The time I really get a little tweaked about this is when I have to release Columbia springers that I know are all hatchery - you see for some reason, even though the clipped/unclipped ratio is about 50/50, I catch 4 or 5 unclipped for every clipped. Some days are even worse - my buddy and I had a day down at Cathlamet where I caught 5 - all unclipped - and he caught 4 - all clipped. At least I could take two of his home

Part of what is going on is that in Oregon particularly certain hatchery managers are worried about all of the selective fishing on clipped fish is perhaps reducing escapement to the hatchery to the point where egg take may be compromised, so they release unclipped fish for "insurance" - this was related to me by a hatchery manager of my acquaintence so I'm pretty sure it's true.

Selective fishing for marked fish has such great potential for all sorts of management purposes, but mostly for ensuring that we all get to fish more. It really stinks that for whatever reason all this is being compromised. Folks, we are heading into another El Nino - it got up to 67 in the ocean last year - and the abundance we've been seeing is likely over. Unless those hatchery fish keep getting marked I doubt that we will be fishing very much when the return rates inevitably drop