The Waitaki Riparian Enhancement Society traps salmon at the Hakataramea River for its Welcome Stream hatchery on the lower Waitaki River.
Last season that was not successful, with flooding in the Hakataramea River substantially reducing the salmon trapped, and the smolt it will release in March-April next year.
To help resolve that issue, and make it easier to get salmon, the society is planning to apply for resource consent from the Otago Regional Council to expand its operations on Welcome Stream.
It wants to put a small plastic raceway beside the stream to hold up to 4000 salmon smolt.
They will be released into the stream in the hope enough will return there to spawn and provide an easy source for trapping.
Consultation with affected parties is being carried out before the consent application is filed.
Society secretary Linn Koevoet said salmon were already returning to the stream, but not yet in sufficiently large numbers.
In the past two or three years, two or three salmon redds (nests) were counted in the stream.
This year there were 10, which indicated at least a dozen fish had returned from the society's first release into the Waitaki River in 2012.
About 17,000 fry have been transferred from the Welcome Stream hatchery to the rear races at Bell's Pond on the north side of the river at Ikawai.
That was considerably less than the society's annual target of at least 40,000, because of the small number of 12 female salmon trapped at Hakataramea.
