Lupo -
One of the things that this part of the world so great for us fishermen is the diversity of the fishery resource. This in turn is the result of the diveristy of our rivers. It is the barriers the separate anadromous from resident fish. And partial barriers the allow for the developement of diverse steelhead populations - summer verus winters. Let's leave our rivers and their fish populations the way they are! Once we start the game of playing God we gets to decide which species are favored? - commerical over sport, or anadromous over resident.

I have to agree with Ramon - let's use our efforts in fixing passage problems that man has created and leave the rest as they are.

I agree that the passage problem at the hatchery on Toklu needs fixing I do have to question the amount of potential summer steelhead found in the Creek. As a youngster in the early 1960s I had the opportunity to fish various reaches of the creek above the falls (located less than 2 miles from the mouth) and all that we found there was resident cutthroat (and a rare Eastern Brook). I had heard of no summer steelhead in the creek until hatchery fish were planted in the late 1960s in the upper Snoqualmie. When those fish first return one could consistently find hatchery summers at the base of the falls. I suppose that under some condition it was possible that a hatchery fish may have been successful in jumping the falls but it is hard to imagine how. Now the fact remains that cutts and eastern brook are the only trout found above the falls - based on the Tokul watershed plan, WDFW bag checks, and various angler reports. I know of no summer steelhead population on the west coast where the resident part of the population does not include rainbows - either the information that upper Tokul is summer steelhead is erroneous or the salmonid population above the falls is extraordinarily unique.

Tight lines
S malma