Here at the confluence of the Okanogan and Columbia rivers, tens of thousands of sockeye and chinook salmon stage themselves every summer in an underwater base camp, waiting to make a final push to higher elevations in Canada and their cold-stream destiny: spawning.
Their layover here in the "Brewster Pool," home of the annual Brewster King Salmon Derby, is usually brief but it can make for fishing bliss.
This year, though, the only salmon that can legally be caught in the derby that began Friday are big chinooks. The much smaller sockeye salmon — to many mouths much tastier — have suddenly become off-limits, as fishery managers report a sudden and alarming plunge in their numbers.
Unusually low mountain snowpack and record high temperatures have put much of Washington in a state of severe drought and have also heated water in the Columbia and many of its tributaries to well above 70 degrees — several degrees higher than many sockeye can survive. The heat is believed to have devastated a fish run that just a few months ago was projected to be among the most robust in decades.
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