I pretty much got the impression that if wasn't for the Muckleshoot tribe, and their efforts and $$$, the LW sockeye would be thing of the past.

Basically, those sockeye are their fish. Plain and simple. We should feel fortunate to even get a shot at fishing for them.

Parker,

I could go for that if it cut both ways with the rest of the PNW.

By Sister in law lives on the lake. She has to get the Muckelshoots permission along with the city and states to improve her dock or bulkhead because of the Sockeye. Most people do not know that they actually spawn in the lake between I-90 and Renton. The hydraylics off the Newport /newcastle hill cause underwater springs that areate their redds. So some of the fish are thiers hard to guess which ones.

I saw a presentation by Larry Gonzy that had pictures, from his underwater camera, of sockeye laying on the "gravel" part of the bottom in that area. He also speculated that they spawn there. I didn't know about the areation sp?

Parker is correct about the Muckleshoot tribe and the state pretty much washed their hands of this runs years ago. The last season we had was made possible by the tribe doing the counting. Not the state.
As much as I would like to see the tribe not get to net, the fish would not be harvestable without the Muckleshoots.

They are actually netting lake Union on the same days the meat fishers are on the lake.. They started this on the last fishery we had and they would like to continue to fish it there and not on the lake. Even if they are netting on the lake it is happening during the meat fishers season most of the time only it is happening at night.

If it was not for the Tribe we would not have a fishery plain and simple.. They have saved this fishery period!

Don't the vast majority of these fish propagate on their own up the Cedar River? What does the Muckleshoot tribe have to do with them??
I would say the people who should "own" or take credit for this fishery are the ones who built the Ballard Locks. Wasn't that the Army Corp of Engineers??

Seems to me that credit for Lake Washington sockeye belongs to a U.S. Fish & Wildlife biologist named Kemmerich who stocked eyed Baker Lake sockeye eggs in Issaquah Creek and the Cedar River from 1936 to 1940. He stocked many lakes in western Washington to increase sockeye production, but Lake Washington turned out to be the only sustainable run.

The Army Corps of Engineers built the Ballard locks, changing the Lake Washington outlet from the Renton area near Black River to the Montlake cut, through Lake Union, and the locks. I don't think that had much to do with creating or maintaining the sockeye run.

The Muckleshoots have championed the cause of maintaining the sockeye population as a viable fishery, but I didn't know they were the sole supporters.

WDFW (formerly WDF in this case) set the Lake Washington sockeye spawning escapement goal at 350,000 as the number of spawners that would fully seed available juvenile rearing habitat in Lake Washington. MSY or MSH spawner - recruit analysis most likely wouldn't support so high an escapement goal, as frequent flooding seems to limit the supply of fry reaching the lake, not to mention that MSY always sets escapement well below full seeding and maximum productivity. The proposed sockeye hatchery should add stability to the population by reducing flood losses.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.