Checked out the counts through the 19th and they are within 30 fish of last year same day...know its early but any predictions on a season this year? Projected 125,000...

My guess is no season but a bigger run than anticipated...250,000

Any reason you can't target them for C&R. Thought it would be fun to take some freinds kids out & catch some (Big fish) not just little trout.

Going to get a head start on Sockeye and be fishing the Situk River in Alaska by 1:00pm Saturday. The river is filling up fast with chromers

Latest on the Sockeye Hatchery: Roz has run out of State Court Appeals.
She has one more Federal Court appeal left. Her attorney is working Pro-bono, ergo, he has nothing to loose and everything to gain by continuing with the appeal. The only way he can get paid is for Roz to win the appeal..If she wins, then the court will make the City of Seattle pay his fees retroactive.
folks in the know think she has little chance of winning.

Any reason? How about the ONLY reason - it's ILLEGAL and you'll get a big fat ticket if you are caught targeting sockeye out in the lake.'

Now, on the other hand, if you are targeting the cutthroats out in the lake and happen to ACCIDENTLY hook a sockeye (released of course) than there is nothing wrong with that.

Guaranteed you will get a ticket if you fish with a flasher and bare hooks right now.

Guaranteed you will NOT get a ticket if you fish with an Army Truck 2.5 coyote spoon fished directly off of your downrigger using light spinning gear. HINT HINT. HINT.

Not too sure I can barf out any more of a LARGER hint than that without just blatantly saying that you WILL hook sockeye on a coyote spoon while out fishing for cutts in the lake.

Ooops. There, I said it.

Thanks Parker, Just the info I needed.

hey Parker- Want to go try for em in the salt again?

Sure Supcoop - if by "try" you mean going to Area 10 and seeing if we can "accidently" hook in to a kinger!

Oh yeah, how was that warm sunny place with the warm blue water? I hate you.

Warm and sunny with blue water, any other questions? Wanted to do the underwater photos of the tuna coming in but 1- mom left camera charger at hotel here so camera abilities were very limited due to regular AA batteries and 2 - The sharks are freakin huge and looked like they wouldnt have minded if I had gotten in. Really though thought the trip was going to be a more or less bust for fishing. The last two hours after 20 hours or so were the golden ones. 25+ tuna in 2 hours. Good times.

Wuss. I would have jumped in and gotten the shot.

Glad to hear you had a good trip!

A lot of the sockeye coming through have been larger than normal, probably 5 year olds. Today's sockeye count was pretty good, and the schools have been getting larger. It might be a better return than what was expected as long as this isn't an early show and they'll crap out.

Also, a few chinook are showing up every day now, looking like three year olds. There was a very high proportion of two year old jacks last year, so there should hopefully be a good return of three year olds this year.

Heard from a little birdie that "the powers that be" are considering dropping the escapement number down from 350,000 to 250,000.

Seems the "science" of old wasn't all that great. Now that watersheds and ecosystems have been reevaluated, the escapement number doesn't need to be that high.

I heard that the quarter million escapement was a solid number. Don't know if and when they (not too sure who they are) will ever let the escapement number be dropped, though......

We'll see.

Sockeye numbers (as of the 19th) look WAY low to me.....

http://www.wdfw.wa.gov/fish/sockeye/counts.htm#counts

I have also heard that, maybe indirectly from the same little birdie.

From what I know of the history, the "science" of old wasn't bad, science was not the determining factor in setting the escapement at 350,000.

Numbers were just updated today, and if you thought it looked unlikely before, it's really unlikely now, IMHO.

Ok, using the word "bad" was unfair.

Do you know how that number was derived? Just curious to know how whomever came up with 350,000.

Thats a great question, who did come up with that number? Counts do look weak, already 10k behind last years pace...probably can tell by the 4th if there is even a shot this year...I heard the kings off shilshole bite bare hooks, is that just a rumor?

Sometime around 1968-1970 WDFW decided they needed a management plan for Lake Washington sockeye. They assigned a manager and got together a group of sockeye management experts to advise them. I was told by a now retired UW professor that based on experience with Alaska sockeye fisheries the group felt that 250,000 or even lower escapement was OK. Maybe only one person thought it should be as high as 350,000. It seems that 350,000 was chosen by WDFW because it is easier to manage a fishery that doesn't often meet escapement goals (no fishery, no problems). Now that 37 years have passed new people are taking another look at the escapement number.

The angle I heard regarding the development of the 350,000 Lk WA sockeye escapement goal is that Lk WA was believed able to grow the smolts that could result from seeding the system with 350k spawners. This was based on a so many sockeye smolts per acre of lake. That method has been used in BC and Alaskan systems, so it had precedent.

The method is flawed in several ways. First is that the Cedar River is flashy, and peak winter discharges greater than 8kcfs scour a high percentage of the eggs from the gravel. Second, Lk WA is full of predator species uncommon to many of the BC and Alaskan sockeye lakes. I'm not sure if that's an especially important factor, as those lakes all have predators too. Third, the method totally ignores spawner/recruit relationships, and rather blithely assumes that fully seeding the lake with fry will result in the best/optimal/maximum/take-your-pick abundance of sockeye recruits over time.

Rethinking the escapement goal is long over-due. I suspect an immense public value has been foregone by clinging to a simple management precedent. With the sockeye hatchery on the horizon, the topic will require further consideration. Sheesh; it sounds as though I'm championing a hatchery. In this case: a large urban area lake system with limited and unstable natural spawning habitat, I guess I am.

Sg

All I know is the Sockeye are visible in Mutiny Bay, and have been for over two weeks, now there are quite a few so those counts should be cruising upwards big time in the next few days. You used to be able to go out on the dock at the old Mutiny Bay Resort and see them cruising by underneath the dock, but now they tore the resort down last fall, and are building condo's, so no access to the dock at this time.

Looks like it is too early to call.