Hatchery fish are certainly just as capable of spawning as wild fish.

However, the adult return from their spawning is almost zero.

If hatchery fish spawn, their progeny compete with wild smolts, eat the same food and utilize the same habitat. While on the way out to the ocean and while there they almost all die. (Not all, but almost all).

The result is reduced native fish returning, and almost no "wild" hatchery fish returning, for a net result of less fish.

Also, fish born of a hatchery x wild pairing fare not much better than those of two hatchery fish.

It is a responsible act to bonk a hatchery fish so as to assure it does not spawn in the river.

Now for my own personal opinion. I cannot understand the harvest-oriented mindset of some steelhead fishermen. Why is it so important to kill a native fish?

Is it required to justify the money spent on going fishing? If you add up the money spent vs. the pounds of fish taken, steelhead probably costs us about $90/lb. If that's justification, then why not just buy some fish and save $83/lb.?

Is it part of the experience? For me I'll admit that sometimes it is. I love eating steelhead and sharing it with my non-fishing friends who wouldn't otherwise get it. But that's what hatchery fish are for.

The concept of "over-escapement" is such a transparent justification to kill a fish that I'm surprised to hear it still.

If you accept these as true: A river has been studied sufficiently and models exist to set the carrying capacity of the river in terms of smolts; the amount of adults needed to produce exactly that amount of smolts can be determined with certainty; the run size can be determined with certainty; the tribal fishermen only net exactly their half of the "surplus"; the non-tribal fishers only catch exactly their half of the surplus; and landslides, weather, logging, and hundreds of other variables can either be completely controlled or predicted with certainty; then you can convince me that there is such a thing as over-escapement.

The obvious fact is that none of these things exist.

If somehow they all did and there is over-escapement, meaning that the "surplus" adults will not create more smolts now or more adults later, then isn't it still better to have more adults in the river right now so that we all have the opportunity to catch (and release) more of them? How much money goes into towns like Rockport, or Darrington, or Monroe, due to gas, food, lodging, gear, etc., so that people can cnr those "surplus" fish, perhaps over and over again?

When the parents of the adults returning last spring were in the Skagit, Snohomish, and Stillaguamish systems, fishermen were killing them until Feb. 28. How could we have plenty to kill then, and four years from then not have enough return to have a season? Good thing we didn't let them over-escape back then.

Lastly, no one who intentionally kills a native steelhead has any right to complain that an Indian net catches and kills native steelhead. No matter how we feel and act within the sportfishing world, those who don't fish DO NOT think we are any better than the Indians. Fish die in a net, or die in the bottom of a drift boat. What's the difference?

Thanks for the opportunity to chime in.

Fish on...

Todd