Last Thursday, Friday and Saturday, more than 40,000 fall chinook fought their way over the dam. On Sunday, 39,642 climbed the ladders there.

All four days surpassed the previous one-day record of 39,376 fall chinook set Sept. 12, 1987. The new high mark was recorded last Thursday, with 45,884 fish.

"I don't think the fish ladders were built to have 46,000 chinook and a bunch of steelhead and a bunch of coho going through on one day," said Joe Hymer of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife at Vancouver, Wash.

Steelhead hit a season-high of more than 8,000 fish on Saturday. During the past six days, about 2,000 steelhead have crossed Lower Granite Dam, 35 miles west of Clarkston on the Snake River.

"This weather has been really nice for that," said Larry Barrett of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. "It's been a wonderful thing to have this cool weather."

Bonneville Dam has a fish ladder on each side of the Columbia River - one on the Oregon side and one on the Washington side.

Most of the fish climbed the Washington ladder, probably drawn to that side because water was being pushed through the power house there, Hymer said.

The fall run is on target with the preseason forecast of about 600,000 fall chinook to travel up the mouth of the Columbia River.

Hymer said catch rates of 1.6 chinook per fishing rod in the Lower Columbia River last week also set a record.

"For a chinook fishery in fresh water that is phenomenal," he said.

At Lower Granite Dam so far this year, 24,236 steelhead have been counted, just above the 10-year average of 19,558.

Biologists expect about 150,000 steelhead to return to the Snake River and its tributaries this year.

The hatchery B-run of steelhead, which returns to the Clearwater and Salmon rivers after spending two to three years in the ocean, continues to lag behind preseason expectations, Hymer said, but the wild portion of that run is doing well.