So there we were…light rod light line and a tiny trout plug…and then this happened!
What’s killing off Fraser River Sockeye Salmon?
Despite record setting returns last year, all’s not right with the Fraser River’s sockeye run. Since the mid-1990s, something began killing large numbers of returning reds on the Fraser — anywhere from 40 to 95 percent of fish in some years — before they could spawn.
Read the whole story in Scientific American
Largest sockeye run since 1947 swimming up the Columbia River
Something good’s up with the Columbia River. I’m not sure if it has to do with those spring pulse flows to flush out smolts that they’ve been doing recently…good ocean conditions…or a combination thereof, but the river’s been stuffed with fish the past couple years. If you’ll recall, the summer run steelhead numbers were through the roof in 2009 and the coho run was also massive. Now you can add sockeye to the list.
So far this year, over 350,000 sockeye salmon have made it over Bonneville Dam, three times the amount predicted by biologists and a modern-day record. And the run’s not over yet. Read more HERE