68000 Chinook over Bonneville today!!!

Unbelievable...63800 adults and over 4300 Jacks!

CM

Holy chit!

http://www.nwp.usace.army.mil/Missions/Environment/Fish/Cameras.aspx

sweet Jebus
Should break the 1/2 Million mark Tomorrow

And I just thought biters were parking at Tongue Point for 5-6 days.

Jeebus was I ever wrong.... it was simply wave after wave of new fish coming through.

We just happened to be fishing over a zhitpile of moving fish to get all those bites!

Have been watching the counts for the last couple weeks - pretty amazing. Keep in mind that we are the normal mid-point of the Bonneville counts. If the run is anything close to being normal timed we are looking a very large run and yes once again the managers likely missed another forecast..

Looking ahead the jack counts so far are tracking similar to the levels seen last year. Anyone up for a repeat of 2013 in 2014?

Curt

Coho and steelhead counts also took significant jumps yesterday as well (maybe a major movement was triggered by the storm last week). Regardless impressive numbers of fall Chinook to date over the river's first concrete wall.

Curt

Very Impressive.Good luck,
SZ

The thoughts of almost shuting it down a couple weeks ago.....makes a guy think a lil bit.

As far as I can tell going back through the annual counts since 1938, the 63,870 adult Chinook counted yesterday at Bonneville Dam may be a RECORD DAILY COUNT FOR ALL SALMONIDS, not just fall Chinook.

The 475,000 adult fall Chinook counted at Bonneville Dam to date is the 3rd highest on record for the entire run (August through December). Only 2003 (610,000) and 2004 (584,000) are larger if I'm reading this correctly.

Yes, but......

Having lots of fish get thru the fish ladder on one day does not say anything about the size of the annual return. There could be a record breaking number of fish moving thru the ladder due to, say, an increase in water temperature (like we're getting right now), but the overall run-size could be lower than the 10-year average.

I don't think that's happening, since the run-size estimate for Fall Chinook was expected to be considerably higher than the 10-year average. But my point remains. That is, individual daily counts do not reflect the run-at-large.

cohoangler -
While I agree that one big day does not a great run make the reality is that since the middle of August except for a couple days the 2013 daily counts have been above the 10 year average for each date. The last 3 days the counts have been nearly 150,000 adult Chinook; the 10 year average for those same 3 days is less than 60,000.

With the counts through yesterday being 475K and this week being the average mid-point of the run it is very hard to imagine that the final count will be less than 600k and maybe a lot more than that.

The next week will tell the tale.

Curt

Agreed. The run-size forecast indicated a strong run. It might be stronger than anticipated.

However, my sense is the high air temperatures this week (90F+) are warming the water, so the fish are making a bad-dash to get upstream, where it's cooler. So the high daily counts are the result of water conditions, combined with lots of fish.

I see that yesterday another 56,000 adults and 4,600 jacks when over Bonneville dam. That brings the fall total to 531,000 adults and 56,000 jacks.

With a preseason forecast of 576,000 adults headed above Bonneville expect to the river mouth it is pretty clear that the actual run size (including down river catches) will exceed the pre-season forecast and with nearly month left to be count likely by a lot.

Curt

do any cowboys net above Bonni ?

Cowboys can't net upstream of Bonneville. Treaty tribes only.

just watched the cam for about a minute and a half and saw probably 40 fish go through.......






willy

Yeah, it's pretty sweet! Does anyone know if the huge numbers of lamprey going through are normal?

yes the lamprey run is typical.

Reaching the end of the migration period for lampreys; the season total to date is a little over 22,000 and below the 10 year average.

I see that 42,506 adult Chinook and another 3,812 jacks went over the dam yesterday. Counts dropping off but to put things in perspective remember the 10 year average daily counts for the next week or so is 20,000 adults a day.

Curt

WOW... just WOW! To think this was little more than ONE chinook life cycle ago.

wonder if we have anything to look forward to this year?