Many thanks to our CWCAP volunteers for their hard work in the 2025 Salmon Survey that ended in early December. We collected a ton of great data and answered a ton of visitor questions with over 2280 visitor interactions in the season.
| Yearly Chum Total | Chum Calc Date | Yearly Coho Total | Coho Calc Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 429 | 2025-12-06 | 15 | 2025-12-06 |
The total Chum count in 2025 is 14% of 2024’s historic high. In the previous 10 years of data only 2024, 2021, and 2022 have had higher totals. While 2025’s count is lower than the previous 10 year average, 666, that average was heavily skewed by 2024’s 3033 chum. 2025’s total is much more in line with the previous 10 year median of 311.
| Total Surveys | Total Volunteers | Total Hours Surveying | Estimated Visitor Interactions |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19 | 55 | 530 | 2280 |
We had 46% more survey events in 2025 compared to 2024 mainly due to the addition of afternoon survey shifts. These afternoon shifts also helped us get more volunteers involved. We had 34% more volunteers in 2025 compared to 2024.
Why was 2025’s total so different than 2024?
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife forecasted a 2025 Central Puget Sound fall Chum run of 275,386. This is 56% higher than 2024’s estimate of 176,454.
The Apple Cove Point Test Fishery, operated by the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission (NWIFC), is a valuable local resource for estimating the abundance of fish. While the peak catch was higher in 2025 compared to 2024 (9,660 vs 8,211) the catch total for the season was lower (18,161 vs 21,380) despite two extra weeks of data recording. Catch total doesn’t control for the amount of effort it took to catch all those fish so we can also look at another provided metric, Catch Per Unit Effort (CPUE). One of the challenges with this metric is different groups have different definitions of unit effort meaning sometimes unit effort means per vessel per day, other times it means per net per day. As long as the group measuring is consistent in their definition of unit effort CPUE can be a useful metric of indirect abundance in a specific location. For Apple Cove Point the provided CPUE is the average of the sets in the week being measured so in this case catch total is just as useful to estimate abundance.
week46-testfisheries| Survey Date | Live Chum | Dead Chum | Live Coho | Dead Coho | Live Unknown | Dead Unknown |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-10-25 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 2025-10-30 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 6 | 2 | 1 |
| 2025-11-01 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
| 2025-11-04 | 27 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2025-11-07 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2025-11-08 | 32 | 13 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 2025-11-11 | 53 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 |
| 2025-11-15 | 183 | 29 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 2025-11-18 | 188 | 44 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 0 |
| 2025-11-22 | 126 | 78 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 2025-11-25 | 126 | 83 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| 2025-11-29 | 50 | 95 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2025-12-02 | 27 | 38 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2025-12-06 | 6 | 22 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Our single day high of live salmon in 2025 was 188 on 11-18. This is much lower than 2024’s historic high of 1545 which was on 11-12. Why was the peak day in 2025 almost a week after the peak in 2024? It could be due to a significant rain event on 11/15/25 with over an inch of rain to help the salmon enter the streams. The heaviest rain in November 2024 was 0.72 inches on 11/11, one day before the salmon peak.
As usual the bulk of the 2025 season’s Coho were in the first few weeks of surveying though a few were found in the final weeks.
The spawning percentages in 2025 are difficult to compare to previous years because there were so many carcasses we couldn’t collect spawning data for mainly due to predation. One takeaway is that a significant percentage of chum are spawning. It’s challenging to extrapolate how many of the fish missing spawning data had actually spawned before being predated. It’s likely that predators preferred unspawned fish over spawned fish. Predators find salmon eggs very tasty just like many humans do.
Salmon had no problem passing the beaver dams with help from heavy rains and notch exclusion fencing maintained by CWCAP volunteers. No fish were seen in Mohlendorph Creek in 2025 as the vast majority stayed in the upper sections of Piper’s Creek.