It's not warm water but in (I believe) '79 we had freeze start in November that ended the end of January. The streams had anchor ice it was so cold. We had a hole downstream of the trap that had, by our estimate, 200 coho when the freeze hit. Those same fish were still there in January for the thaw. Once temperatures warmed they boiled up out of the hole, headed upstream, spawned, and died.

At the other end of the spectrum was a chum stream on Hood Canal. Dry fall, no fish in creek. Rain occurred between the two weekly surveys. Pre rain there was nothing in the creek; post rain there were a couple hundred spawned out carcasses. They'll wait as long as they can.