Status of Washington Chum runs?

[First Bite]

I spend most of my time fishing the rivers on the north coast of Oregon and we have a very limited run of native Chum Salmon on two rivers; the Kilchis and Miami.  The fishing season is limited to catch & release as these fish are barely holding their own.  My question is to you guys in Washington that have access to the Chum salmon, are the native runs doing okay? 

Thanks in advance

Mark

[nick]

I can speak to the chum runs on three Washington rivers. The Nisqually, the Puyallup and the Carbon. The chum runs are doing just fine on these three rivers. You asked about "native" runs. That seems strange to me. That kind of implies that there is something other than wild chum. Maybe hatchery chum?  I've never heard of chum being from a hatchery. At least, not in Washington.

Anyway, the chum run up the Puyallup/Carbon was exceptional, this year. Several thousand fish made it up to spawn. The Nisqually was not quite as good. Fewer this year and last.

[Brian]

Mark, most Washington rivers seem to have excellent numbers of returning chums! In fact they are so thick at times they can be considered a pest while steelheading. Wild fall/ winter runs are doing well, but a few of the summer stocks out on Hood Canal  are protected due to low numbers of returning fish.

[FireFish]

Mark, a large percentage of the Washington Chum are wild. However, I have reports on tribal hatchery plants for 2002 Chum. Numbers released; Upper Skagit 223,247:  Stillaguamish 547,943:  Tulalip 6,574,000:  Muckleshoot 1,159,300: Suquamish 1,514,626:  Puyallup 2,135,125:  Skokomish 2,138,098: Plus a few other Tribal Hatcheries.  That totals, believe it or not, 15,066,774 Chum Plants. In comparison the total Tribal Hatchery release for other fish is as follows:

Fall Chinook------------------  12,500,504
Spring/Summer Chinook--  2,322,046
Coho------------------------------9,430,639
Chum----------------------------15,066,744
Sockeye-------------------------1,254,923
STEELHEAD--------(only)----918,859

This helps to understand why on some rivers, in some years, there just seems to be soooooo, many Chum and perhaps so few Steelies....

FireFish...

[First Bite]

Thank guys.  If the Chum are anything like the ones we have here I bet you probably have some incredible days fishing for them.  I only targeted the Chum run here once this fall and they would attack cerise jigs with a vengeance.

Of all the salmon recovery that has happened in the past few years on the Coast Rivers, the chum are still struggling. 


Mark