Why were our salmon late this year ? The unofficial theory from an ASF biologist and others in the field , is that there was a huge ice pack that was sitting in the Strait Of Bellisle , and it was in the mirgatory route of the salmon on their way back from Greenland and was the cause for the water in that area to be 3-6 degrees C below normal . This is a fact , whether or not it held the fish back ten days . Apparently this happened in 1994 and the fish were late then too but we ended up having great fishing that year . The fish will not pass through this very cold ocean water , we don’t know for sure why they would not just swim around it . Maybe they have a specific route they follow which would make sense because when the fish hit fresh water they travel to the exact location of the river system in which they were born . But locally here on the river , the winter was late and the ice did not leave our river till later than usual . Maybe mother nature knows something that we don’t know and it just proves that these are truly wild fish and we will never know for sure what makes it all tick . If anybody has a theory on the subject we would love to hear . Please drop us a line in the comment box of our blog .