Sockeye keep coming

63 fish have completed epic journey to Sawtooth Valley

By :JASON KAUFFMAN

A total of 63 sockeye salmon have arrived so far at the Sawtooth Fish Hatchery along the upper Salmon River, fisheries officials have reported. The total sockeye numbers, 16 of which returned on Monday, Aug. 4, suggest earlier predictions of large numbers of the "red fish" migrating upriver this year may be met. 

Hundreds of miles downriver last week, more than 800 adult sockeye had passed by the Lower Granite Dam, the last barrier on the lower Snake River in southeast Washington that anadromous fish must pass before entering Idaho, reported Jeff Heindel, Conservation Hatcheries Supervisor at the Eagle Fish Hatchery. 

The numbers at Lower Granite suggest as many as 700 rare sockeye salmon could be headed for the Redfish Lake area near Stanley this summer, fisheries biologists with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game report. This figure compares to just 257 sockeye that returned to central Idaho in 2000, the next highest run since biologists started tracking the numbers in 1985.

Such a run this summer would be a remarkable improvement above mostly dismal single-digit or nonexistent sockeye returns to the scenic Idaho lake during the past several decades. In all, just 352 wild and hatchery-origin sockeye have migrated back to the Redfish Lake area since 1985, Fish and Game information indicates.

Fisheries biologists say this year's surprisingly good numbers of returning sockeye is likely due to good smolt production four years ago, good out-migration conditions in the rivers and excellent ocean conditions. The run coming up the Snake River into Idaho is just a fraction of a much larger run that's headed up the Columbia River system that in recent counts have numbered around 250,000 fish.