If you have tribs (for example SW WA) that utilize Chambers creek winter steelhead for hatchery fish that return Oct-Jan with a small handful in Feb, how is it those fish are spawning with the true native stock that returns Jan-April??
male hatchery steelhead can hang out for a long time waiting for a mate.
I know I've heard plenty of stories of "wild" fish returning from November on in the 60's-70's but that was in a time frame that they didn't clip the hatchery fish so everything was assumed to be "wild"...
Could the above example (with the chambers creek return timing) be the reason that our native stocks are the strongest returning in March/April now, or is that how it always was before the introduction of hatchery fish?
there was historically far more diversity in run timing. the reason is habitat. water temps and hydrographs have a lot of impact on spawn timing... meaning that a glacial river with lots of tributaries is going to have late spawning mainstem spawners and earlier fish using tributaries. think of creeks and tributaries that are not fed by snowmelt. do you think a march april spawn timing will be good for emergence of eggs? by the time they hatch they might be high and dry, versus spawning in january and february. imo, the lack of early returners not only decreases total run size and diversity, but leaves loads of habitat unusable by later returning fish.
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