I have snorkeled the Sky, SnoQ and the Snoho this past week they are at Aug temps and flows already. Seeing a lot more dead fish and craw dads than normal. Never seen this this early , however I think there was a big drought in 1987 that carried into Oct. that had super low flows. The fish held in the salt much later than usual. What do think will happen to the salmon runs this season?

I think we will see epic low flows and high water temps through Aug. the fish will be late and then we will see blow out floods mid to late sept. All the way trough oct.

Probably the worst, flow wise, that I have heard of was a Hood Canal creek that was surveyed weekly for chum. A whole series of weeks with zero live or dead. A bit of rain and the next survey had a couple hundred dead and no live. They waited till there was water then spawned and died. I have seen coho hold in really cold water (31-32 degrees) for close to two months before the thaw. Again it was hurry up, spawn, and die.

If we get a really large pink run coupled with high temps we may have massive die-offs as they deoxygenate the whole river. Pinks have done this in AK, Chinook at least once on the eastside.

There might not be too much problem with the Skagit, Puyallup, and Nisqually as they will have lots of cod glacial meltwater. The snow-melt driven streams will likely get awfully warm.

Lake WA will be a death trap in August for fish transiting from the locks to lake.

gonna be some great pink fishing!

Saw this coming late winter and early spring. Adjusted my early summerun trips earlier than normal. Usually I'd be one the river this week but the river levels are low. Reports say that it's improving but better to hit it early.

I think you're on the right track Incognegro, but the floods won't likely happen in September, but rather late October at the height of the coho run....so we'll miss it again. I hope I'm wrong. Last year was my worst in 30 years on the Snoho after 2013 being the best. Appreciate every good day on a river, you may never have another.

I think some smaller streams will nearly go dry, or sub-surface, in their lower reaches. Chinook will be denied access to natal streams in some cases. Summer-fall chinook in rivers like the Stilly may experience a high pre-spawning mortality (some managers are already making plans to salvage fish before this happens if safe holding areas can be found or arranged). Juvenile coho, steelhead, and cutthroat populations are going to crash to lows, possibly record lows.

Pink salmon will spawn in chinook redds. Then more pinks will spawn on the pink redds. The Puget Sound pink population should drop to near the levels typical before the big upswing of the past decade.

The coho run could be late, but peak spawning in December should still happen. No significant fall rains until Nov, with one or two high flow events in Nov-Dec. Low water summer of 2016, but not nearly as low as 2015, so the stream rearing obligates aren't going extinct. But they're sure going to have a couple of really bad years. Do stock up on coho this year; there won't be many harvestable the following two years.

I hope someone dredges this thread up next year to see how the predictions match up with what happens.

I'm not sure how a couple of you jumped on a "doomsday thread", this was started as a conversation and opinions of the drought/heat effect on our local rivers. Reality....the water flows will be lower and warmer. I went swimming in the Snoqualmie yesterday near Fall City and the water temp and level was similar to late August. In two months, the river will be at a place it hasn't been in recent (or longer) memory. It WILL effect fishing in the fall.
On a side note...the river is full of people floating in rafts and tubes. In the middle of 100's of people floating by was a guy flyfishing the mouth of the Raging river. He was casting expertly between the rafts....for some reason he wasn't getting any bites.

Snake, this was a legit post. There's always trolls that want to start chit for no reason. I say hit it really early in the morning....good luck and tight lines.

Interesting memory from a big drought in the 80s. The Skagit, Stilly, and Snoh tribs got so low that the juvenile coho abandoned them for the mainstem. The rivers were reported to look more like hatchery ponds with all the coho crowded in. Come fall rains, they went back to the creeks. Depending on how low it gets and when the rains return it may not be a unmitigated disaster.

I read somewhere recently that Canada has halted fishing the rivers do to extremely low and very warm waters. now I don't recall if this was only BC.

Vancouver Island

Checked out happenings on the Wynoochee yesterday. Up below the dam, the water was still nice and cool, but crazy low. Down at the Crossover, it was even lower, and probably about 70 degrees. I took one step in the river and knew the best possible outcome from fishing would be a few dead smolts, so I decided to bag it.

In case anyone's been wondering (I was), all the Green Diamond land from mid-river up is still closed to motorized access. The signs they put up cite extreme fire danger as the current reason. Most gates were unlocked, but there were logging operations going on everywhere I thought about driving in to have a look. As I was driving back downstream, I saw them locking the 7400 gate, so I guess we're still locked out of the area. I was just hoping they might relax the closure once winter steelhead season ended, but alas....