As the previous post says, the only people really happy during El Nino years are the bait companies because you go through so many packages of anchovy. It made it difficult to fish some prime areas because you couldn't keep the mackerel off your lines. There are a number of negative effects on salmon. The mackerel proved to be devastating for young salmon smolts just coming out of the river to begin their ocean life. Fisheries tried to stop this by hiring seine boats to seine the mackerel in places like Barkley sound. I have no idea whether it did any good or not. The other major effect it has is on returning adult salmon who are faced with unusually high water temperatures. I remember running down La Perouse Bank (off the west coast of Vancouver Island)in my commercial troller looking for something to fish in 1983. In a normal year, Laperouse is a moveable feast--there are huge schools of bait, salmon, dogfish, whales, birds--all you have to do is locate them. I zigzagged in and out and over top the bank all the way down to the eastern tip and over to the fingerbank. Nothing. No birds, no feed or salmon or whales. It was eery. Apparently when the water reaches a certain temperature, the salmon metabolism increases so that they literally cannot eat enough to avoid starving themselves and they get weaker and weaker. When sockeye runs that usually come down the west side of Vancouver Island feel those warmer waters, they usually head to the inside and down Johnstone Strait. Let's hope this year is not as bad as some of the previous El Nino years.
Tom
