Originally Posted By: RUNnGUN
Originally Posted By: stlhdr1
Another recent report showing the effects of hatchery plant cuts to zero. The writing is on the wall for the future of the hatchery and broodstock steelhead. It's just a matter of time for those rivers that don't have any way to regulate them off the spawning beds..

Keep in mind I fished this river since the mid 1980's, you didn't see wild summer steelhead in it and if you did you might have caught enough to count on one hand from March to July in a year but most were just non-clipped hatchery fish. In that same time frame the wild winter numbers were decimated as well. Oddly, they planted somewhere to the tune of 120k hatchery summer steelhead through the late 90's and about 100-140k hatchery winter steelhead as well but started to reduce plants from the 2000's on and down to near zero for the last 8-10 years.

EFL steelhead numbers

Keith

Here is another study on a different river. Maybe some rivers are different than others and hatchery and wild steelhead can coexist together? Another piece to the puzzle.

https://hatchery-wild-coexist.com/ian-courters-ground-breaking-study/


This study was done to evaluate the impacts of hatchery summer steelhead on wild winter native steelhead. From what I know of the study it has nothing to do with the point I was making. I've never claimed that hatchery summer steelhead have an effect on wild winter steelhead populations. If you have hatchery winter steelhead spawning with wild winter steelhead then your reproductive fitness is at or near zero. The Clackamas river is just like the Kalama river where they have the ability with a dam to monitor and sort/select steelhead that pass above the dam.

The EFL (study I posted) actually has a run of wild summer steelhead and in reducing the hatchery plants the population of wild summer steelhead has increased. Since reducing the hatchery summer steelhead plants to zero the population is above what is assumed to be historic returns. There is no dam on the EFL so however many adult hatchery summer steelhead return can end up on spawning beds with wild summer steelhead and the same goes for the hatchery winter steelhead / wild winter steelhead. On occasion I'll grab my gear and go catch a few of them in the summer, when you find a freshy near tidewater they are hands down the most explosive steelhead I've caught in my life.. Absolute barn burners and smoke your thumb on a consistent basis.



Keith
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It's time to put the red rubber nose away, clown seasons over.