It's been a long, slow, agonizing effort but the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams are coming down, although I don't know exactly when.

The strain of Chinook in the Elwha Hatchery is likely the same as the original. They grew to a very large size at maturity so they could navigate the rapids and falls on the lower Elwha. As you could guess, those falls and rapids made the lower Elwha an attractive place to put a hydropower project.....

However, there is one problem. For Elwah River Chinook to reach a large size, they need to live long enough to reach that size. The ocean troll fishery (both sport and commerical) has exploded over the past 30 years so most Chinook can't live long enough in the salt to reach 60, 70, 80+ pounds, like they did before the dam was built (in 1910).

The reason we don't get 80lb Chinook in the Columbia any more isn't because of Grand Coulee Dam. It's because the ocean fishery won't let a big Chinook get any larger before it's caught. When was the last time you heard of anyone throwing back a 50lber in hopes that it would grow to 80lbs? Never.

Ditto for the Elwha. Adult Chinook salmon will return to the upper Elwha when the dams are finally torn down. But don't hold your breath waiting for 80lb Chinook to be moving up into Olympic National Park. Unless the troll fishery is drastically reduced, we may never seen that again.

The only reason Kenai River fish grow to such a large size is that nobody has found where these fish go in the ocean. For now they can grow to maturity relatively undisturbed. Heaven help us if someone finds out where these fish go in the ocean. When that happens, the Kenai fish will go the way of so many stocks of large Chinook along the Pacific Coast. A slow decline into a shadow of what it once was. Fortunately, Kenai River Chinook don't have to run the gauntlet along the SE Alaska, BC, WA, and OR coast. However, the Elwha fish will. Need I say more?