Not sure what the situation with the Skamania summer fish have to do with this thread but for those that might be interested.

The selective breeding of summer-run fish occurred in the 1960s/early 1970s at the Skamania Hatchery in SW Washington. The resulting hatchery fish were pretty amazing. During the 1980s the average hatchery summer fish was larger than the average winter with most summers in that 8 to 12 pound range with a surprising number of 3-salt fish (some years a quarter or more of the run) which typically were in the mid-teens though occasionally one would see fish in the high teens/low twenties. The best year for large fish was the summer of 1983 where I personally saw 6 hatchery fish over twenty with one beast that measured 41.5 inches.

Once the production (egg takes) moved to Puget Sound hatcheries in the mid-1970s the selective breed ending though the run remained predominately 2 and 3-salts through the 1980s. The program hardly crashed with the average return to catch during the 1980s on the Snohomish typically in the 1 to 3% range. While the age structure changed in the 1990s the return catch consistently held in the 1 to 2% range until about a decade ago. The marine survival of the those hatchery performed better (smolt to adult returns rates compared to the 1980s) than hatchery and wild winters until recently.

Curt