First off your lack of knowledge of the Satsop is substantial. Prior to the program the Satsop Chinook were the restraining stock for the river according to RW Stone. Harry Senn hoped to do something in the late 60's but the hatchery staff could not even find enough to use for brood. The other part that is not know is while LLTK was under contract to capture Chinook brood for the Humptulips the existing hatchery production was transferred to the Springs and reared to yearlings and released into the East Fork. These fish were a mix of many sources including Humptulips. Data on the returns is weak because the volunteers being new were unaware that they needed the blue pink white slips in the small bag with the snout and just sawed them off and put them in the freezer. Montesano no good that way so dispose of them and the Hatchery Ops about had a stroke. If I recall 30% of the captured broodstock had clipped fins.

Prior to Bingham the old hatchery at Schafer Park one year shipped 5 million eggs to the upper Chehalis hatchery and they perished with a power outage (this required about 1110 pairs). The records show 50 million transferred but it is considered a typo but the old hatchery was primarily Chinook and Coho came with Simpson in 1950 I believe.

Records are a bit strange back when. I used to have a picture of the old Springs Japanese Chum spawning channels with trays full front to back. A bio calculated that the number of eggs to be 5 million plus and they did not come from the East Folk and there are no records of a transfer but we were told the canal but I truly do not know of the origin. Dry bed Creek had several deep matrix incubators capable of up to 450K eggs that you will find no record of and I was shown one on the Hamm's property. Not sure what species was utilizing them but we were told late Coho by Carol.

So the purpose of the East Fork program was to stabilize the run so that commercial harvest % did not keep it distressed and Rec getting bounced off the Satsop and Chehalis. At that time the bay was no REC as was darn near the entire mainstem including tidewater. It was Tom Pentt, Senator Owen, and Jerry Paveltich with QIN support that finally forced fisheries to open up the river to REC. So the purpose of the program isn't to produce fish for harvest but to help the run survive the harvest. That the flat line on the numbers IS the desired outcome and that is why the eggtake goal has always been between 450k and 600k.

We can walk down memory lane some sometime if you would like. Hey I got a good example, where was the first Satsop Hatchery and what stock was used? Ok, the answer is near the mouth of the Satsop and the Coho stock used was Columbia.