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Sockeye can mature at ages between two and six years old but in most systems, one age group (usually four-year-old fish) dominates, meaning most of the offspring produced in any one brood-year return to spawn four years later. This year of increased population significance creates a cyclic dominance which leads to spectacular returns to the Adams River every four. Although there are many ideas about why this occurs, nobody knows for sure.

Young sockeye may remain in their freshwater nursery lakes for a year or more, with some waiting until the second or third year to make their seaward journey. Once in salt water, BC sockeye move north and north-westward along the coast. Their maturing years find them in a huge area of the Pacific Ocean extending west to approximately the International Date Line (2600 miles from the coast of Vancouver Island), north to the northern Gulf of Alaska and south to the Oregon-California border.