2014 outdoors: fishing

Columbia River salmon runs continued a soaring trend in 2014.

This year’s sockeye run is the largest since fish-counting began at Bonneville Dam in 1938.

By Sept. 3, a record 614,192 sockeye had passed the dam on their way to spawn up Columbia tributaries in British Columbia, northcentral Washington and Idaho. This year’s run eclipsed 2012 total run record of 515,673 sockeye, which came after a 2010 record run of 386,525.

Last year’s sockeye return was only 186,100.

The 2015 sockeye run could be another record-setter, according to regional fisheries managers.

Fall chinook came a bit shy of surpassing the post-dams record of 1.27 million salmon over Bonneville Dam set in 2013, but it was still a whopper of a fishery. A new single-day record was set when 67,521 adult fall chinook passed Bonneville Dam on Sept. 8.

Spring chinook fishing was excellent and coho returns also were exceptional, allowing Idaho to open its first official ocean coho fishing season in the Clearwater River.

Anglers turned out to set fall chinook harvest records all along the Columbia, including 32,427 salmon in the Hanford Reach.