So far the Colville's have only been tested the gear on an unlisted stock -- the Upper Columbia summer chinook. There were 479 hatchery chinook caught during tribal ceremonial and subsistence fisheries last summer using beach and purse seines and small mesh tangle nets. Also swept in were 297 unmarked wild fish that were released. Only 26 wild summer chinook were killed -- 25 of them in the tangle nets.


Peone said that the tangle nets might not be an option in summer when the river water is too warm and the fish become easily stressed while tangled in the small-mesh gill-nets. The fish can't be left in the nets for long. The tangle nets are used on the lower Columbia during spring chinook fisheries and could be appropriate upriver in spring as well, Peone said.




The seines performed with a direct mortality rate of well below 1 percent, according to Steve Smith, a consultant for the tribes. The purse and beach seines basically encircle the fish and allow hatchery fish to be plucked out and fish without a fin clip left in the water. Keith Kutchins supervised the seining operation, which leaves the captured fish, essentially, free swimming.


"He said they're very calm. They're not stressed," Smith said. The purse seine experiment in all netted 544 sockeye salmon and 314 hatchery and 112 wild summer chinook without a wild fatality. The beach seining netted 28 sockeye, 184 hatchery chinook and 99 wild chinook. One wild summer chinook died.


Summary
Beach and Purse Seine nets AND A TANGLE NET

479 hatchery
297 WILD FISH
-------------------
776 TOTAL
1 FISH DIED IN THE SEINE
25 FISH DIED IN THE TANGLE

ALSO
PURSE SEINE NET
544 SOCKEY
314 HATCHERY FISH
112 WILD SUMMER KINGS
-------------------------------
970 TOATL FISH LIVE FISH
ZERO DIED

ALSO
BEACH SEINE NET
028 SOCKEYE
184 HATCHERY KING
099 WILD KING
-----------------------
311 TOTAL FISH
-1 WILD KING DIED

TOTAL HATCHERY 977
TOTAL WILD 508
TOTAL SOCKEYE 572

TOTAL DEAD FISH FROM SEINE NETS 2
TOTAL DEAD FISH FROM TANGLE 25

WHAT IF 977 HATCHERY FISH WERE HATCHERY STEELHEAD?
Those would be released to be available for sport catch.
Currently hatchery steel die in gillnets, but arent counted.