I was curious, I caught an 8 pound hatchery chinook today on the green and wondered why can't you keep hatchery chinook caught on that particular river?

On all the other rivers I've fished, you can keep the hatchery fish. Why are hatchery chinook so special on the green ?

Just curious.....where on the Green were you?

Have you been fishing the Green alot lately? Maybe behind that boeing building up from the foot bridge on the freeway side once or twice? Just wondering.

The Green River chinook are on the ESA list.

it is not an necessarilly an ESA thing. the muckleshoots allow sport fishing on their hatchery chinook in the eliot bay bubble fishery which provided many days of excellent fishing this last summer(over 20 kings for me). it is probably just to protect the spawning stock once they are in the river system and to discourage people from targeting kings which will negatively impact the the wild kings in the system

The Green is full of fish from the Highway 18 bridge on up. Pinks, coho, and chinook. It seem like some harvest should be allowed.

I use to fish the Green alot from the soccer fields in Kent on up to Palmer. I don't remember ever seeing a salmon I would want to harvest, most were pretty nasty looking (especially kings) but I know what some will say "that fish will smoke-up just fine".

the fish was a chromer caught by southcenter area

I think Lupo has it right. I will stop by the hatchery at Auburn/Blackdiamond road and ask them, If I get the time and you are still interested... Usually it is done to protect the Kings from a "potentially lethal" insult a fisherman(woman too!) might inflict, even though they are released.