While the peak may have been reached, counts of spawning sockeye salmon remain high enough at the Columbia River's Bonneville Dam to prompt a big jump in the forecast return.

The sockeye return to the mouth of the Columbia is now expected to be at least 210,000, which would be the biggest run since 1959, according to data compiled by the Oregon and Washington departments of fish and wildlife.

The sockeye count through Thursday at Bonneville, 146 river miles from the mouth, totals nearly 157,500 fish. That is already a greater number than any season total since 1985 and would be the second highest total since 1955, according to Fish Passage Center records.

Daily sockeye counts have been above 10,000 at the dam since June 18, rising to a peak of 15,910 Monday. Counts since have shrunk a bit – 13,925, then 10,419, then 10,632 – the past three days.

"We think the peak is past," said Stuart Ellis of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission and a member of the Technical Advisory Committee. TAC's federal, state and tribal members met Thursday to update salmon run forecasts. The preseason sockeye forecast was for a return of 75,600 fish to the river mouth. The "preliminary" run size update pegs the return at at least 210,000.

"Sockeye are notoriously cyclical," Ellis said of run totals that can vary greatly from year to year. Last year's return totaled only 26,000; 2006's was 37,000. The last big return was 130,000 in 2004 and the last to surpass 200,000 was a 200,759 total in 1985.

The outlook for the Columbia basin summer chinook return was boosted from the preseason estimate of 52,000 to from 57,000 to 60,000.

"It could be higher. It's still a little early for chinook" revised estimates, Ellis said. Through Thursday 26,012 "summer" chinook had been counted at Bonneville. Chinook passing Bonneville through July are counted as summer chinook. The fall chinook count begins Aug. 1.

Sport and commercial fisheries downriver have hauled in some of the spawning chinook, sockeye and steelhead.

Last weekend the state agencies sampled 774 salmonid anglers (including 127 boats) who had harvested 85 adult and four jack summer chinook, 17 sockeye, and 17 steelhead. Bank anglers averaged a fish kept/released for every 5.3 rods based on mainly incomplete trips. Of the bank catch, 67 percent were chinook, 19 percent were sockeye, and 14 percent were steelhead.

Boat anglers averaged a salmonid per every 8.6 rods when including fish released. Of the boat catch 84 percent were chinook, 13 percent were steelhead and 3 percent were sockeye.

On a Saturday June 21 survey flight, a total of 1,091 salmonid boats and 880 Washington and 711 Oregon bank anglers were counted.

The projected summer chinook catch during the June 21-28 lower river mainstem fishery is 2,000 fish.

Tribal gill-netters in a 2 ½-day fishery this week in reservoirs above Bonneville caught an estimated 2,833 summer chinook and 1,786 sockeye. Tribal platform fishers have caught 164 chinook and 400 sockeye, according to preliminary data.

The tribes plan additional commercial fisheries next week and the week after.

The bulk of the sockeye run is headed for Wenatchee Lake and the Okanagan River's Osoyoos Lake. The Wenatchee and Okanagan are rivers branching from the mid-Columbia in central Washington. The preseason forecast included 13,700 Wenatchee and 61,200 Osoyoos fish.

It also predicted that 700 sockeye would return to the basin that are bound for central Idaho's Stanley basin. Those Snake River sockeye are listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

Through Thursday, 61,720 sockeye had been counted passing the Columbia's McNary Dam, the fourth dam in the federal Columbia/Snake hydro system. A total of 50 have made the turn into the Snake River above McNary and cleared Ice Harbor Dam. Three sockeye have made it past the eighth dam, Lower Granite, and now have clear sailing up the lower Snake and Salmon rivers into Idaho.

Non-tribal fishers are allowed a 1 percent impact on the sockeye run in the Columbia mainstem and tribal fishers' impact limits are from 5-7 percent. The caps are set to limit impacts on the listed Snake River run.

There are fish to catch elsewhere as well.

Starting early this week anglers are once again allowed to keep hatchery-reared chinook salmon they catch while fishing on the Cowlitz, Kalama, and Lewis rivers in southwest Washington.

Also, the catch limit for steelhead will increase to six hatchery steelhead per day on the Cowlitz and North Fork Lewis rivers.

Pat Frazier, regional fish manager for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, said fishing rules for those rivers can be liberalized now that it appears enough fish are returning to meet hatchery production goals.

"Spring chinook returns have been nip and tuck this year for some hatcheries," Frazier said. "But after a late surge of fish, it now appears that the hatcheries will get the fish they need for broodstock."

In recent weeks, anglers have been required to release any chinook salmon they caught on the Cowlitz, Kalama, and Lewis rivers in response to lagging returns.

Under the new rules, anglers will be able to retain six salmon – including two adults – per day on designated portions of those three rivers through July 31. On the Cowlitz River, however, only one of those two adult salmon may be a chinook.

All wild chinook and wild coho salmon, which can be identified by an intact adipose fin, must be released.

On the Cowlitz River, the new chinook-retention rules will be in effect from the boundary markers at the mouth to Mayfield Dam. On the Kalama River, anglers will be allowed to retain chinook salmon from the boundary markers at the mouth to the Kalama Falls Hatchery. In addition, chinook retention will be permitted from the mouth of the mainstem Lewis River to the mouth of the East Fork and from there to Merwin Dam on the North Fork Lewis River.

Frazier said hatcheries on the Cowlitz and North Fork Lewis rivers now have all the steelhead they need to meet egg-take goals, allowing fishery managers to increase daily catch limits for hatchery fish on those rivers. Through last week a thousand steelhead had returned each of the facilities on the Cowlitz and Lewis and more are on the way.

"Boat anglers are reportedly doing very well fishing for hatchery steelhead on both of those rivers, although bank angling is somewhat limited by high flows," Frazier said. "Steelhead fishing on the Cowlitz has been best around Blue Creek."

The new six-fish steelhead limit will be in effect on the lower Cowlitz River from the Highway 4 Bridge at Kelso upstream to Mayfield Dam. On the North Fork Lewis, it will be in effect from the Interstate 5 Bridge upstream to Merwin Dam.