Fatpat, the Wallace Hatchery is putting out marked Summer Chinook. These fish are returning in numbers large enough to have a fishery on them, ala opportunity. The recs have fought hard to get a selective fishery (marked retention only). During this season the recs can usually harvest marked summer run steelhead. Why make out to be a bad thing?

Other concerned fishers in the past have pointed out that during this fishery there is the chance that some late wild winter steelhead might be hooked. These fish are protected by wild fish release although there might be some hooking mortality. I have not heard of many encounters with late wild winter steelhead by the recs in this fishery however if this were of concern I, along with most others, would be willing to go to a bait ban or whatever necessary to get off these fish.

If the tribes want their share of these summer chinook, as co-managers of the resource, it's up to them to harvest in a manner that is not detrimental to other stocks in a mix stock fishery. I'm not an expert on how often or where the Tualips fish but I have been led to believe that they are fairly responsible during their fall/winter fisheries with minimal impact on wild winter steelhead and take most of "their" fall chinook out of Tualip Bay by "their" hatchery.

For all the obvious reasons the recs have very little opportunity to fish for chinook in the Puget Sound region so trying to drum down this Skykomish summer chinook fishery by "playing the tribe card" I think is unreasonable. I'd like to see just how many wild winter steelhead or unmarked summer steelhead the tribes are killing during June.