Ocean Conditions Update:
As you all may remember from last year, the entire Northern
Pacific Ocean was extraordinarily cold leading to outstanding plankton
growing conditions along the entire coasts of Washington, Oregon, and
Northern California. These great conditions fed an unusually productive
food chain for all of the young salmon that migrated to sea last year.
The result will be huge pink salmon returns to several Puget Sound
rivers and great coho returns to all coastal rivers. This will be a
great summer for anglers pursuing those species.
Those conditions persisted throughout the winter and even led
to the early appearance of upwelling conditions on the Washington and
Oregon Coasts in February. 2007 will be another year of great survival
for all species of salmon that migrated to sea in the last three months.
Of particular interest to climatologists last winter was that
the North Pacific was so far below normal temperature-wise all winter
that the El Nino on the equator was canceled out and Southern California
never got its El Nino flooding rains. This is more good news for salmon
in the North Pacific.
None of the above is good news for the true believers in global
warming, since, with the exception of one three-month period in the
summer of 2004, the North Pacific and the world began a gradual normal
cooling trend in 2001 and 2002.
This global and Pacific Ocean cooling trend led to the huge
chinook returns to the Columbia in 2004 and 2005, record pink salmon
returns in 2001, and excellent summer steelheading this year. Coastal
dungeness crab harvests will fail this year due to events in 2004, but
the cold North Pacific and global cooling will result in a speedy
recovery of that resource to record commercial harvests in 2009 and
beyond. Even chinook will be responding to global cooling. This year's
poor chinook returns are due to events in 2004, but I expect all-time
record returns to the Columbia by 2009 and continuing through 2011
due to Pacific Ocean and global cooling.
One result of global cooling to chronicle should it occur will
be the temporary expansion of pink salmon into rivers farther south. I
have already asked my customers in the Tillamook Bay area to let me know
if they hear of unusual salmon sightings in August and early September
in the Miami and Kilchis Rivers. Since those rivers have had native
chum salmon in the past and chum spawning areas are suitable for pinks,
I would not be surprised if pinks appear and local anglers mistake them
for small early coho. On this planet, you cannot have pink salmon runs
expanding south and global warming at the same time. Period.
The bad news last year for salmon anglers was that the ocean
was so cold (occasionally 8 degrees below normal) that most salmon runs
were delayed, until they were so late the fish wouldn't bite. Puget
Sound's coho were especially affected with some November runs not
appearing in numbers on spawning grounds until after Christmas. This
year appears to be different. While most of the North Pacific
temperatures are still below normal except for a wedge between Coos Bay
and Hawaii, most areas are only a couple degrees below normal. If
these conditions persist along with the prolific food chain currently in
place, not only will coho return on time in large numbers, they will bite.

This is from an albacore newsletter for 2007
Data distilled from NOAA site
Gordon