One of the things that anglers here in Central Washington State can be thankful for is the tremendous returns of sockeye to the region. This year over 755,000 sockeye passed over Bonneville Dam, and the vast majority of them were headed for our area. This was a new record for sockeye returns to the Columbia River, and another record was set for a fishery much closer to my home here in Leavenworth. At Tumwater Dam on the Wenatchee River over 190,000 sockeye were counted. This beat the previous record by over 73,000 fish and was nearly double the preseason forecast of 97,000. When I first moved to Leavenworth in the late 90s, we wouldn’t get enough fish for a season maybe every four years. In 1999 only 1,172 were counted. The big numbers of sockeye that return to Lake Wenatchee are small compared to the huge numbers that make their way up the Columbia and into Canada. The count at Wells Dam totaled over 490,000 sockeye last year. Mother Nature is largely responsible for these terrific numbers. Good escapement from the spawning beds, good ocean conditions and available feed all combine to make sockeye the biggest return of salmon on the Columbia.