Guess I'll just buy a volume discount pass to the Acropolis' lunch buffets. Hell with fishing anymore.

How about cloning after habitat restoration.

Cowlitz Fisherman

You are a stud. You have taken it one step farther. So far not to many solutions though. Seems more like a love it (as it is, or is going), or leave it ( I won't live in a state with no wild fish ). I am not as against the wild fish as my last thread may have made me sound. I just wanted to see what everyone thought. This should be neat!!!

Elgaupo and Chuck

Sounds pretty cool if it would work. Lets do that with some wild stock. Back it up with some small stream restoration/protection, as well as estuary protection and bird depradation ellimination.

Thumper

Your name sounds a little like Sirbonkalot, at least the meaning is the same. Notice I have not said BONK one time. (Until now anyway)

I could not agree with you more. The fishing has been fantastic on the Lewis and Cowlitz systems, thanks to the hatchery programs. Almost makes you wish for more....But then there is that impact on the wild fish....If there are any....I love hatcheries they make so many fish to **** (You know).

Solution, ban all NETTING in rivers for the next 4 years and see what this does for the Native Runs.

Ban Netting + CnR all Nate's = High Mortality rate for the Native Runs improve Drastickly.

Now lets convince the Polititicians of this Idea........

Born to Fish Forced to Work......

cowlitzfisherman:

Your innitial post was to the effect that the very last native steelhead was gone. You cannot restore something that is extinct!

I agree there can be a happy medium we are however still too far on the leaning towards hatchery fish side.
Every river that recieves a steelhead run is planted with hatchery fish, even thoes that have not hatchery.
As of yet there is nothing in our hatchery managment that takes wild fish into consideration. We are not yet managing for wild steelhead other than limiting harvest.

We are doing very little habitat restoration we are changing very little about how we manage hatchery fish.
Exuse me for getting angry but just what the hell do you wanna do to balance things out??? The State of Washington is already DOING NOTHING to save wild steelhead especially in terms of hatchery managment. So anything that is done to "balance things out" has to be done in the interest of wild fish. There is no way to increase hatchery production and have it be good for wild fish..

There is more than enough hatchery fish in all our rivers to sustain enough harvest for everyone! You cannot say you want more hatchery fish and say you want to restore wild runs the two things are absolutely contradictory!
To achieve a balance we need FEWER hatchery fish plain and simple any argument against this fact is an argument against ALL the avaliable science. There is no science that says otherwise. People who want more hatchery fish have to by deffinition want fewer wild fish. Thats the only way it works,

DC CnR release mortality using proper methods is 3% or less.

I guess I don't understand all the fuss about hatchery vs native fisheries. I travel a bit and have witnessed marvelous salmon and steelhead fishing in upstate New York as well as in Michigan and Wisconsin. Not just gear guys either. I've seen a lot of very happy flyfishermen with their G-Loomis rods and elegant reels yanking their fair share of some very magnificent hatchery fish out of those waters too.

And not a native fish anywhere to be seen, except for a rare atlantic salmon mixed in with all the chinook and skamania strain steelhead on the Oswego and Salmon rivers in upstate New York.

Again, no native fish. All of these runs are professionally and intensely-managed hatchery efforts using stocks that we Northwesterners provided. Little ones out, big ones back. Happy, happy fishermen, and with generally good reason because there are many more fish per fisherman there than we have here, by far.

What am I missing? What is this abiding distaste for hatchery fish? Where we have native runs of either salmon or steelhead that can feasibly be protected let's do it (for example, the North Fork Lewis fall chinook). But where we have predominantly hatchery fish get out there and enjoy them.

Thumper I agree get out and enjoy them and take them out of the system. The problem with hatchery fish is 1 when we plant them in such large numbers they outcompete the wild juveniles and when they return as adults, stray from the hatchery and spawn in the wild.

As far as a game fish All i can say that as a fly fishermen i have more chance of cathching 1 of the 2-300 wild winter runs in the East lewis that 1 of the 1500-2000 hatchery fish becuase the hatchery fish are not nearly as aggressive.
You should also know, and this is obvious, there is no hatchery on the East Lewis therefore every hatchery fish that is not harvest remains in the system and spawns. recent studies have shown that for every pair hatchery fish spawning in the wild the reporductive siccess of a native pair is eliminated.

Never ever no matter what under any circumstances never release a hatchery fish that you catch on a river that has no hatchery!!

