The first year we worked the Snow Creek traps was the ''76-77 drought. Coho came in all right but only accessed half the creek ro spawn in due to an intermittent barrier. Gave us half the normal smolt output.

Steelhead stayed out until March, when they all rode a storm in. They were so ready to go that they only went about 75% upstream.

The one year that stopped the coho dead in their tracks was, I think, '79-80 when it was really cold from November-February. Stream froze up around Thanksgiving and stayed frozen (anchor ice, ice all over) until March. 200 coho sat in hole below the trap and waited. When it finally thawed they blew upstream and spawned.

I also heard of a small HC creek, in the early-mid '80s, where the chum rode up a little freshet. spawned, and died in less than a week. What made that one interesting is that escapment estimated were based on live counts. In one survey there were 0 live. The next week there were 0 live but lots of dead spawn-outs.

Be a very interesting fall for those who are regularly looking at the streams.