Salmo g-
I agree that historically the Stillaguamish summer Chinook are were indeed a special fish. Have seen fish in excess of 50# and recently the tribal staff reported stilling seen some fish in excess of 40#. Fish that would be ideal forage for the SRKWs.

There has been a wild Chinook brood stock program where annually fish are captured in the North Fork and transported to a tribal hatchery facility for at least 35 years. It is likely that without that program those Chinook would indeed be functionally extinct. In the recent decade of available information (2009 to 2018) the natural spawning summer Chinook have been more or less equally divided between HORs (401/yr) and NORs (405/yr). Since the beginning of that brood stock program its contribution to the natural spawning population has been increasing.

The excessive sediment loading and stream bed instability is clearly a major factor limiting Stillaguamish Chinook. You will appreciate the based on smolt trap information the Stillaguamish Chinook egg deposited to migrant survival is roughly 25% of that of the Skagit (average of 4% compared to 16%.

Curt