Cowlitzfisherman,

I haven't seen that data from the Cowlitz, but I'd appreciate any information you could post about getting it, especially in regards to the steelhead.

The data that I was referring to (and hopefully remembering fairly accurately) was from fairly recent studies of hatchery/wild interactions of steelhead on the Kalama
River. (Carl, if you see this, could you post the citation to those studies? Thanks!)

I also seem to remember that hatchery coho are much more successful natural spawners than are hatchery steelhead. Perhaps it's because hatchery coho are generally from the same river or river system as their wild counterparts, while hatchery steelhead likely derived from either Skamania summer runs or Chambers winter runs that are more dissimilar from their wild cousins in the same stream?

I certainly did not mean to sound anti-hatchery, because I am certainly not. Without hatcheries we would have no opportunities to summer run fish and almost no opportunities to winter run fish. I'm just anti- to letting hatchery fish spawn naturally. Hatchery operations and hatchery fish spawning are only two of a myriad of factors that may limit the natural productivity of a stream.

Besides harvest, tribal or non-tribal, dams, hatchery operations, loss of habitat (everything from channelization of the main river and estuary to blockage of tributaries by bad culverts, etc.), ocean conditions, and weather conditions during all phases of the river life cycle all may affect how many wild fish are in a river.

Wild fish harvest on the Cowlitz is prohibited, and there is no direct netting of Cowlitz steelhead (some are surely caught in the lower Columbia netting), so harvest isn't likely to be the big problem there (except for trout fishermen who catch smolts).

Look at all these other factors, though. The river is pumped to the gills with hatchery smolts of all varieties. The river is used for hydropower. I've seen lots of little "trout" (i.e., steelhead and salmon smolts) caught in the Tilton River by worm and power baiters. Logging in the tributaries has destroyed miles and miles of spawning and rearing habitat. Supposedly the ocean conditions have been poor, but that's turning around now.

In short, there are lots of reasons why upper Cowlitz wild steelhead are not thriving. I doubt that there are hardly any left, for starters. The few that are have all the battles listed above to fight.

Another interesting twist is that there are small coastal streams that have fairly robust runs of native steelhead in the winter/spring. These streams are not stocked with hatchery fish, or are stocked very sparingly.

Do you think that the natives are doing all right because of no hatchery fish, or because no hatchery fish means many, many less fishermen fish those streams? I'd probably say a combination of both, but that the lack of fishermen is more important.

Since these are little, short streams I'm thinking of, they either have all their habitat intact, to a point, or it's all gone from logging. That means the ones I'm referring to are in pretty good shape habitat-wise. The weather and marine conditions can't be controlled, but they're the same for all the rivers in the same area. There are also no dams or tribal harvest on these streams.

These little streams are so different from fish factories like the Cowlitz, Lewis, or Skykomish that it's hard to compare them. However, they sure seem to be doing better, relatively, than the big rivers are.

CF, thank you also for your well written and thought out opinions. We may not agree on everything, but it's nice to have a civil debate every once in a while!

Fish on...

Todd.