They may not be late at all. There's no data (that I have seen, at least) that says they're there, just all pooled up in the ocean waiting for something.

The run may just suck this year.


If you look at 10-year averages, then push everything back 10 days because of "cold water" or whatever else, the current data indicate a total springer run of 130,000 fish over Bonneville, not 360,000.

https://www.nwp.usace.army.mil/op/fishdata/AdultFishCounts/BON_Ave_1994_2003.txt

Here is where it gets really interesting. If DFW lets the sport fishery continue, and the run is 130,000 fish, they will have blown through the 2% bycatch on wild chinook, in the face of clear data that showed that the sport fishery should have been suspended.

I think it is a distinct possibility that DFW will suspend the sport fishery, on the basis of Bonneville passage numbers.

The other interesting angle to this is that if DFW's pre-run forecast turns out to be way off, inquiring minds will want to know what is wrong with the science, and are other pre-run forecasts similarly afflicted (like, say, Lake Washington sockeye ).