I spoke with Curt Kraemer this afternoon about this issue. According to him, these are just ideas that WDFW is throwing around in-house. It appears though that they are pretty serious about ending any March-April fishery on the Skykomish and possibly Stilly as well. Kraemer says that their projected returns are so low for the next 3-5 years that they don't forsee allowing even a C&R fishery. Their thinking is they would rather close it down then have emergency closures every year.

As for the Skagit and Sauk, the early data suggests stronger returns to this system. As it stands now, there is a chance at a spring fishery in 2002. This determination will be made after examination of the final data.

Kraemer also spoke about the high number of redds being reported on the Sky since the June opener. He reports that the data they have collected shows river conditions have allowed the redds to remain visable longer than in normal years. (I originally cited this as an opinion rather than data based. My apologies if this was misleading.-- dh) He stressed that these increased redd reports do not equate to a strong return but rather just longer lasting visual evidence of the redds.

Sorry to bring such gloomy news.
Duggan Harman

[ 06-21-2001: Message edited by: Sinktip ]

[ 06-22-2001: Message edited by: Sinktip ]