Chimming a little late on this one but definately an interesting thread.

Bank Walker Says "THis option is probably to spendy, but how about spreading the smolt plants throughout the whole system in tributary creeks and having adult trapps(weirs) to collect adults. That way it would spread fishing pressure and give the lower river a shot in the arm, say if you released fish in 1. Elwell creek, woods creek, and maybe some tribs above Reiter? Idaho does this and it seems to work pretty good, as long as you can capture fish so there no wild fish interactions"

I like your thinking however spreading hatchery fish throughout the system can be problematic. The way I understand the current science; it's best to isolate the adult hatchery fish from mixing/spawning with the the wilds. If you start trying to imprint hatchery parr/smolt to return as adults throughout the Skykomish system; i.e. Elwell Creek, Woods Creek etc. how would you propose to capture the returning hatchery adults? I think placing weirs across all these small tribes would greatly impact the passage of the wild fish. Also I imagine stations would be required for the parr/smolts, for 2 to 4 weeks???, prior to release in an effort to get the fish to "imprint" to that area. The imprinting stations would be required to keep the hatchery parr from competing with the wild parr. Imprinting stations would need preditor netting, daily feeding etc. kinda spendy for a program all ready under funded.

Dizzy

Keep on trying, I heard that 70 hatchery summer steelhead returned to the Wallace Hatchery just last week, so there are fish to be had. Keep that float/jig working!

Beezer