One point to be made, they let that fish go!! Poor fish handling I know but they claim it swam off. The thing that makes it a freak is this. There are a very few fall chinook that come up the clearwater. These fish are on the small side ( 10 lbs or so) The spring run is larger and so are the fish. This fish was caught in november or december if I remember correctly. All spring fish would have been dead months ago. So where did it come from??? I think it was a totally screwed up spring fish that had its time clock way out of wack. I also belive that it was from the Hanford area in the columbia and somehow got lost. It would weigh well over 40 pounds which in itself would be a freak for an Idaho fish. As for 40 pounders in the hatchery.. I doubt that very much. I know they have had some 30's and back in the day of north fork clearwater natives 30 was not common but happened. The Idaho and Washington state record steelhead where both caught the same day in like 1974 or 1973 and both were clearwater B-run bucks. Both were in the mid 30's but I don't recall the actual weights.