Jeff,

I don't really have a take on LW cutthroat. I simply don't know enough about the population or the fishery to have an informed opinion, so my comments were limited to the likely prospective benefits associated with a stable increase in that part of their forage base consisting of sockeye fry.

Grandpa,

I'd love to discuss fishery issues with Ramon, but to debate, we'd have to take a specific side of an issue. It's not clear to me that such a divergence exists.

Yes, I take sides. First, I'm probably on the side of fish. I'm fascinated with them, especially anadromous ones, and by grace I've managed to make a career of fish advocacy. Second, I'm also for people, but not necessarily in the way that makes them feel good in the near term. I care about long term sustainability. That's why I think it's important to recover the wild fish populations that we can. And I think it's important to use our hatchery system to meet first the needs of conservation and secondly our lust to catch some fish.

I think it's silly to operate the publicly funded hatchery system to support the present commercial fishing fleet, but I'm not opposed to commerical fishing in general. Commercial fishing should be limited to those natural stocks that occur in abundance, for which there are reasonable markets, like there sometimes are for pinks and chum. Commercial fishing should also be allowed for hatchery fish produced for recreational fishing but are in excess of recreational harvest capacity. And Treaty fishing can generally fill fresh fish market demands for folks who don't catch their own fish. It's a foolish resource manager who produces hatchery fish at a cost greater than the commercial ex-vessel price paid, but we are so very slow to make sensible changes. Anyway, I'm digressing here, Grandpa. Sorry.

Bigb8,

Glad you're finding this subject interesting. I haven't heard what the cause of the decline in Bear Creek sockeye is. Simply stocking fish there won't necessarily restore that run if the cause is habitat degradation. Best to understand the root cause of the problem and address that if possible. If that's not possible, then some kind of enhancement program might be the best alternative - small hatchery, RSIs, etc. Restoration would result in lots of smelly dead carcasses, tho, so public acceptance is an important issue on an urban stream.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.