Bonker,

Which commercial nets are you speaking of? The only fish in the sound (in great numbers)at the same time as the Sockeye are the Fall Chinook. Due to the ESA those nets don't go in untill the fall Coho run, after the sockeye have passed. What netting does occure is primarily in Canada while targeting the Frazier river Sockeye. They do intercept some Lake Washington fish but any of those caught in Canada do not count toward the 50/50 split.

Cedar R,

While I agree that a priority should be to do what is needed to improve the status of the Steelhead, Chinook and Coho runs, the existance or lack of the existance of the Sockeye hatchery really has nothing to do with that goal. The best hope to help that significantly is the fish ladder to be constructed at the dam. You know the river has been closed to fishing because the salmon other than the sockeye have been in really poor shape. A hatchery for any of those species would likely not produce a fishery because even the unintended mortality on a few wild fish in that system is detrimental to the population.
The proposed hatchery does not increase the escapement goal for the sockeye so the drainage ditch wont have any more Sockeye in it that it usually does on a good year. And considering that over 29000 people fished Lake Washington for the three days it was open this year there is no way to argue that the Cedar could provide that much opportunity near term or long term.