Scott and Dave from Three Rivers provided a boat for ondarvr and myself and three tribal biologists form the Tulalip Tribe to do a quick and dirty survey of the chum run in the Sky Between Monroe and Sultan. We took the biologists to several areas where Scott and ondarvr said they typically see hundreds of chums. We saw a few, but very few. The biologists seemed very concerned and promised to try to find out what happened.

He explained that the tribe and state work together to set run size estimates, and from that harvest amounts. The runs size estimates are based upon smolt counts from nets placed in several beaches over a period of time. They believe this is the most accurate way they have to estimate run size and believe it has been relatively accurate.

One problem, at least as I see it, is they can do a much better job of determining the health of the chum in a given region, better than in a specific river. (The nets are placed in salt water where, the fish from various rivers may intermingle.) Right now the biologists are not willing to postulate a theory of what happened to the Sky chums, but it seems to me only two choices are possible. Either they overestimated the run size or over harvested Sky chums, while remaining within the harvest levels they had established.

Two Dog, please help me out here and correct me if i have any of this Wrong.