Originally Posted By: GBL
Ickstream and fish culture-
I can see you are just trying to jerk my chain!
The Situk has more natural preditors per mile of river than any river in Washington!
All those 14,000 natives swim past our lodge, yet the Situk continues to put out the largest run of Native Steelhead probably in the world.

We used to run by sled 5 gallon buckets of fry to all the major bars in the Skykomish and walk them into the Sultan and for years had great returns, now I realize those returns were being caught by a much smaller population! We used to fish Summer Runs some days all alone on the Sky, but it sure seemed like those returning fish were big and in real good shape. Once the seeding was stopped by the state, it was a matter of about 5 years and it was over.


After being intentionally decimated by commercials in the first half of the last century, the Situk steelhead run recovered to those great numbers without hatchery plants/fry boxes. Those are wild fish, currently spawning in excellent habitat, with high water quality and tight fishing regs.

Regarding the fry boxes on the Sky, isn't 5 years about the time usually seen between shifts from good to bad ocean conditions? Coincidence?

Believe what you want........
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If every fisherman would pick up one piece of trash, we'd have cleaner rivers and more access.