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Columbia River Summer Steelhead on a Record Pace by Mark Yuasa Seattle Times, July 10, 2010

Wow, the fish return records on the Columbia River continue to get waxed, and this time it is summer steelhead.

"Another day, another new record!" said Joe Hymer, a state Fish and Wildlife.

The 54,357 steelhead counted at Bonneville Dam through July 7 is a new record. The previous record was 50,361 fish in 2001.

"Another interesting fact about this year's steelhead count to date is 24,622 (45 percent) have been wild based upon observations of presence/absence of adipose fins of fish passing the counter windows," Hymer said.

The Technical Advisory Committee also met late this past week, and updated the Columbia River sockeye and summer chinook run sizes.

The TAC updated the summer chinook run to 75,000 fish at the Columbia River mouth. This is less than the pre-season forecast of 88,800 fish, and less than last week's update of 82,000 fish.

TAC stayed with last week's sockeye run update of 375,000 fish at the Columbia River mouth. TAC noted that the Snake River sockeye have exceeded their preseason forecast of 600 fish with a count of 686 sockeye at Lower Granite Dam through July 6.