I was at a Salmon Stronghold meeting last night and I was talking to someone about the upcoming Pink run, the estimate has been increased to 20 - 50 million. Apparently the out migration count of 900,000 million fry was under estimated as the test fishery boat missed 4 days, after recalculations the estimate of fry was over 1 billion.
On another subject but kinda related, we talked about why some runs of salmon are so much stronger than other and compared life cycles of individual stocks. For example the Harrison river system has 3 seperate CU ( Conservation Units) of Sockeye. One group spawn in Harrison Rapids in faster water, these fish dont migrate to Harrison Lake, the fry head strait out to the ocean which is very unusual for sockeye. The weaver creek stock spawns in weaver creek, then migrate up Harrison River into Harrison Lake, they spend 1 - 2 years in the lake then migrate out to sea. The 3rd stock is Harrison Lake sockeye which spawn in the lake. Interesting to note that last year record return of 900,000 spawners were the Harrison Rapids stock that go strait to sea, also, these fish dont migrate past fish farms and head out using the inside passage.
Not sure if you guys are familiar with Salmon Strong Hold concepts, maybe that is another topic.