RT, I think two points you touched on are lending to what I am stating. First one, "knowledgeable fisherman". There are plenty that don't fall into this catagory and will fish anywhere on the river, as long as the can hook into a fish. On the Sky, the upper run usually closes March 1st if memory serves me. There are plenty of boats hammering this area right up until the close and this is the beginning of the spawning area. Doesn't seem right.

Second good point is the lame brat run and everyone with SH addicition needing a fix. The nates are that fix. Combine this with the fact that the real hogs comes up during the nate run, and most of us enjoy fishing for the big boys compounds the problem.

It will be interesting to hear some others observations on this.