Summer heat, drought took big toll on Upper Columbia River sockeye

This past summer’s heat wave wasn’t kind to sockeye returning to the Upper Columbia River watershed. “The sockeye forecast (especially for the Okanogan) was supposed to be good, and it turned out to be the opposite way this time around,” said Joe Hymer, a state Fish and Wildlife biologist. State Fish and Wildlife reported that, out of the 512,000 sockeye that entered the Columbia River mouth this summer, only 10,400 arrived in terminal spawning grounds of the Okanogan River in British Columbia.