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I am planning to visit Adams River on September 29 this year and would like to know if it is the good time to go? Or, if not Adams River, where in the Seattle area can I go to see salmon run in late September or early October?

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The Adams River area is always beautiful and welcomes visitors.  However, if you are going there to go “salmon watching” you need to know that it is a sockeye dominated system that has a distinct 4 year cycle of dominant and subdominant runs.  The dominant run times are October 2006, 2010, 2014 and so on.  This October, not a dominant cycle year, they expect far fewer fish.

Sockeye in Adams River

Chilko River with a forecasted return of 1.71 million sockeye may be as good viewing as the Adams, though they come in earlier.  The Adams River sockeye co- migrate with salmon bound for other watersheds, and this aggregate return is forecasted at 2 million fish.

Please note that ALL stock are retuning less than 50% of expected numbers. 

This is a pink salmon year for the Fraser.  So, if it is salmon you want to see and not necessarily the Shuswaps, then Seton/ Anderson and Harrison areas may provide you with better wildlife watching. You can go several times over a period of a month and observe the arriving robust salmon spawning and defending their territory and then return several weeks later to see the bears, eagles, wolves, even mallard ducks feasting on the decaying carcasses.

Contact the local stewardship groups and see about participating in egg takes, adult spawner counts or smelly but very necessary work of carcass transplants.  They always need help. Lower Fraser stewards need help with these activities until early December. Additional information on where and when to see salmon is available from DFO.

Farther south, the Puget Sound 2007 forecast for pink salmon alone is an estimated 3.3 million, plus other salmon species this year, and the biggest runs will return to the Green, Puyallup and Snohomish rivers.  Suggestions to see salmon in this area:

Cedar River

• Seattle Public Utilities offers a Cedar River Watershed Discovery tour. I have been on this tour and it was very worthwhile. 
  
• Tour the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery on Issaquah Creek, where they have posted a live salmon camera
• Every Saturday in the fall, the Olympic Outdoor Center (360.697.6095) offers a salmon tour for all ages that visits a hatchery and kayaks to see the salmon.
• Nisqually and Skagit rivers, hatcheries and estuaries are more great places to spend a day viewing salmon and habitat. 
• Plan your own salmon outing
  • Check the map to see the different watersheds, or go to the Washington State Fish and Wildlife website and look up viewing opportunities. 
  • Salmon watching in the Kitsap Peninsula
  • More salmon viewing information

Hope this helps you with your holiday plans.

Fin,
Professor Salmon