Sometime during early to mid-winter, eggs hatch. The alevins, or young fry, feed on the attached yolk sac material continuing to grow and develop. In late winter or spring, the fry swim up out of the gravel and migrate downstream into salt water. The emergence and outmigration of fry is heaviest during hours of darkness and usually lasts for several weeks before all the fry have emerged. Following entry into salt water, the juvenile pink salmon move along the beaches in dense schools near the surface, feeding on plankton, larval fishes, and occasional insects.
Predation is heavy on the very small, newly emerged fry, but growth is rapid.
By fall, at an age of about 1 year, the juvenile pink salmon are 4 to 6 inches long and are moving into the ocean feeding grounds in the Gulf of Alaska and Aleutian Islands areas. The ranges of Alaska pink salmon at sea and pink salmon from Asia, British Columbia, and Washington overlap each other. Occasionally cycle dominance will shift, and the previously weak cycle will become most abundant. Now most pink salmon are taken with purse seines and drift or set gillnets. Lesser numbers are taken with troll gear or beach seines.