10/03/2026
A quick follow up on the story published last week in the Methow Valley News on our Sugar Restoration project. We have had to stop in water work on the Sugar project due to early arrival of spawning Sockeye Salmon next to the project site. While Sockeye are common in the Okanogan System, their presence in the Methow has, at least in recent history, been less common, due to their preference for spawning in lakes rather than river environments.
However, there is documented records of small numbers of sockeye salmon spawning in Washington rivers without lake-rearing habitat, primarily on the Nooksack, Skagit, and Sauk Rivers.
A bit further back (1945-1957) it is documented that Sockeye salmon were the primary species produced at the Winthrop national hatchery, as a game fish.
While the Sugar Restoration Project is being implemented to help restore habitat favored by Spring Chinook and Upper Columbia Steelhead, it is always exciting to see salmon spawning in our river.
