Wife, dog and I got in later Tuesday. Upriver lots LOADED -stayed that way all week till we left today (sat ) AM.
     Down town and generally all the lower areas loaded with guys shoulder to shoulder as well.
Stayed mid river away from the crowds and fished pockets along the banks and below structure near the edges=with some small effort one could avoid crowds. Fish were not seen running  for 3 days and I  did move around those uncrowded Mid areas a bit.
  Only saw TWO active beds and very few if any actually running up. Most of the few fish  found were holding in pockets- some hit and some didn't. One day zip on pink and they wanted blue the next day just the opposite.
 Would rather get skunked off alone than get hookups in a conga line.
   Kiddie seemed  to have a lot of open space most all week and today early went to the Church lot  just to watch and there were only 3 guys on the wall- below the bridge to Ellis and Tressel was packed as were the upper lots.  
  Most of those I spoke to on the water mid river were skunked and saw little or no movement. There were some reports of a small pod here and there on the river for the lucky few who happened upon them. 
    Hatchery was packed solid with fish so a lot had moved up at some point but never enough at one time to get much notice from what I have read this year. Have to believe there is a lot of night running by small numbers that  have learned to hide out in holes and pockets for the most part  in the sunlight.
  VERY few beds and VERY few deads.
Overall there are still a lot more fishermen than fish IMHO despite reports of decent activity that may not have even been reported as small  pushes  in past years. 
Seems to be getting too late in the season IMHO for a real run but will try again next week as soon as the holiday weekend crowd leaves.
Only saw 2 Steel running mid river and no Hos at all.
   Saw fish jumping in the Estuary and mentioned it while visiting the office at DSR ( didn't fish, just asked for a daily report)- that  20 jumping in 15 min in VERY high winds the other day was what I had seen and told them about . Seems like they may have pushed in the next day or so.
 Can hardly wait  3 days to go back--Its a disease.

Trev they are getting moldy oldie way up and more and more dead ones as the week went on. I had 5 or 6 float by me Friday morning.  Seen a few pairs on gravel too. Not many eggs seen around though. Gonna try some flesh flies this year (just a bunny leach in flesh color) now that that food is in the system.
 

Mostly oldies in the hatchery brook Clint but a number of fresh fish mixed in  too.
Ya hearing any report from boat guys about fish outside ??
A real run of most anything at this  point might be kinda nice at least  once this year.
The fish reported as running well later this week sounded pretty nice but on stream reviews were kinda average- guys reported a 'nice' bunch of fish but no blockbuster- lol.
 I saw very few on stringers this week  and  short-if any- lines at cleaning stations.
 Hate to keep sounding so negative this year.
Most of us  regulars have got into fish and had some decent times---but it aint even close to normal IMHO.

Definitely not a normal year g3.
Never enough to call it a run but a steady trickle.
 Almost as if it is all wild fish that weren't  mass produced so each has its personal agenda so to speak.
Not the we were all hatched in a 10 day period.
All fed as much as we needed so we all turned to smolts at the same time and the all matured at once so we all run together of hatchery fish.
No evidence you this crackpot theory 
Just laying it out there.
Now the question in my mind is are there hatchery fish to come or what happened to them?

Kinda strange year. Glad you had some action, RG. I think you can say if you put some time in and knew how to fish you could get some fish.
I never saw a line of more than 2-3 at the cleaning stations. Did they clip the adipose in '11, or was that a short term study?

I asked a guy in the hatchery a few years ago and the  study was supposed to stop after 2011.  The majority of the run is age 2 (average 33 inches) and 3 (average 36 inches). The 4 year old fish are very limited of around 5%. So fish caught that are below 35 inches you cannot tell.  Pen reared fish which are placed in streams and other rivers are continued to be clipped. They should imprint on where they are reared. There is also the slim chance of those fish or Canadian clipped fish slipping in the river. He showed me a pic of a clipped steel caught in the river that was stocked in Canada and just happened in.
 
Next study should be ho's

Agreed Clint- looking for 'the fin' is no longer the sure all of how things are going between the two types of Kings.
One may hope that sooner or later there will be some kinda explanation of this years activity- likely after the normal run times when an educated theory is arrived upon.
 Frankly- at this point- I think all species are involved.
Hope like heck its only a one season thing.
Really dislike sounding so negative  however this  season is not a reflection of what has made the SR famous.
 Have a great admiration for the fishery and those managing it- the negativity is no reflection on their efforts - likely something out of their control.

And here I thought  that  tax funded and endowed studies were replicated ad nauseum. Good to see they aren't, but it would be nice to have a window into the repro and cyclic phenomena. How many people do you think would travel to the SR if they were only going to hook-up a few  Kings in a week?  This year may not be an anomaly, but an adjustment to  long term conditions in the lake and river.

Agreed Charlie- this is almost a throwback to some seasons of long ago.
 Actually many I spoke to haven't hooked up ANY Kings this week.
With fisherfolks numbers breaking records recently this will almost certainly have some affect  for some upcoming seasons.
Guys aren't gonna use their vac time and hard earned dollars to come up with so few fish and so much competition.
Some cleaning stations have already closed and unfortunately this may be a make or break indicator for some businesses -not necessarily this season as folks showed up- but next year ????.
 Hopefully  whatever  caused this may not have an affect on the King returns for the next year or two as they are cyclical - but the Steel and Hos are kinda slow this year IMHO  as well???.
Hopefully at the end of the day its determined to have been caused by the unusual Summer Lake conditions.
Some reported plenty of bait fish but no kings .

I have heard that the financial impact of a poor season was being felt at a number of cleaning stations.  When I fished the OZ the third week in September the guide mentioned that one cleaning station was down 8,000 fish cleaned from the previous year.  The next few seasons will tell whether or not we are in a downturn in the fish cycle.  I hope this season is an anomaly but we won't know until next year's run.