TK -
just for your information Monte Cristo (the old mining town founded in the 1890s) is located on the SF Sauk - it is over Poddle Dog Pass (headwaters of Silver Creek). Maybe you are thinking of Mineral City located a fair ways up Silver Creek (NF Sky tirbs).

The planting of hatchery steelhead in the Snohomish basin (Snoqualmie, Tolt, NF Sky) predates the Reiter program by a fair bit. I was catching hatchery summer steelhead in the system at least a decade prior to the first returns to Reiter, If the crash of the steelhead on the Sky is due to mis-management of the hatchery program at Reiter why are the wild summer steelhead on the South Fork Tolt crashing as well - since early the 1990s there has no hatchery plants in the Tolt, wild steelhead release throughout the basin. The wild summer steelhead were at good levels until the past two years - again support somehting occurring outside of the basin (marine survival issues).

The Sky is far from a dead river. The coho and pink returns over the last 5 years are among the highest in decades, the chum returns are at high levels, natural chinook spawning is as high as it has been in 25 years. The bull trout numbers have increased nearly 10 fold in less than 20 years. From all reports the sea-run cutthroat fishing in the system continues to be outstanding.

The major differences between the situation of the wild steelhead in the basin and the salmon/bull trout/sea-runs is that only wild steelhead can not be harvested.

Tight lines
Curt