Sorry Banker, that was not an attack...I just thought that last years summer return was piss poor at best.....i.e. WAY below average. Just because you can go catch a couple of fish behind your usual rocks does not make it a mediocre year. I expect this years return to be about the same or perhaps worse.

The number of fish in the trap/at Reiter is for sure a barometer of run size though. In above average years they get their fish early, it opens early, at Reiter you can stand on rocks looking at fish all day, and there are fish throughout the system starting June 1. When was the last year that happened?

Smalma, I guess my statements regarding quality of habitat as it pertains to successful returns of hatchery fish is based on the premise (probably false) that the juvenile hatchery fish are raised to an age where they will migrate out of the system fairly quickly. If they are raised in pens for their entire juvenile stage, then flush out quickly, how important is the habitat for one/two weeks of their life in the river?

One step further....how less important is habitat if you did it Clancy Holt/Cowlitz style - take the smolts directly from the pens and barge them down to the estuaries, and they never touch a drop of the habitat?

I think the Skamania run is just fine Smalma, they are always 7-8 lb healthy fish and are in the river from May 'til December - just plant more! I think the Chambers Creek winter stock could use some new blood though, there might be a couple of December fish left you could use for broodstock.

Ike