Stopped by to see my cousin at the Lewis River hatchery today and he ran me through a updated me on all of the changing events. he showed the freezer room and there were two huge piles of clear garbage bags of the the heads of tagged coho. One pile Wild one pile hatchery. Labeled and all. About equal proportions. So their doin it too.

Also there was a huge Chinook that was caught on the lewis by a worker at the hatchery that had been frozen solid in teh freezer since Fall. he landed it with 12lb. main and #8 leader. This thing was a big ass tulie and had a mouth big enough to fit my head in. It weighed 53 lbs. Also they had a nice 23lb coho hung and frozen from the Fall as well.

You wont believe it but The Lewis River had a total return of 99,500 adult coho. Early and late combined. I didnt relieze they got back that many silvers. Also I mentioned on another thread that just over 13,300 summers steelies returned to the hatchery this year as well.