Ocean conditions are not the greatest but why do the Quinault, Queets, and Salmon rivers get good returns? Why are NorCal rivers rebounding? There's alot of other factors that affect escapement like preditation of smolts by birds, other fish, marine mammals, etc. Overfishing may have something to do with it. Even hatchery practices like power outages, disease, smolt size. Regulatory affects like the ESA which limits amounts released. Habitat, logging practices, pollution... I'm not as smart on this as most of the biologists or those who work at the hatcheries here on this forum.