GBL -
I'm having a very difficult time following what you are saying. Your "historical" references seem to be mixing up coho and steelhead and Skagit and Skykomish and clearly you have some mis-information.

As Salmo g said I have at least some limited experience and knowledge concerning Skgit and Skykomish wild steelhead (and other anadromous salmonid) and have handled fish or two over the years. Some specific comments.

Yes 1976 was an exceptional year for big steelhead. In that season I personally saw 5 documented Chambers Creek steelhead over 20 #s. However none of those fish were fin clipped and only could be identified by stub dorsal fins or scale patterns. The only large scale fin clipping of winter steelhead that I recall in the North Puget Sound rivers at that time were in the Nooksack; mass marking of hatchery steelhead in our rivers as pointed out by Salmo didn't happen for nearly another decade. Though to be fair in that era there were a few test groups of hatchery fish in various that were fin-clipped but most were not. It should be noted that other than that exceptional year 20# Chambers steelhead were very rare indeed. When I count up all the 20# Chamber's Creel hatchery steelhead that I have seen between 1962 and 1975 plus all the years between 1977 and today the total is less than what I saw in just 1976. The fact that there were large hatchery fish in 1976 certianly doesn't they always were big; in fact quite the opposite.

Regarding the exceptional summer run fishing on the Sky in the period from the mid-1970s to early 1980s. Remember Reiter came on line in 1974 and for the first time large numbers of summer-run smolts were released in the system. The first few years there were lots of fish and compared to recent years few fishermen. The result as any of us that fish in that era can attest some pretty darn good fishing. Those summer steelhead were often of very nice size. That large size was largely due to an older salt water age ( 3-salts). This was the result of selective breeding at the hatcheries (mostly Skamania). When ever possilbe the old time hatchery manager used the largest and what he consider best looking fish as his brood stock. During the mid-1980s the spawning protoclols were modified to eliminate that selection (concern over potential genetic bottlenecks). It became the standard to use brood fish that were representative of the population that returned. Very quickly the average age of the returning adults became young - fewer 3-salts and more 1-salts; until now the age structure is mostly 1 and 2 salts (the original ages of the wild fish from which the brood stock was taken before hatchery selection). Interestily the very same thing happened to the age structure of the naturalized wild summer steelhead above Sunset falls (BTW an example of where fry plants help jump start a naturalized population).

The early wild steelhead brood stock program in the Skagit basin was during the very early 1980s. That effort (and the ones that followed a few years later) targeted the wild Skagit fish not the hatchery steelhead (Chamber's). That was why the fishery was late in the season and in generally closed waters. In fact the biologist on that first effort went so far as to tag each brood fish, took and read scale samples from each fish to insure that they were indeed wild prior to using them as brood fish. In addition to the two wild brood stock efforts there was an additional effort that focused on the planting of steelhead fry during the 1980s but again that was from eggs taken from wild fish with similar efforts to insure that Chamber's Creek fish were excluded from the brood stock. It should be noted that based on spawning ground information the areas that recieved those fry plants did not end up with more spawners than areas not supplemented.

BTW- speaking of summer steelhead the summer of 1983 was probably the mother of all years for very large hatchery summer steelhead. The wild winters that same spring also had many exceptional size fish

Finally the overwhelming evidence is that out planting of coho or steelhead fry is of limited value. If fact the use of fry plants has often been used to "make up" for over fishing; in effect enabling such destructive management practices. Fortuantely for the Skykomish wild coho of the 1970s that period was one of exceptional coho marine survival (up to 5 times better smolt to adult survival than we have seen recently). Such great survival can make up for a number of resource abuses.

OMG - After that trip down memory lane I'm really starting to sound like an "ole fart" longing for the "good ole days".

Tight lines
Curt