Only 243 sockeye were trapped at the Redfish Lake Creek trap and Sawtooth Fish Hatchery trap this year before they were shut down.

That is disappointing since biologists predicted more than 1,000 could return.

Since 2008, more than 650 sockeye have returned annually to the Sawtooth Valley, peaking in 2010 with 1,355, the most since the 1950s, before four dams were built in Washington.

The Redfish Lake Creek trap was removed on October 17 and the Sawtooth Fish Hatchery Trap was shut down on September 21. This year 107 sockeye were trapped at Redfish Lake Creek and 136 at the Sawtooth hatchery.

Idaho Department of Fish and Game released 173 sockeye to Redfish Lake. Seventy were added to the captive broodstock at the Eagle Fish Hatchery.

The sockeye recovery program has largely been funded by the Bonneville Power Administration, which markets the power from the dams to Northwest public utilities at cost. It also is funding a new hatchery under construction in Springfield that is expected to add 1 million new smolts annually to the effort.

You can read the whole story about Idaho's sockeye in a feature I did earlier this year on Lonesome Larry .