Yes, that’s right. I, Andy Walgamott, vowed less than three weeks ago after the whole record sockeye salmon fiasco in Tumwater that I would never look at fish count reports again, let alone watch them…but if the fall Chinook count in Bonneville is off to its best start of the 2000s and probably much longer, here we are!
As of yesterday, a total of 29,478 of the mighty salmon have swum past the first dam upstream on the lower Columbia since August 1, the day on which the fall counting period begins for fish management reasons.
That’s almost twice as many URBS, PUBs and other stocks as the 10-year average of 15,543 and – okay, Walgamott, breathe through your nose now – thousands more fish than even during the “glory years” in the middle of the last decade.
(!!!)
Before this year, the highest count since 2000 was 26,995 between August 1 and 18, while 2013 ended with an incredible 953,222 fall chinook salmon. In 2015, the record 954,886 losses were just 24,979 in the same two-and-a-half-week period.
Most schools of fish between 1938, when counts began at Bonneville, and 2000 contained 300,000 fish or less, and even when all larger fish are included, none come close to this year’s numbers.
Given that a quick start in the early stages pushed the 2024 Columbia sockeye salmon run to a new record of 755,889 (and still counting), the question must be asked: Will this be the year fall Chinook salmon reach seven figures for the first time?!?
“We’ve noticed that the counts are looking good early on,” noted WDFW Columbia River manager Ryan Lothrop, who somehow managed to not only stoke excitement this morning but also administer several doses of Narcan to this fish-counting addict.
“…(It’s) still early in the run. The first two weeks of September are usually peak times,” Lothrop explained. “We also had a big frontal system move through. I’ve heard people were tagging a lot of fish but weren’t catching them biting, which means they were moving upstream. Rain and frontal systems can affect the run, much like river currents.”
“If we don’t see a dip in the next few days, that would be helpful,” Lothrop admitted, adding, “It could also be a good sign that we don’t have a thermal blockade.”
Hot water flowing out of the Columbia Basin can slow the migration of Chinook salmon in the fall and steelhead in the summer.
Other possible caveats? Lothrop didn’t mention it, but as we learned during the Tumwater sockeye salmon count in early August, transcription errors between count stations and count websites do occur. And seeing that the fall Chinook salmon count is also double the 10-year average, I remember a couple of years where there were some very robust young Chinook salmon just over 24 inches, the management-set cutoff between adult and Chinook salmon, so maybe there’s something going on there.
Stay tuned…
Be that as it may, in addition to ongoing sport fishing operations on the lower Columbia River (see Buoy 10 and other catch reports and regulations), several non-individual commercial gill net releases have occurred between the Lewis River and Bonneville—ODFW reports 2,428 Chinook salmon landed so far—or will occur on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday nights through August 30.
