In 1992, the abundance of chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha that returned to spawn in the Salcha River near Fairbanks, Alaska, was estimated using a mark-recapture experiment. A riverboat equipped with electrofishing gear was used to capture 434 chinook salmon in late July and early August. Captured chinook salmon were marked with jaw tags, fin clipped, and released. In early August, 957 chinook salmon carcasses were collected of which 52 were marked. The estimate of chinook salmon abundance was 7,862 (SE = 975). The proportions of males and females were 0.64 and 0.36, respectively. Males spent 1 to 5 years in the ocean while most females spent 3 to 5 years. The estimate of potential egg production for the 1992 escapement was 27 million eggs (SE = 2.1 million). A count of chinook salmon during an aerial survey on 3 August was 1,484, about 19% of the abundance estimate from the mark-recapture experiment.