i'm guessing that there will be a catch and keep season on those naturally spawning coho in the future...wouldn't you think so? if you put 70k coho in the upper cowlitz you're gonna get a couple million smolts(weren't they trying to get about 2 million a year?)....even with survival of 2% that's gonna be a lot of fish heading back up river. If upper river escapement is 40-50k fish a year I would bet there'd be a lot of pressure to open it up to keeping unclipped fish...maybe at certain times of the year or from a certain river mile on...
It seems that this is the quickest..if not the 'best'..
way to re-establish the upper river run...
What is the current agreement with TPU about coho escapement? is it 40k a year?....i could see tpu making an argument that coho production at the hatchery should decrease if naturally spawning coho are adding substantial numbers of adults to returns....but that may not be a bad thing....Cowlitz used to release 13 million coho 5 years or so ago(with questionable health) and now they do around 8?million(that go out a lot heathier).....so lower densities in the ponds may help even more to fight the ceratomyxa and coldwater they get ...
what i really wish is that those dang coho would bite better so 70k wouldn't make it back to the rack in the first place.....what do ya think