05/17/2018 Chinook Update

After a bit of a lull, fish numbers are resuming in count, and the first waves have been hitting the last of the dams on the way to Riggins. This lull was possibly attributed in higher flows in the Columbia as discussed at the IDFG site. A second wave has been going over Bonneville.

Using the latest peaks in this data, we can informally estimate fish going from McNary to Ice Harbor (45 miles) in about a day. That's a pretty good clip, although in the next posts we'll take a few PIT tag samples to definitely determine if these are the same fish. As you look at fish counts through the basin, you see the percentage of fish pealing off to tributaries, and the ones remaining bound for further upstream.

Riggins remains about 230 miles upriver from the last count at Lower Granite, so at their current pace, the first fish got about 5 day from 05/15/2018. Who's to say if they keep that pace, we'll be doing more in depth analysis on how they're getting on in the next posts.

See our first update for more location information.