You know Salmo,

I wonder about these late run Cowlitz fish that have been spawning so successfully. Not that they are not spawning successfully, but don't you find it kind of STRANGE that the Cowlitz has this special genetic type of steelhead that has apparently turned a lot of old THE SCIENTIFIC studies kind up side down?

You know me, and you also know that I have a nose when it comes to dealing with fishy smelling things! Just maybe it's working so darn well on the Cowlitz because of such watch dogs groups like CPR-Fish and the Friends of the Cowlitz. Do you suppose that some "scientist" or biologist might be a "little bit gun shy" about playing with his study results when he has at lease 2 diehard groups watching every single move that he even thinks about making on a study?

You know both of our groups pretty darn well by now, and would you want to have Dave or me, or worse yet both of us looking over your shoulder every time you analyzed or "adjusted" your study result, or its protocol? You may say no on this board, but I know better! Just ask old "Markie Boy" from Tacoma Power and see how gun-shy he his with releasing any of Tacoma's study information to us. Oh yea, he'll give us the final spin version, but not the "details" of how he got to the "spin"!

I can't say for a fact, but I'll bet you that there has never been such an ongoing study of using hatchery fish for restoration as there currently is on the Cowlitz. After going through a full year or better, of almost weekly meeting concerning Tacoma's and Lars "scientific" BS scam called Ecosystem Diagnosis and Treatment (EDT), I have for good reason, formed an opinion that a lot of these other "scientific" studies that have apparently been done in the past may very well be flawed.....no not flawed...., but just plain old fashion BS!!

If all of the hatchery/wild interaction studies were put together like the EDT process has been, then in my opinion, they are nothing more or less then money making scams. I don't have to repeat to you why I feel this way, because you were there and you saw the same crap that I saw going on, but I guest it doesn't really matter what meeting you have to be at each day when all you see is a bunch of crap everywhere you go. Crap is crap, so it probably didn't make a whole lot of difference to you since you draw the "lucky straw" for the Tacoma Project.

That process (EDT) is such a bunch of BS, and yes, I have told Lars that it was. I can understand him getting pretty excited about me saying that, especially when Tacoma paid him close to, if not more then one million dollars to do his EDT.... BS process! That process was not about "science" it was, as you known, about money and how you can jiggle the numbers and figures until you get the results that you are being paid to get. How many times were our questions answered with "hold that thought"? Now that was truly "science"!

Most of (but not all) the studies that I have heard of have only used one genetic species to prove their point that hatchery fish do not do well in the wild. That specie was the "Chamber Creek" stock! There in my opinion lies the problem! WE all know the short falls of the Chamber creek stocks, so what happens when they use "another" genetic stock like they have on the Cowlitz....presto.... you got fish!

Almost every study that has used the Chamber stocks as their protocol for their study were doomed and preordained from the beginning to come out with the same results (they don't work!) Personally, I think that curtain "genetic" stocks of fish may very well be the answer to restoring much of our "natural production" to many of our rivers (not all, but many)!

We just need to find the right, or close to right, genetic stocks to prove the point. One has to wonder why WDFW is not using some of the late winner run stocks from the Cowlitz in some other small rivers to "test the science" and see if these fish will work in the system. I think that if WDFW finds a watershed that was similar to that of the Cowlitz that they would work just fine. It sure appears to be working very well at this time on the Cowlitz, so why not see if it can work as well in some other river?

Maybe that is why both NMFS and WDFW has always referred to the Cowlitz Restoration Program has the "great experiment"

Well I have said enough here now to get all of those anti hatchery guys all excited again!


Cowlitzfisherman