64°N 



FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 85, NO. 3 



40° 130° 



64° 



I30°W 



Figure 3. — Locations where maturing sockeye salmon were tagged and recovered in the Vancouver Island area. Only recoveries 

 farther than 1,000 km away from the entrance of the Fraser River and with speeds over 45 km/day are illustrated. 



the sockeye migrate but are usually less than 0.4 

 km/hour (Favorite et al. 1976; Tabata 1984). We 

 assume that these fish must have travelled on 

 relatively direct courses, day and night, based on 

 the optimum speed of sockeye salmon (~2 km/ 

 hour) and the fact that substantial divergence 

 from straight-line travel would have required the 

 salmon to exceed their fatigue speed of 5 km/hour 

 to accomplish the observed displacements (Quinn 

 1984; Quinn and Groot 1984). Connecting the tag- 

 ging positions of these 86 sockeye salmon with 

 the mouth of the home river shows that they must 

 have approached Vancouver Island from a west- 

 erly or northwesterly direction (Fig. 3). The sock- 

 eye salmon that were about 3,000 km or more 

 from the Fraser River (mostly tagged in April and 

 May) were generally distributed farther to the 

 south than those tagged later in the season at 

 distances from 1,000 to 2,300 km. The former 

 must have travelled almost due east, while most 

 of the latter may have moved northeast first and 



then later in the season turned southeast towards 

 Vancouver Island. 



Thus, sockeye salmon returning to the Fraser 

 River from their ocean feeding grounds approach 

 Vancouver Island from the west and the north- 

 west and, depending on their homing course, gen- 

 erally make landfall along the west coast of Van- 

 couver Island or farther north in Queen Charlotte 

 Sound (Fig. 1). 



West Coast Troll Fishery 



To derive information on areas of landfall for 

 different years, we used records of troll fishing off 

 the west coast of Vancouver Island. The Canadian 

 west coast fishery has usually been open during 

 the period that sockeye salmon arrive on the 

 coast. Only during 1978, 1982, 1983, and 1985 

 were there short nonretention periods for sockeye 

 salmon. We assume, therefore, that in general the 

 catches reflect the migratory patterns of these 



458 



