Willamette Falls steelhead counts

[Dragfreedrift]

Ifishers-

Seems like the steelie counts are down quite a bit from last couple years. Past two years have had 20,000 plus summers over the falls. So far, this year looks kind of paltry by comparison.

Its gonna be a tough summer season.....

I think we lost a bunch of them in the low-water period when they were smolts a couple years ago.


Half Canuck

[dampainter]

shhhh.... don`t even think it!

[birdhunter]

Not so sure about that. Average summer steelhead returns between 1988 and 2001 up to Foster are 1106 fish by the end of May. So far we've had 2091 fish this year. That's almost 1000 more than the average.

As of May 8th, we'd had 4,910 summers over the falls. Since then they haven't been able to keep up with the cumulative count, but the average from the daily count during that period is 181.25 summers a day. Rough estimate would give you about 4,168 more steelies over the falls as of the end of May. That would give you a total of 9,078 summers somewhere above the falls before June. I'd say we'll be fine.

Don't believe me, get out there. I haven't been having any trouble with em.