Originally Posted By: RUNnGUN
Time for major change. From a different perspective.... designate a few P.S. rivers as "Hatchery Factory Rivers". The Cowlitz should be that way now! Those locations that have the weekest wild populations and nearest to population centers. Could offer the greatest economic return/benefit. A few examples: Green (King County) Puyallup, Snoqualmie, Pilchuck, Nooksack? Provides local opportunities that takes pressure off OP and GH rivers. Design different run timing to last entire season. Desinate restrictions on wild rivers to artificial lures or flies. Have a couple for Fly fishing only. My 2 cents.


I like this idea. A lot. Smalma's been telling us for years that the available habitat may well be producing all the wild steelhead it possibly can. In the case of the Skagit drainage, that production's none too shabby. Elsewhere, well, the writing's kind of on the wall. It's sad to behold, but it seems pretty clear that any notion of wild steelhead recovery in Central and Southern PS (let alone Hood Canal) amounts to little more than a very expensive pipe dream.

Closing sport fisheries is not only an ineffective means of recovery/conservation (I think we've proven that, in just about every case) and an undue burden on license-buying sport fishers, but it also, as RnG points out, increases impacts to other, relatively more stable wild populations in whatever fisheries remain. Before too long, the relatively healthy wild populations will be next on the list for closure.

We've also proven that hatchery fish do nothing to help wild stocks recover, and in fact, they may do more harm than good in that capacity. If that's true, and we're trying to protect wild stocks, why should we continue the hatchery supplementation experiment any further? Managing rivers for either wild or hatchery fish would simplify rulemaking, season setting, and enforcement. It should also provide local fishing opportunities to more of our largest population centers, thereby spreading out pressure and reducing impacts on the far off locations Puget Sounders have been forced to default to in recent years.

Obviously, this is no silver bullet, and there would be significant political (impacts to affected native tribes would need to be mitigated, for example) and scientific issues to address, but I do think it's time we stop thinking of hatchery steelhead as a recovery tool and start thinking of them as a way to provide opportunity where none could exist otherwise. Whether or not a wholesale change in the hatchery paradigm makes sense everywhere is very much up for debate, but in the case of Puget Sound, I think it makes a lot more sense than what we've been doing.