Is anyone concerned about the PDO data?

June data was just posted showing six consecutive months of warm ocean conditions in the north pacific. We have enjoyed a cold ocean or negative PDO for the past six years or so along with good salmon runs. Unless this turns around soon my prediction is that a year from now the run forecasts will be substantially smaller than this year.

http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/PDO.latest

Nah. The forecasts will be high; it will be the runs that are small. Not aware of any WA salmon that use PDO is the forecast but I would like to be proven wrong.

I read a bit back that ole Nino maybe in store for us and not just the fish take a hit, everyone does. Nino years are bad for flooding and a whole load of stuff. I do not see the fish or us doing well if it comes to pass.

perhaps. But, a while ago a biologist/hydrologist for (of all places) WDFW made the point that really big floods were the agent of habitat creation. Move a lot of material, clean out channels, collect gravel, deposit LWD.

Another bio showed some slides of a stream that had been protected/not had floods/fire/slides in a long time. The stream was down to bedrock, no gravel to spawn in. Sort of like downstream of a dam.

But, since we heavily develop and manage the floodplains we will have an in-river disaster as the stream can't move so it will dig.

No argument here but in 1997 ( I think as it has been a bit ) the flood was really a ugly sucker in the 100 year bracket and lord it blew the East Folk Satsop apart. Massive gravel movement & channelization resulting drastically reduced Chinook spawning areas & eggs in ribbons on the gravel front to back from Schafer Park up. In fact the park had a orange ground cover.

Has the river recovered yes I think so but it took several years and did not resemble what was present prior to the flood. It my mind that is part of the natural process but the problem is harvest is not restrained so the problem the natural process creates is not so much about the rivers & floods but our refusal to moderate harvest to reflect the natural processes.

In the short term those massive floods are bad. You're right that if we allow unrestrained floods and severely constrain escapement then the fish lose.

There have now been nine consecutive months of the warm ocean conditions or positive numbers for the PDO. Normally this is an unfavorable condition for the food chain that salmon depend on and could have a substantial negative impact on the coho run size next year. My limited sampling of Grays Harbor coho this year suggests that the fish are smaller than normal which could be a hint that the food source is limited for a run that started out with good survival in a favorable ocean. Another hint is the lack of anchovies in the bay. I have not been able to find any and there have been few pelicans even searching the bay.

the observed warm temperatures are higher and cover more of the northern Pacific than the PDO typically affects. For all but the Gulf of Alaska, the warm waters appear to lie in a relatively shallow layer near the surface. The cold near-shore conditions in the Pacific Northwest also don't match the typical PDO pattern.

Warm ocean temperatures favor some species but not others. For instance, sardines and albacore tuna often thrive in warmer conditions. Pacific Coast salmon and steelhead rely on cold-water nutrients, which they may have found recently in the narrow margin of cold water along the Northwest coast. But if the warmth continues or expands Pacific Northwest salmon and steelhead could suffer in coming years.

Cliff Mass says the warm blob is over -

http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2014_10_01_archive.html

I upgraded my boat. I now have a boat that can do Tuna, Marline and wahoo. Just getting ahead of the current trend!

I'm thinking about getting a flat bottom skiff with a tower so I can target reds and tarpon in the sound!

Times they are a changing. Unfortunately the system is to big and to slow to make the changes necessary to save the fish.

Imagine trying to get the commercials and tribes to "volunterily" reduce the catch!

I just got back from fishing in the Keys, maybe I can stay a little closer to home next year and still target the same fish.

Well we now have 20 months of unfavorable or warm ocean conditions based on PDO data. Some monthly numbers were the most positive in the past 100 years.

This year the coho are late or way under the forecast at least in Grays Harbor. The cause may be the warm ocean, low iron, minimal food chain problem. If that is the reason then next year will be dismal for both coho and chinook. In addition 2017 could see a low chinook run and more difficulty in meeting escapement.

Yes - I'm concerned. This El Nino is so strong they've even nicknamed it "Bruce Lee"! We are going to have another extremely dry winter with little to no snow-pack (again). Its going to be really rough next year.

However, this too shall pass. Eventually we'll swing back. I just hope what little fish we have left can withstand another year.

Tarpon, Snook, Redfish, Peakock Bass, all in the Snohomish estuary system, now I know why they breached that dike to enlarge it. Can't wait.

http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~mantua/REPORTS/PDO/pdo_paper.html

Yes something to worry about for the salmon angler.

Seems like Calif. chinook are coming back at a much smaller size this year. Hope that trend doesn't continue up the coast in subsequent years.

hmmmm.

So I wonder how the steelhead do? It'd be interesting to correlate the cycle to historic steelhead returns controlled for other mitigating run trend factors.

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