I lived a mile from the Carbon for years, and it gets a few hatchery and wild steelhead, but nothing on the order of say the Snohomish system or the Cowlitz...it wouldn't even make a bump on the statistics graph next to those more well known rivers. Don't get your hopes up too high if your expecting those kind of numbers of fish in front of you...they aren't there in the Carbon. Don't get me wrong...I love to fish the Carbon and I've caught my share of steelhead out of it, but I don't know that I would drive several hours just to fish it...if you'd like a nice wallpaper of it with Mt.Rainier in the background...go here: Carbon with Mt.Rainier in the background , scroll down and click on the wallpaper link in the 10-4-00 Carbon River report.
The Carbon looks like 1% milk most of the time in summer and like plain old mud on hot summer days from the Carbon Glacier that feeds it on Mt.Rainier. In winter cold snaps it dwindles down to a crystal clear, barely fishable trickle. Snagging has been a rampant problem on the Carbon during salmon season the past few years with the huge population explosion in the Orting area. I've only seen enforcement once on the Carbon and the officer even caught a kid red handed with a big king hooked in the back and could have easily watched him finish pulling it on the bank and add it to the pile the group of kids already had there on the shore, but with the fish still thrashing in the water he just yelled at him to "knock it off" and walked off...no ticket, no equipment confiscation...nada. The kids just hung out a while and went right back to it after a bit. I'm sure the two guys next to me that called the poacher in would have been shocked to see their efforts wasted. Sorry...got off on a rant there.
If you like to fish a smallish, suburban river that does hold an occasional steelhead the Carbon is ready and willing...but it's no "hot spot", but never the less, I still love to fish the Carbon!

Remember, the chum run in the Carbon is a wild one as far as I know, so please always release them anytime, regardless of the regs, and ditto on the wild steelies of course.

Good luck!

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See ya on the River!

[This message has been edited by SteelyBob (edited 12-05-2000).]