Skykomish & Wallace River Winter Steelhead

We have been hearing and seeing a few Winter steelhead showing up on both the Skykomish and Wallace Rivers over the past few days. Would not say the the fishing is spectacular, but at least there are a few nice fish being caught. Overall, we are not expecting a banner season locally as this is the first year of no steelhead plants on most of the Puget Sound streams. The Snohomish system is the only one we are expecting any hatchery returns to this winter. Not only is this the only local stream that will have a hatchery return but the numbers returning are less than stellar. WDFW's plants of hatchery steelhead have been dramatically reduced due to the Federal requirements to reduce the impacts of hatchery fish upon wild and legal problems a few years back with the Wild Fish Conservancy in Duval. This will be a year not to expect much locally and to plan a good number of trips elsewhere in the state.