H2O -
I didn't mean to duck your question regarding carrying capacity. Thought Salmo did a good job of addressing it. If you have additional questions or need for clarification I would be happy to take a poke at addressing them.

Gary -
Coho tend to be a small stream fish as result the Raging river itself is not prime coho spawning habitat. Apt to find them in much higher densities in tribs like Deep or Canyon. The Snohomish system as a whole has one of the more robust wild coho populations in the lower 48 states. The estimated MSY escapement goal for the basin is 70,000 adult spawners. Over the last 5 years (the period you have lived on Raging) the wild coho escapement has exceed the goal every year. The escapement in 2000 was 94,000, in 2001 it was 262,000, in 2002 it was 162,000, in 2003 it was 182,000 and this year it was 227,000.

The 5 year average escapement is more than 2.5 times the escapement goal. It would appear the local fisheries managers have failed miserably in harvesting every last fish. Those kinds of densities should be adequate to insure that at least some natural selection is still operating on the population.

Tight lines
S malma