A number of people have been lobbying for a recreational fishery on these fish this year. Sam Ingram from the Sky Valley TU Chapter in particular. Although it's not offical yet it looks good for a June 1 to July 31 season, one marked fish limit between the mouth of the Wallace to the Lewis Street Ramp on the Skykomish. These are hatchery summer chinook salmon. This is only about seven miles of river so expect lots of company if it happens. We've been trying to get WDFW to open it all the way to the confluence however WDFW is real reluctent on that. They claim there is a risk of possible interception of straying Snoqualmie fish and the inability to monitor or enforce the lower river.

If this fishery happens this would be a good time for some self-enforcement of the laws from the recreational fishers. Reporting the snaggers, the bonking of unmarked fish, people taking more then their limits etc. If there is a lot of illegal behavior and due to the limited capacity of WDFW's enforcement division (due to budget constraints) they just might say no to future openers. Let's keep it a clean fishery!

Last year they didn't open it till after most of the fish were already in the Wallace, mid July I think, and fishing was tough. They did try to plant some of these chinook into Blackmans Lake in Snohomish however from what I heard these fish didn't bite well there and ultimately died.