Okay, at the Tucannon. My last few trips I had not seen any salmon in the river, but as soon as the water levels came up there were a few dozen salmon in the lower river up there spawning.

So I am asking the knowledgeable, Why all of a sudden were the salmon there doing there business so low in the river? I thought the majority if not all were pretty much done by the month of November.

Again, thanks for any info. I am still learning the habits of anadromous fish.

Scott

They might be spawned out fish from the Lyons Ferry hatchery just downstream? Once they spawn they have to hang around somewhere while they rot. The boat basin on the Franklin County side at McNary had a bunch of them, all red and covered with cottage cheese, a couple weeks ago.

I see, but these fish were actively spawning, digging redds and whatnot.

I always see a few salmon in the lower river in November. Usually not very many though. They could just be late like every other run has been this year. Did you catch any steelhead on that trip? One thing that I have noticed about the tuc is when there are salmon around the steelhead are gone. I don't know why but it is just an observation.

I think Pasco's observation is correct in many instances. I've seen the same thing on little tribs on the Clearwater during the spring run-off. The main river is raging and brown, and there's a bunch of old leper steelhead holding right at the mouth of the trib waiting to die.

As for spawning fish, that is exactly the classic behavior of fall chinook. The same thing is going on right now all up and down the PNW coast. The chinook need that plume of native stream water to draw them in. Without it, they will eventually trickle in and do their thing because their biological clock forces the issue, but with a good freshet of water very large pods of salmon do the orgy thing. If there are any native fall chinook remnants on the lower Snake, they are pretty well forced to utilize tribs like the Tuc since the lower river is no longer good spawning habitat with the dams operating at full pool. So the fish tend to hold in the Snake just as they do in the estuaries off the coast, and when the rain hits, they make their move.

I remember about a decade ago on the Yakima a good bunch of kings had made up over Roza dam. But that year the water was very warm and they stopped in the pool just above the dam. They just hung at the bottom... after a few weeks the WDFW ask the KRD(Local Reclaimation district) to send a shot of cool lake or reservior water down to "get 'em movin" up to the spawning grounds. Think it was about a 30 hr boost of water that did the job.

A biologist here I talked with said kings can spawn into early Nov. up here(Wanapum) depending on "conditions".

Might want to check out a book called Biological Time by Bernie Taylor, 2004. Written with lots of biologists & Natural Resource folks. They get into other aspects that drive the fish. It's very interesting and they mention rivers here in the Northwest. I found his info gathered from old Indians particularly insightful. Author is from Oregon.