Oregon Public Broadcasting

Redfish Lake in central Idaho will live up to its name this summer. An unusually large number of red-backed sockeye salmon will soon swim to their spawning grounds in the shadow of the Sawtooth Mountains. Idaho fisheries managers hope this year's stellar return will become a trend, rather than an exception.

Before the Snake and Columbia River dams were built in the 1950s, '60s and '70s, sockeye by the tens of thousands made the 900-mile swim from the Pacific Ocean back to Redfish Lake.

But the dams reduced the fish return to virtually nothing. The lowpoint came during the '90s, when only 16 sockeye returned.

But Jeff Heindel from the Idaho Department of Fish and Game says the run is rebounding. Hundreds of thousands of young hatchery sockeye have been sent oceanbound during the last several years.

He says many are finding their way back.

Jeff Heindel: "If we get 1,500 fish to the basin this year, that's wonderful. We haven't seen it since 1955. But we're still a long ways from recovery of that species. But I'm confident that we're at least heading down a path that we can see the endpoint."

Heindel says many variables will determine whether the lake's sockeye population will continue to increase.

He says the state hopes to build a new hatchery just for sockeye in southern Idaho during the next few years.