The chinook you saw at the Wallace Hatchery are summer chinook that Doug Hatfield (Hatchery manager) and the others at that hatchery have been building for years. Many of us catch/release these fish as incindintal catches while summer steelheading. They are beautiful, chrome bright, summer chinook which start returning to the hatchery around June 1st. These fish do not spawn till fall and can't take much abuse so be careful in handling them when releasing. As far as any harvest potential we need to convince Curt Kramer of WDFW that this particular stock is healthy enough in the Skykomish for a selective fishery, marked fish only. The problem is that WDFW manages the Snohomish system chinook run collectively, meaning summer and fall run together. As you know the fall run chinook returns are way below harvest levels, therefore no fishery. We need WDFW to consider these runs independently, that might allow a shot at the marked summer run on the Sky, say a season from June 1 through July 30, and still have negligible impact on fall run chinook. Bank walker if you want more info come to one of our meetings. We meet the third Tuesday of the month at the PUD Building in Monroe, on Fremont Street at 7:00 PM.

Good luck

Gary Bee
President of the Sky Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited


[This message has been edited by Beezer (edited 07-04-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Beezer (edited 07-05-2000).]