Todd

What about milking the eggs out of the hatchery females and the milt from the males... A hatchery fish spawning in the river = dead wild fish.
Hmm i am sure a gamie would have a problem with that but is there technically a law against it??? I wonder?

I have mixed feelings about this subject as it relates to limits. I hate to see limits increased for a couple reasons.

1. it doesn't allow more people to catch fish. It promotes a very few people keeping more and more fish.

2. it breeds the mentality of killing everything you catch. I think thats destructive to the sport and bad for sportsmans ethics in general.
On the other hand I am all for getting all the fish out of the river before they spawn. I don't think egg take should even be an issue. they all use chambers creek fish anyway just get eggs from a river that did better.. If all the rivers are bad ( like last year) well thats just how hatcheries are, unreliable.

I don't think there should ever be a season closed to the retention of hatchery steelhead unless the stream is closed entirely for that season.

I love catching and smoking hatchery steelhead but i wouldn't miss it if they were gone and if they were gone our rivers would , i believe be teeming with wild steelhead.
I don't know about the rest of the state but i think on the East Lewis and Washougal rivers that the p[lanting of hatchery fish or maybe just too many hatchery fish is THE primary reason steelhead stocks are not responding to improved habitat conditions. yet Chums are rebounding well. The difference? chums don't need the instream rearing habitat like steelhead do . Such habitats are already full of hatchery coho chinook winter and summer steelhead juveniles.. There is no room for wild steelhead..