Boy, this discusionn grew over night!

First.the river that I was reffering to concerning the steelhead and silvers intermingling on is the Duc on the canal.The river realy only has 6 miles of stream that is traditionaly reached by andromonous fish.3 miles of this are locked up in a canyon that keeps fish out of the tribs and does not supply substrate.All the gravell comes into the canyon from up above.Basicly all the fish have to share the 5 or 6 spawning ereas.I have caught Cuttys salmon and steely all in the same reaches on the same day.I watch the the silvers and the steelhead sitting right along side of each other every year.Remember these are not natives but an old stock left over from the hatch.I canot say I have actualy seen the steel head spawn but the salmon many of times.I have caught fish that in my uneducated mind looked like mixed fish!?

This is far from scientific data but here goes.I have been off work since oct.I have been fishing the Duk and the dose 3 To 6 days a week.The dose has shown me 1 native steelhead and 7 silvers this year.The duk is has shown me six natives and my first ever hatch fish and untold silvers.The skoke Has given me 2 nates of size and 16 small steelhead like richg record female,2 to 3 pounders.I know that it is early for our nates and this year I plan to continue looking for fish after the season closes and add to this scenario that I am putting together.But remember I know these rivers top to bottem and have been fishing them for 10 years seriosly.

Now the state is putting hath steel into the duc and the dose 10,000 smolt at a time.The man that raises these fish and distributes these fish does not figure three of them make it back to the river.He does not even believe that out of the 50,000 that are put into the skoke any return.So what is the purpose?The rivers are catch and release for everything but hatch steelhead.No bait or hook restrictions just release everything that isn't a hatch steelhead.These hatch fish distribution is only governed by where the truck can get close enough to the road.So there is no controll on these hatch fish just dump and run.Is this a succesfull hatch program?So the state is basicly telling me that everything in that river is not healthy enough to sustain a harvest of anything but hatchery steelhead that are not realy there!???

I once again canot help but feel that POLITICS have more to do with deciding the rules on our rivers than either science or common sense.Both science and common sense say to close the canal down to fishing pierod.But I firmly believe that our state Knows that it killed the cannal.To close it down and to do what needs to be done would be to incriminating and send the wrong message to the public.So instead we will lie untill it is dead.The Msy is a noble effort but it does not work and with the Increasing number of people that are interested in our fish it is controlling the last few fish that we have and that should scare everybody.