A few years ago I compared the salmon returns (average annual spawners/mile) for the north OP rivers (Queets, Hoh, and Quileute) with those on North Puget Sound (Snohomish, Stillaguamish, Nooksack) over the 15 years of this century (using the info in WDFW SCORE).

At the time I believe it was generally conceded that the OP rivers had better habitat and more robust steelhead populations. For that period the average salmon spawners/mile on the OP rivers was approximately 100/mile. At the same time the average salmon spawner/mile on north Sound rivers was approximately 1000/mile.

On the North Sound rivers I have long thought that the benefits for spawned salmon carcass is being limited by those carcasses being washed to Puget Sound (feeding crabs?) by the fall/early winter floods rather than being capture and retained in the river by historic complex habitat structures.

Over the last 40 on the north Puget Sound rivers the number of repeat spawners (% of the previous year's escapement returning the next year) has been decreasing. That decline seems to be in at least part correlated with decreasing marine survivals.

For the wild winter steelhead of North Puget Sound their run timing seems to be more strongly related to their spawn timing. Those rivers with later spawn timing tend to have later run timings. That spawn timing is likely driven by the timing of the spring/summer run-off with the spawning timed so peak fry emergence occurs on the declining flows after the peak run-off. In those populations the adults gave the same general return timing regardless of their smolt age.

The two largest factors driving the status of those north Sound steelhead are the lack of functioning river process and the accompanying complex habitats and the significant early marine mortalities within Puget Sound itself. Without addressing these issues the PS steelhead are doomed.

Curt