Relationship among release timing, environmental conditions, and adult return rates for yearling chinook salmon from Blind Slough net pens in the Columbia River Estuary, 2005-2006

This study examines the relationship between smolt-to-adult return rates (SARs) for spring Chinook salmon and the time of ocean entry in relation to physical and biological characteristics of the estuary and nearshore ocean plume environment. Study fish, originally from Willamette Hatchery, were transferred and reared by the Clatsop Economic Development Committee Fisheries Project and released in the lower Columbia River. Contract no. W66QKZ20374368