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Columbia River Salmon and Steelhead Run-size Updates by Mark Yuasa Seattle Times, September 5, 2012

Here are the latest Columbia River salmon and steelhead return figures:

Fall chinook

Through Wednesday, Sept. 5, there were 130,323 adult fall chinook counted at Bonneville Dam. The cumulative and daily chinook counts to date are below average for this time of year.

Counts include 104,854 bright stock fish (URB and MCB groups) and 23,347 adult tules (primarily from Spring Creek Hatchery).

The Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) has not updated the chinook run sizes but thinks the tules are tracking near the preseason forecast of 60,200 fish returning to the mouth of the Columbia and the bright stock fish are tracking somewhat less than preseason forecast of 443,100.

TAC will likely be able to make a point estimate update for Chinook sometime next week.

Steelhead

From July 1 through Sept. 5, a total of 171,050 A and B index summer steelhead have passed Bonneville Dam.

Of these 66,363 are unclipped fish (38.8-percent). Approximately 14 to 18-percent of hatchery steelhead are released without adipose fin clips as part of supplementation and restoration activities.

TAC downgraded the A Index steelhead run size to 191,000 from the preseason forecast of 311,800.

It is too early to update B steelhead but data to-date indicates the B steelhead will be well below the preseason forecast of 52,800.

TAC recognized that although it is early in the run the Group B steelhead return will likely be less than 35,000 and potentially less than 20,000.

Next week the 50-percent date for "B" steelhead at Bonneville Dam will be attained and TAC will likely issue an updated "B" run size.

Coho

16,672 adult coho have passed Bonneville through September 5 which is 62-percent of the recent 10 year average for this date.

It is too early to update the coho run size.