Ike -
Sorry I mis-understood your habitat question. Regarding the moving of the smolts downstream prior to being released - It has been demostrated that the further that the fish migrate the more that get eaten by predators. However I'm not sure that measurable affects the overall survival of the total released. The majority of those eaten are those that are least fit than there mates; the result being that if they were nto eaten in the river they would continue to less fit and likely end up as food for a marine predator rather than a freshwater predator.

Moving the smolts downwstream would surely help reduce the upstrream impacts from any smolts that will not migrate and become residuals (that is stay in the river). Whether that would be a benefit to the river system and its fish population likely depends on the system and the species of concern.

Regading the use of some wild fish in the Chambers brood stock. First one has to remember that river entery timing and spawn timing are not necessarily linked. Staying with the Snohomish system the wild winter steelhead spawn between early March and well into June. Those earliest entering wild fish are months from spawning. The Chambers Creek fish in the Snohomish spawn from late December through mid/late February. As you can see it would be difficult to mix wild fish with the hatchery fish.

A better question to ask is how do you want the hatchery fish to be different? Fish by their very natural are very plastic genetically and their characteristics can be changed fairly easily if one desires.

Currently the hatchery fish are early timed. Historically this was due to the need to have extra time to rear them to acceptable size so that the smolts would successful migrate and return. The hatchery was able to take advantage of the addition months of rearing to get the fish to smolt size. In the last 20 years it has also been recognized that by having earlier spawning timing that the interactions between hatchery and wild fish on the spawning grounds is reduced and it is much easier to develop fishery management actions that exert vastly different exploitation rates on hatchery and wild stocks.

Given the above I assume that continuing the early timing is desireable and should be continued.

The smaller size of the hatchery fish is a function of several factors including:

1) the earlier run timing results in less rearing time which means smaller fish.

2) Younger average age of the hatchery fish (they are mostly 2 salts).

3) Hatcheries seem not to exert the same selective pressure to be larger fish.

POTENTIAL SOLUTION - To get larger fish one could select for more older (3-salt fish). However that may result in lower return rates. An alternate method may be to select for the fasts growing 2 salt fish. That of course would require substantial surplus fish back to the hatchery and the cost of marking. measuring, aging, and holding fish until it can be determined which are the fasts growing.

The question of the hatchery fish being poor biters. This is largely due to two factors.

1) The fish entering the river at a relative mature stage of sexual developement (more about this later).

2) Anglers keeping the biters. The more likely that a fish is to bite the less likely it is to reach the hatchery the result is that over time the population becomes poorer bites.

POTENTIAL SOLUTION - Reserve a portion of the hatchery release for brood stock by not externally marking them - on the Snohomish (as with most systems) they would them be illegal to keep. Not sure that anglers (as a whole) would be willing give a portion of their fish for this. With the current poor returns a significant portion would have to be unmarked. In addition the unmarked fish would have to be tagged with some other internal tag so that biologist and hatchery workers could still identify the hatchery from the wild fish.

Another potential action would be have a program of catching the hatchery brood stock by hook and line methods prior to reaching the terminal area. This would be fairly expensive if using volunteers - transportation of the collected fish and other logistic aspects would be the largest issues.

The ripeness of the returning hatchery fish is caused by much the same factors as the non-biting fish. That is the longer the fish is in the river before spawning the less likely they are going to contribute to the gene pool.

POTENTIAL SOLUTION - As with the biting issue not externally marking some of the release may result in less selective pressure on being sexual mature on entery into the river. It is likely that it would take a number of generations to see much of a change in the population.

All the hatchery fish returning at the same time. Here part of the problem is the hatcheries need to assure that they collect enough eggs to met the program needs. Currently on the Snohomish the hatchery ha attempted to collect the programs eggs spread out over a couple months - the target was 50% of the eggs taken in December, 30% in January, and 20% in February.

POTENTIAL SOLUTION - I think the spreading out of the eggs takes over time is a reasonable way to go. The question is the above ratios the best way to go.

While I'm sure that you have other issues Hoever I have rambled along far too long. Any comments/thoughts?

Tight lines
Curt