the fish until they have been sufficiently “imprinted” and released.

Phil Whitlock with marina maintenance said the imprinting process takes approximately three months, after which time the fishes’ origin will be etched indelibly in the vertebrates’ tiny minds. The coho are then released into Puget Sound, fatter and suffering from a raging case of cabin fever.

The salmon will be released from the heavy duty pens just before Memorial Day. During the three months in captivity at the marina, the two-inch fingerlings will plump up with food provided by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Many of the fish should more than triple in length by the release date.

“They’re fed daily, every morning at roughly 9 o’clock,” Whitlock said. “We use about 15 pounds of food a day between the two pens.”

Once imprinted, salmon will bid adieu to Oak Harbor for about three years. When the biological clocks start ticking like a metronome, the coho will return to the area looking for a freshwater river or creek in which to spawn. Unbeknownst to the salmon, fresh water will prove elusive and the schools will congregate in Oak Harbor Bay, creating an angling Shangri-la for local fishermen.

“This is all for sport fishing,” Whitlock said.

Last year the salmon chose not to loiter in Oak Harbor when they returned, said Cliff Erickson, also with marina maintenance. The fish preferred instead to set out looking for the coveted freshwater.

“So, they came in, made a couple turns around, and took off looking for a creek,” Erickson said. “Usually fishermen come down and they can really nail them. But last year they didn’t do that.”

One by one, a pair of large water trucks backed onto the marina dock Monday morning, each vehicle carrying more than 500 pounds of coho. The salmon were then pumped into the pens via aluminum pipe, completing the transition from fresh to saltwater.

The marina has been raising salmon since 1982 when Jim Maloney started the fisheries enhancement effort. Since then, more than 700,000 coho have been released into Saratoga Passage.

Until 1991, the marina also raised chinook salmon, receiving 30,000 fingerlings each fall and releasing them in February. The program was nixed when the species was listed as endangered in 2001 and coho became the “sole” focus, with all efforts on enhancing wild salmon propagation.