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.
Steelheadman,
The Quinault, Queets, and Salmon get significant returns of hatchery salmon and steelhead because the Tribe stocks huge numbers of hatchery fish, using, wait for it - OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY (OPM). Although coastal rivers tend to get higher SAR (smolt to adult recruits) than either Puget Sound or Columbia River, the rate of return is also down out on the coast due to ocean conditions. If you go upstream on the Quinault or Queets from where the hatchery fish are stocked, you will find that returns of wild salmon and steelhead tend to be chronically under-escaped. So there you have it, the two reasons why those rivers are getting larger returning runsizes of hatchery, not wild, fish. Don't care about wild fish, and having a large amount of OPM to spend.
NorCal rivers are rebounding due to decreases in ocean exploitation of their salmon and gradually improving habitat in basins like the Eel River that was destroyed by massive flooding over 50 years ago in 1964. Also, the salmon and steelhead from those NorCal rivers migrate to and forage in a different area of the ocean than do WA salmon and steelhead.
You don't have to be especially smart to figure this stuff out. Just have information.
Sg
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