This is nature, not a zoo.

The incubating eggs are subject to water temperatures. Too cold or too warm and you get less fry. The lake's productivity changes each year depending on the nutrient input, sun exposure, and so all. All these factors, and more, will affect survival. There could have been low levels of disease.

Escapement goals/targets are/were based on "average environmental conditions". Which never are. A freshet or freeze at the wrong time can wipe out a whole spawn, a warm summer with low flows can reduce the fry production, and so on.

In truth, consistent run-sizes are an artificial construction forced on the system to "maximize" the economic benefit. The few really long term data sets show over and over that runs cycle, they boom and bust. Yet, we try to ensure the same number every year.

Waterboy,

The vast majority of the sockeye fry are put directly into Baker Lake and migrate out a year later. Definitely not a controled environment like a hatchery. Some won't survive (what carcassman said), some will get eaten, some will residualize, some won't find the collector, some will die in the transfer.

The spawning beaches are gravel filled pools with upwelling water below the gravel. They have four of them. Fry emerging from the gravel migrate out a channel and are collected and trucked to the lake.

PSE put some pretty good videos out on how it all operates.

Upstream trapping: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs9-u5puIf4

Downstream trapping: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SqHr7uUKkU&list=PLKBwvqFi6HOh-BHJ3Js-AQnnczWJYorZY&index=5

Cool stuff.

another issue with the lake WA run is that by the time that adult collection takes place the time for recreation has long since passed, with the adult capture taking place from Sept-Nov there is no way to insure egg take before the sport/tribal fisheries. Also something else to take into consideration is that its estimated that 40 to 60 % of the natural production takes place in the lowest part of the river below the collection site under I405, in addition to these factors the WDFW staff has to allow for safe passage for wild cedar river CK and CO which have a similar run timing to the SO, so at times trapping the remaining 40 to 60% of the run becomes more difficult.

Ok, so what happened to the fry production 2 years ago? Can someone tell me why it was so low? Was there a freeze, hot summer, etc that year?

Waterboy-- there is probably a site with weekly Baker Lake water temps and for sure you can find air temps for that elevation. Check out the poolsize for the lake ETC

Waterboy,

This year's run is coming mainly from fry production 3 years ago. There are a couple of factors that influenced that. One, it came from a low cycle abundance year, that even though it has been increasing since the FSC began operating, it continues to lag behind other brood years. Second, and this is likely to become more apparent when something close to full productivity of the Baker sub-basin is reached. That factor is that most sockeye lake populations that cycle from low in what we'll call year one (Y1), larger in Y2, even larger in Y3, and largest in Y4. Then it sorta' crashes to begin with low abundance Y1 again. And the cycle repeats. Every 4th year you get the peak of the cycle, followed by the lowest part of the cycle. This generally relates to forage abundance in the lake, where the peak population grazes it down such that there is less feed for the next brood year in the cycle. Then it builds back up to the peak, and then crashes again. This is actually very common to many predator and prey population relationships. In this case the predators are juvenile sockeye, and the prey are cladocerans - daphnia zooplankton.

And since that isn't complicated enough, add in all the other factors that were posted above. There are enough factors at work every year that significant variations are a natural and normal part of environmental productivity and capacity. An "average" year is one of the least common.

Sg

Salmo,

Last year WDFW had a web page with a count tally of returning sockeye. I can't seem to find an updated page this year. Do you or anyone know if WDFW will be posting the return tally on the web? Thanks.

waterboy -
Last year the counts could be found at -

http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/salmon/sockeye/baker_river.html

Assume that they will be there this year. The first fish usually show up at the trap in late June or early July but don't expect significant numbers until at least the second week of July.

Curt

Thank you Smalma.

Waterboy,

Smalma covered it. I also expect WDFW will put that on their website. Otherwise Brett spends all day answering the same question on the phone to callers.

Sg

I saw the tribes netting last week under the Hwy 9 bridge. Figured they were fishing sockeye so it got me looking for the WDFW sockeye count page.

Probably netting for Chinook, but there will be some sockeyes (and steelhead ) in there, too.

Fish on...

Todd

How are the tribes able to fish when "the others" cannot? I thought it was split 50/50. How much longer are the tribes able to fish than the rest?

Chinook for the sporties opens the day after tomorrow on the Skagit and the Cascade, and those aren't the only two places we catch those due, either.

The steelhead? We get "our share" during the hatchery run...I wish we were fishing for them in March and April.

Fish on...

Todd

P.S. We'll be catching our share of the sockeyes in Baker Lake.