Salmon Stocking by State: Chinook, Coho, Sockeye, Chum, and Landlocked Atlantic

Washington's fish and wildlife agency has stocked over 2.5 billion Chinook salmon across 310 recorded waters — by far the largest single stocking program in this dataset. New York and Montana stock salmon too, but at a completely different scale and, in New York's case, a completely different species: landlocked Atlantic salmon that never see the ocean.

Key takeaways

• Washington has recorded over 2.5 billion Chinook salmon stocked across 310 waters, plus 867 million coho, 1.06 billion chum, and 416 million sockeye.
• New York's salmon program centers on landlocked Atlantic salmon — about 9.8 million fish across 77 waters — a different species from Washington's ocean-run Pacific salmon.
• Montana stocks smaller numbers of Chinook (8.8 million) and coho (6.5 million) into landlocked reservoirs, not rivers with ocean access.
• All four Pacific salmon species tracked here are anadromous — hatched in fresh water, raised at sea, and returned to spawn — while landlocked Atlantic salmon spend their entire lives in fresh water.

What counts as "salmon" in stocking records?

"Salmon" isn't one fish — it's several distinct species with different life histories, and stocking records treat them separately for good reason. Chinook, coho, chum, sockeye, and pink salmon are all Pacific salmon (genus Oncorhynchus), native to West Coast rivers. Every one of them is anadromous: they hatch in fresh water, migrate to the ocean to grow, and return to fresh water to spawn and die. Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) are a separate genus entirely, and the landlocked strain New York stocks never migrates to sea at all — it completes its whole life cycle in lakes and rivers.

That biological split is why Washington and New York's programs look so different in the data, even though both show up as "salmon." For general species biology, see the Chinook salmon profile and the landlocked salmon profile.

Washington's Chinook salmon program: the biggest in the dataset

Washington's Department of Fish and Wildlife has recorded 12,296 separate Chinook stocking events across 310 waters, totaling over 2.5 billion fish. That number is so much larger than any trout program in this dataset because Chinook are stocked almost entirely as fry and small smolts, not the 8–12 inch catchable trout most anglers picture at a stocking truck — a single hatchery release event can move millions of fry at once, where a trout stocking truck typically carries a few thousand fish.

Most Chinook releases happen in river systems that connect to Puget Sound and the Pacific, supporting both sport fisheries and hatchery-supplementation programs for wild runs. See the full Washington Chinook salmon stocking records for state totals, or the Washington state hub for every species stocked there.

Coho, chum, and sockeye: Washington's other three salmon species

Chinook isn't Washington's only Pacific salmon program. Three more species show up at real scale in the same dataset:

• Coho salmon — 11,807 records across 805 waters, totaling nearly 867 million fish. Coho are stocked in the widest number of individual waters of any Washington salmon species, reflecting smaller, more distributed hatchery releases into coastal streams.
• Chum salmon — 2,235 records across 202 waters, totaling over 1.06 billion fish. Chum are stocked in fewer waters than coho but in enormous per-release numbers, typical of fry released directly into estuaries.
• Sockeye salmon — 3,195 records concentrated in just 20 waters, totaling over 416 million fish. Sockeye stocking is the most geographically concentrated of the four, reflecting their dependence on specific nursery lakes.

Each of these has its own profile page with full identification and stocking detail: coho salmon, chum salmon, and sockeye salmon. Washington also runs a large kokanee program — landlocked sockeye that never reach the ocean — covered separately in our kokanee stocking guide.

New York's landlocked Atlantic salmon: a different fish entirely

New York's DEC has recorded 992 landlocked Atlantic salmon stocking events across 77 waters, totaling about 9.8 million fish — a fraction of Washington's Pacific-salmon totals, and for a genuinely different reason than scale alone. Landlocked Atlantic salmon are stocked as larger fish into a much smaller set of deep, cold lakes (the Finger Lakes and Lake Ontario tributaries are the core program), so each release moves thousands of fish rather than millions of fry.

New York also records a smaller Pacific salmon presence — 220 Chinook events across 14 waters (nearly 20.9 million fish) and 76 coho events across 7 waters (about 2.9 million fish) — run through Lake Ontario as part of the state's broader Great Lakes fishery. See the New York salmon stocking records and the New York state hub for details.

Montana's smaller salmon programs

Montana is landlocked, so its "salmon" programs are entirely freshwater-adapted: 275 Chinook stocking events across 27 waters (8.8 million fish) and 353 coho events across 85 waters (6.5 million fish), both planted into reservoirs like Fort Peck rather than rivers with ocean access. These fish behave more like Montana's kokanee program than a true anadromous run — they grow and are caught entirely within landlocked water.

Why salmon stocking numbers dwarf trout numbers

It's tempting to compare Washington's 2.5-billion-fish Chinook total directly against a state's trout program and conclude salmon stocking is hundreds of times bigger. The real driver is life stage, not effort: trout are almost always stocked as "catchable" fish, 8 inches or longer, sized for anglers to catch within days or weeks. Salmon fry and smolts are stocked at under 2 inches, months before they're catchable — and hatcheries can produce and release fry in the millions per event because the survival math (and the cost per fish) is completely different at that size.