Bob -
As I have mentioned before this marine survival thing is a puzzler. To make things even more complicated for most of the Puget Sound rivers that have had such poor marine surivial problems it has been limited to the winter steelhead. Hatchery and wild winter smolt to adult survival is way down but at the same time in the same rivers summers (hatchery and wild) appear to be doing well (perhaps having above average survival). All the smolt trapping information seems to indicate that summer and winters migrate pretty much at the same time.

The information is known about migration patterns indicate that our steelhead migrate off shore, ride the currents north and west across the North Pacific and then south and east (a large elliptical path). Since the summers and winter return at different times they most have different timing during their high sea migration. The same might apply to your coastal steelhead. They are closer to the high seas than Puget Sound at that slight edge might make all the difference.

To my thinking there must patchy conditions (feed or temperatures) in the north Pacific and some stocks or group of stocks migration timing is such that they are finding better conditions than others.

From the reports that I'm hearing it sounds like those poor conditions are becoming more wide spread with most reports of hatchery returns being poor or worst throughout Western Washington. Definitely not good news.

Tight lines
Smalma