Fall Chinook Salmon Numbers in Sacramento River Rise After 3 Years of Higher Flows

San Francisco –  The data from a report just released by the Pacific Fisheries Management Council (PFMC) reveals salmon returns to California’s Central Valley in 2025 were much improved over the previous two years.

The promising information leads salmon advocates to conclude that California will likely see a 2026 salmon fishing season, according to an announcement from the Golden State Salmon Association (GSSA). The data can be found in the PFMC’s Review of Review of 2025 Ocean Salmon Fisheries:  www.pcouncil.org/..

“For comparison, the upper section of the Sacramento River saw a return of over 62,000 adult salmon to natural spawning areas in 2025 compared to just over 4,100 in 2024, a 15 fold increase,” the GSSA emphasized. “In the same area, the number of jacks, or two year old sub adult salmon, jumped almost three fold from around 5,500 in 2024 to about 14,500 in 2025.”

While this is good news, it is still not close to the historical numbers of the hundreds of thousands of salmon that once ascended the upper Sacramento River. 

For example, the average number of natural spawners was 153,777 from 1996 to 2000 and 197,215 from 2001 to 2005 (Table 11-1, page 57). 

The number of returning jacks is key to forecasting the number of adult salmon that are in the ocean every year. This ocean abundance forecast is used to determine the number of salmon that can be caught by the ocean commercial and recreational salmon fisheries and the in-river recreational and tribal fisheries while allowing enough salmon to escape harvest to spawn in the Central Valley rivers.

The abundance estimate should become available by February 25 when CDFW will hold its annual one day salmon information meeting to update the public.  

“Another bright spot — the return of protected winter run salmon was relatively strong in 2025, which could make less likely constraints on early season fishing in Monterey Bay and other areas south of Pigeon Point,” the GSSA noted.  

Spawner escapement of endangered Sacramento River Winter Chinook (SRWC) in 2025 was estimated to be 14,303 adults and 880 jacks, a big improvement over recent years, although nowhere near historical numbers. For example, a total of 117,000 of these endangered fish returned to the Sacramento River in 1969.

The co-founder of the fishing publication I edited for years, Hal Bonslett, and I worked relentlessly with the Tehama Fly Fishers, the Sacramento River Preservation Trust and others to pressure the California Fish and Game Commission to list the Winter Chinook under the California Endangered Species Act in the early 1990s. The federal listing of the fish, which had declined to a low of just 200 spawners one year, soon followed. 

Escapement of Spring Chinook to the Sacramento River system in 2025 was also much better in 2025. The spawning escapement totaled 23,860 fish (jacks and adults), with an estimated return of 7,941 to upper Sacramento River tributaries and the remaining 15,919 fish returning to the Feather River Hatchery.  

GSSA noted that these “brighter returns coincide with fish that outmigrated as juveniles from the Sacramento Valley in the very wet spring seasons of 2023 and 2024, underscoring the survival benefit salmon enjoy when there’s enough water in Central Valley rivers.”   

“Throughout the Sacramento Valley adult salmon returns jumped from just over 100,000 in 2024 to just under 165,000 in 2025,” GSSA pointed out. “Jack returns jumped from 20,200 to just under 65,500, a 300% increase.”

This is welcome news, considering that jack returns are a key factor in modeling the ocean abundance forecast for the fishing seasons.

Returns to the Klamath River system also improved in 2025, reducing concerns for fishing coastal waters off the northern part of the state in the Klamath Management Zone (KMZ).   

A total of 39,860 adult fall-run Chinook salmon returned to spawn in the Klamath River and its tributaries in the fall of 2025, two years after dam removal was completed, according to the PFMC. A total of 69,852 fall Chinooks, including hatchery fish and jacks, returned in 2025 to the Klamath and its tributaries, including the Trinity, Salmon, Shasta and Scott rivers. 

“Some of the salmon returning to the upper Sacramento are likely fish that were released in January of 2023 as fry in a program GSSA worked with the US Fish and Wildlife Service and others on,” the GSSA said. “These fish originated at the Coleman National Fish hatchery and were trucked to sites on the upper Sacramento River and released before agricultural diversions began.”     

Rivers draining into the San Joaquin River saw a drop in returning salmon in 2025 that some believe is partly tied to low flows being released to the Mokelumne River in the fall of 2025. 

“As a result, fish from the Mokelumne hatchery likely strayed to the American River and other parts of the Sacramento Valley where flows were better,” according to the GSSA. 

The East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) reported more than 10,500 Chinook salmon returned to the Mokelumne River from the Pacific Ocean to spawn during the 2025 fall run. During the previous fall, a record run of 34,740 salmon returned to the Mokelumne.

“All fishermen and women in California will be heartened to see salmon numbers bouncing back, indicating we could have a more normal fishing season this year,” concluded GSSA executive director Vance Staplin.  “You can’t miss the correlation between improved salmon numbers and the fact these fish swam out of the Central Valley a few years ago in very wet conditions. We hear over and over from all of the experts tagging juvenile salmon in the Central Valley that survival depends on flow conditions in the rivers.”

Meanwhile, Governor Gavin Newsom continues to promote the Delta Tunnel, Sites Reservoir and Big Ag-backed voluntary water agreements that would take more water from salmon and the ecosystem to benefit corporate agribusiness and Southern California water agencies — as the federal Bureau of Reclamation under Trump works to divert even more water from salmon and the ecosystem.