2022 Salmon Survey Results

The 2022 Salmon Survey is a wrap. Now it’s time for a deep dive into the data we gathered this year. Thanks again to all volunteers who helped gather this data.

Our yearly total of salmon is our highest ever recorded, 13% higher than our previous record set last year. A significant chunk of this increase was from Coho salmon but the Chum numbers were also higher. Were these higher numbers expected? Possibly. The North of Falcon season forecasts created by state, federal and tribal fishery managers projected slightly higher numbers of Coho and Chum in the Puget Sound compared to last year.

Compared to last season the run started a few days later and ended a few days later. The start and end of the salmon run are highly dependent on the rain. In 2020 we had significant rainfall starting on October 9th and our survey started on October 15th. 2021 and 2022 both had their first significant October rains about 3 weeks into October and both surveys started in late October. In 2020 there was little rainfall after October 15th which may explain why the run ended earlier than other surveys. You may be wondering about that precipitous drop at 11-22 in the count by time of year chart. That survey had heavy rain and extremely high water levels that obscured live fish and washed away carcasses. Many of the carcasses that weren’t washed away were likely hidden by the high water level and carried over to the next survey.

As usual, most live fish and redds were seen in Piper’s Creek along the lower meadow. A decent number of salmon made it up to Venema Creek this year but they stopped several hundred feet earlier than last year. The beach was a great spot to see carcasses but not live fish. Click and drag to move the map or click the icons in the legend to filter by type.

Similar to last year the majority of Chum spawned successfully while less than half of Coho spawned. A higher percentage of Coho spawned this year (30.8% full and partial vs 9.4%) which may be due to the significantly higher number of Coho present this year. We continue to see higher amounts of predation of Coho salmon versus Chum.

Based on data from the past few years there appears to be a trend that male Chum die earlier on in the season than females do. This trend will hopefully become more clear with several more years of data. One thing to note with these plots is that more Chum females returned than males (534 vs 425). This was also true in 2021 (506 vs 418) but not in 2020 (81 vs 101).

The average Chum length at Carkeek is close to the global average of around 24 inches. The average Coho length at Carkeek has been consistently lower than the global average also of around 24 inches. Coho females have been larger than Coho males on average for the last four years at Carkeek.