07/05/2009

Associated Press

The number of sockeye salmon returning to Lake Washington this summer is one of the lowest on record, dashing chances of any recreational or commercial fishing later this year in the area.

The Seattle Times reports that nearly 13,000 sockeye salmon have returned to the lake east of Seattle. The rate is on pace to meet the forecast of 19,000 salmon, not enough to grant a fishing season for the popular fish.

This year's run is on pace to be half of last year's, which was 33,702 — the lowest on record since 1972. In 2007, 69,271 salmon returned.

Those numbers are drastic contrast to 2006, when the run numbered 453,543 and state authorities granted several days of fishing.

The recent sharp declined has many fishermen worried.

"Perhaps it will be a new record low, all of us are praying that doesn't happen," said Frank Urabeck of Bonney Lake, Wash., a longtime sport-fishing activist. "We are in a hole and we need to get out of it, my hope is that if things turn around in the ocean, then these fish have a capability of coming back fast."

Biologists are unable to pinpoint the reason for the sharp drops, but some say poor food-production conditions may be a factor.

In order to allow fishing, at least 350,000 fish have to make it through the Ballard Locks in Seattle. That's where the Puget Sound meets the fresh water lakes of the Seattle area.

"They are great eating, and you get mom and pop and old folks in anything that floats," Urabeck said. "It's just an incredible time."

Sockeye didn't always swim through Lake Washington. The fish were planted there in the 1930s after the lake's shores were changed to create the locks and ship canal. Now, the fry hatch on the Cedar River live in Lake Washington for a year before leaving for the ocean.