Tug,

I knew John Clayton when he worked at Clark Creek Hatchery at Marblemount on the Skagit system. I must admit, I learned some things about hatchery practice that weren't included in Fish Culture when I was at UW. He's the one who got the Skagit hatchery spring Chinook program off the ground and running successfully.

Fishbadger,

The Feds are not involved in setting escapement numbers on the Queets or any river that I know of. The management problem on the Queets and Quinault is that WDFW and the Tribe have derived different escapement goals, with the Tribe's being very significantly lower. Hence, the Tribe has a fishing season on those rivers while WDFW does not. No one can force the state and the Tribe to "get on the same page." If there were any coercion, it would most likely be WDFW capitulating to Q's lower values.