Well, I guess that would be the minimum escapement, if you had the right kind of dogs.

One thing to consider, if our inseason expected escapement number of 58,000 is correct, this is still way lower than the 180,000 postseason estimate from 2006 but higher than the 21,000 postseason estimate from 2005. In fact, if this is the final escapement number, 2007 would be the second highest odd-year escapement since 1983. Typically odd year chum runs are smaller than even year runs in north Puget Sound.

I'm not saying that our inseason number is right on. We have been wrong in both directions in the past. It is quite possible that the wild runs are below forecast this year, and the escapement will be lower. However, if that is the case, then I'm pretty sure it will turn out that the bulk of the large catches we have seen in the saltwater in the past week or two will have been made up of hatchery fish that are not returning to the river. The local hatchery chums have a later timing than the wild chums. I remain confident that our management system is set up to pass a large fraction of the natural run through to escapement. If the run is small, as odd-year chum runs can be (2003 was an exception to that with an estimated escapement of over 100,000), then the escapement will be down, but so will the catches of that run.

One other thing, although I'm not a strong believer in relying on density dependence in salmon management, the Snohomish chums do seem to show this fairly consistently. In other words, large escapements seems to beget smaller run sizes four years later. We may be seeing a relationship of that sort with the large 2003 run begetting a smaller 2007 run. In hindsight, we probably should have taken that into account in forecasting the 2007 return.