Abstract
The effect of marine climatic conditions in the North Atlantic on the abundance of returning migrant Atlantic salmon Salmo salar in the River Foyle, Ireland was examined. Catches of Atlantic salmon from commercial netting stations significantly predicted a measure of population size independent of catches over a 48 year period, thus commercial net catches were used as a measure of relative population size over a longer period in this study. The North Atlantic Oscillation index in winter (wNAOI) provides a generalized measure of climate variation for the northern hemisphere and between 1875 and 2001, the wNAOI was a highly significant predictor of the 5 year running mean of catches of migrant Atlantic salmon returning to the River Foyle. When the index was 0·151, however, this relationship uncoupled. The probability of catches exceeding the long‐term median was 2·34 times lower in years where the wNAOI was above the 0·151 breakpoint than for years when it was