PORTLAND — Big numbers of coho salmon are surging up the Columbia River this fall — and the Oregon Food Bank is one beneficiary.

About 700,000 coho were projected to return to the river system this year — at least 200,000 more than last year, and the run is meeting those expectations. It looks to be the best run since 1991.

Fisheries managers are taking many of the fish for the Oregon Food Bank, which serves 240,000 people a month in Oregon and Southwest Washington. The fish are trucked to Bellingham, Wash., where they're filleted and flash-frozen for the food bank.

Officials say the coho run remains within the normal range of returns and probably doesn't represent a trend in the much larger effort of salmon recovery in the Columbia system.