Those guys were likely legitimately working collecting eggs and sperm from native broodstock. I've done that myself for both WDF and ODFW years ago. The reason for the snagging gear is the way this is done - basically you pick out a ripe but unspawned wild hen sitting on a redd and snag that specific one, so you don't harrass a bunch of green fish that are not yet ready to spawn. That's why you don't use a seine net or conventional gear - you are purposefully sight fishing for that one ripe fish. Once you get the fish you club it, bleed it, dry the fish off, and strip the eggs into a bucket - keeping all water away from the eggs. Typically we would then grab one buck for each 4 hens, but we would use this one buck in several buckets so that each group of eggs got sperm from different "doners" to ensure diversity and good fertilization. After adding sperm and mixing well the buckets were flooded with water, mixed again and quickly rinsed with clean water, and allowed to sit quietly for an hour or so until they hardened up and could be transported.

Those guys should have had WDFW hats or vests on and should have identified themselves, although if you were in the hatchery facility and out of the visitors area then they were probably trying to set you striaght on where it was ok for you to be. The eggs they were taking are incredibly sensitive during fertilization and if you or your kids inadvertantly bumped bucket at the wrong time it could have killed a bunch. They could also have been worried about disturbance of the fish - often this job involves a lot of waiting for that perfect ripe fish to show up and if folks are sightseeing and inadvertantly spook the fish away it can make for a long day.

When we used to do this out along the river where people would commonly come upon us we often had to bring along an extra crewman to explain to people what we were doing and why - I remember on a few occasions we even had a fish cop standing by to do the explaining as nobody would believe us otherwise. I can see from the responses to this post there are still a lot of non-believers out there even though this tecnique has become much more common in recent years with the increasingly popularity of native broodstock programs.