Northwest Sportsman – August 2019

72 Northwest Sportsman AUGUST 2019 | nwsportsmanmag.com

FISHING

occurred in 2009 when it peaked at

more than 10 million, then hit 6-plus

million in 2011, rose to more than 8

million in 2013 and then dipped to 4

million in 2015.

In the summer of 2015, the sky fell

out for pinks as they returned during

an extreme drought coupled with

bathtub-like water temperatures in

rivers. This was soon followed by

four big fall floods that swamped

the redds of the fish that had made

it to the spawning grounds. The hits

didn’t stop there as the fry migrated

out to an ocean that hadn’t shaken

off the effects of The Blob yet.

It was no blushing matter in 2017 as

the Puget Sound pink forecast tanked

and was less than 82 percent of the

historical 10-year average. Around 1.1

million were predicted but the actual

return was only around 511,000.

That relatively low abundance is

expected to continue in 2019 as the

Washington Department of Fish and

Wildlife has forecast another tough

year for pinks, with 608,388 entering

Puget Sound streams. This could be

among the lowest runs on record

dating back to 1959.

“We’re still digging out of a pretty

big hole,” says Aaron Dufault, a

WDFW pink salmon stock analyst. “It

is a boom-or-bust situation for pinks,

and we’ve had those busts in the past

couple of odd-numbered years.”

Pink returns are based off of each

river’s fry production, and a breakdown

of this year’s forecasts looks like this:

Nooksack: 24,476; Skagit: 114,769;

Stillaguamish: 47,919; Snohomish:

128,362; Green-Duwamish: 141,130;

Puyallup: 47,905; Nisqually: 25,380;

miscellaneous South Puget Sound

streams: 143; Hood Canal: 70,675;

and Strait of Juan de Fuca: 7,629.

By contrast, the Fraser River pink

return in 2019 is expected to be

5,018,600. However, British Columbia

fishery managers have wildly missed

the mark with recent predictions.

PINKS ARE MUCH more prolific than

their Chinook and coho cousins and

are known to recover faster and easily

adapt to different spawning locations.

For a few decades not many

pinks were found in rivers like

the Green and Nisqually. Then in

2001 they unexplainably increased

exponentially, and by 2009 more than

3.3 million returned to the former.

“If everything aligns in the proper

order, their survival can go much

higher,” Dufault says. “They do tend

to make a fast recovery.”

A wide variety of gear will get pinks

to bite, but two of the best saltwater

setups are a pink Buzz Bomb and

squid (top) for casting off the beach

or into schools from a boat, and

the “humpy special,” a pink squid

behind a dodger for trolling off a

downrigger or with a banana weight.

(ANDY WALGAMOTT, TERRY WIEST)