Merry Christmas all and hopefully 2021 will be a great year. ( 2020 certainly stunk up the place )

With the 2020 salmon season done I asked Mike & Kim how the numbers looked but as staff are still compiling data nothing in terms of numbers are available. In general terms though for the Chehalis it looks like this. Chinook numbers were above expectations, Coho and Chum close to forecast. The early normal timed Coho push was just that, they came in early and it was not a banner year. Late Coho seem to be underperforming but it is a bit early to say that with certainty. Unlike Coho and Chinook Chum are a aggregate of Chehalis and Hump so it is a bit more complicated to get a true feel for it other than the Chehalis side did as expected.

So it appears the model performed well enough but as always the devils in the details. QIN Chum harvest numbers way down but the NT Commercials way up so it came out close to expectations. QIN Chinook harvest down but the fish simply got upstream ahead of their season. Coho the same for everyone, except inland fishers, so bay / tidal waters fisheries really suffered. Which always begs the question, if the fish came in as usual and everyone's harvest was as modeled would we have made escapement? Clueless here and that is something that staff will have to let us know once they have all the numbers finalized.

So good bye and good riddance 2020 and hello 2021. Everyone take care and have a great holiday season.