BELLEVUE -- The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife on Friday opened Lake Sammamish for sport salmon fishing that targets hatchery chinook.

While the fishery opened Friday, most of the hatchery chinook are in Lake Washington and will be migrating to Lake Sammamish through October, WDFW biologists noted.

The daily limit is two salmon. All sockeye and kokanee must be released.

The lake was opened because the hatchery chinook run is larger than expected. The Issaquah Hatchery expects to obtain adequate numbers of eggs by the end of the spawning season. The surplus chinook are available for harvest.

Limiting the chinook fishery to Lake Sammamish protects wild Lake Washington chinook returning to North and Bear creeks.

Lake Sammamish normally is open Oct. 1 through Nov. 30 for coho only.

WDFW is offering a cash reward to any angler who catches a Lake Sammamish chinook bearing a tag of any sort or small transmitter in its stomach. The tags and transmitters are used to study chinook migration. Persons finding tags or transmitters should contact Kurt Fresh at (360) 902-2756 or call WDFW's Mill Creek office at (425) 775-1311. Information about the place and time the fish is caught also is needed.