This is not about being anti-hatchery fish it's about looking at reality. Hatchery fish are bad for wild fish there is no way around that. The Cowlitz is the only river I know of that no longer has a wild run big enough to save. All the other rivers have a good chance if we do the right things now.
I oppose the idea of giving up and only managing for hatchery fish. Therefore I oppose increasing hatchery plants anywhere. There are plenty of hatchery fish in all our rivers already and increasing thoes numbers WILL decrease the number of wild fish.
decreasing the number of wild fish on any river in Washington state in unacceptable to me and I would expect to almost every angler in the state of Washington.

http://www.wa.gov/wdfw/fish/regs/regchng/jan0702a.htm

http://www.wa.gov/wdfw/fish/regs/regchng/jan2402a.htm

http://www.wa.gov/wdfw/fish/regs/regchng/feb2002e.htm

http://www.wa.gov/wdfw/fish/regs/regchng/feb2002c.htm

http://www.wa.gov/wdfw/fish/regs/regchng/feb2002b.htm

http://www.wa.gov/wdfw/fish/regs/regchng/feb2002a.htm

nothing??????

Robert Allen --- I understand your frustration concerning the East Fork Lewis. I am interested in what you would specifically suggest for this river. Give us a solution that you would support. Does it involve termination of hatchery plantings?

Thumper,
I'll tell you why I have a distaste for hatchery brats: They don't fight well. They're like catching bass when you're fishing for steelhead. The natives are so much bigger, stronger, more aggressive, jump more, jump higher, run more.....etc. When fishing a river like the Clackamas or Deschutes that supports nates and brats, I can usually tell within 5 seconds if I've got a wild or hatchery fish on. Maybe 10% of the time I'm wrong. The first wild winter Oregon coast steelhead I ever landed jumped 9 times! The first 5 or 6 jumps were probably 6 feet out of the water. How many of you have caught a winter brat like that? How many have caught a summer brat like that? Out of the >100 winter and summer brats I've caught, I've had 1 fish jump more than 3 or 4 times (an early summer hen that jumped 6 times). I've lost count of how many really hot wild fish I've caught (not to brag, just to make a point). I have to assume that many people participating in these wild vs. hatchery threads have not caught any/many fresh wild steelhead because they don't know the magnitude of this difference. Wild steelhead are like a different species. For fishermen interested in sport instead of fillets, wild fish are way superior! I enjoy steelhead fillets as much as anyone...I'm having them tonight as a matter of fact, but for those who fish more for sport than for food, there is absolutely no comparison.

Thumper I don't care how it's done but if we are to protect the wild fish in the East Lewis river we have to eliminate hatchery fish before they spawn. I beieve terminating the hatchery plants is the best way to do that. Whats wrong with setting ONE river aside?? One river out of the whole state! but since that is never going to happen. my next suggestion would be to put a fish trap just above the lweisville boat ramp and only passing the wild fish above that. I don't know how else to do it..

To the poster above ( can't remember who it was)
about the closures to protect wild fish.. Thats exactly my point. thank you.

Bob All 3,
This is a hot issue on the Sandy river right now. The problem is, it takes a lot of money to put in a fish weir. I've talked to several Oregon fisheries biologists who believe it's eventually going to come down to certain rivers managed for brats, other rivers managed for natives. I'm skeptical if there's another solution that would be acceptable to all the competing parties.
Coming soon to a river near you......A knockdown, dragout fight over "To brat, or not to brat; That is the question!"

Wild Chrome you may very well be right. In that case the East lewis not having a hatchery would be a prime example of a place to manage as a wild fish river. it's also of interest a Fishing Comservation group of which i am a member proposed the idea of brat rivers and wild rivers WDFW staff over 10 years ago. it was rejected coldly.

here everyone read this...

Hatcheries actually hurt survival of salmon, new study concludes
The Vancouver Sun
Thu 28 Feb 2002
Scott Simpson

In a challenge to conventional views about the value of fish hatcheries, a new report warns hatchery programs are actually wiping out the fish they're trying to save.
Oregon biologist Mark Chilcote reviewed steelhead data on 12 Oregon rivers collected over 26 years and concludes that hatchery fish are poor breeders -- one-third to one-eighth as effective as native fish. They also pass on that deadly trait to their wild cousins as the two groups intermingle on spawning grounds.

Chilcote's work has serious implications in British Columbia where, since the late 1970s, the federal government has spent more than $1 billion on salmon hatcheries. The province has pursued a steelhead recovery program that has failed to keep many south coast and Vancouver Island runs from veering towards extinction.

In a paper to be presented today to the Oregon chapter of the American Fisheries Society, Chilcote warns that the more hatchery fish you put into a system, the faster the native population declines.

"The number of naturally produced fish can be expected to decline as the presence of hatchery fish in the spawning population increases," the paper says.

"The results of this study suggest that naturally spawning hatchery fish, regardless of brood stock origin and quality, are ineffective at producing offspring that survive to adulthood."

For example, he says a population of 300 wild spawners produces more returning adults than 2,400 hatchery spawners.

A draft copy of Chilcote's paper, which is being submitted to the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, was obtained by The Vancouver Sun.

Chilcote says reacting to lower fish populations by adding more hatchery fish could accelerate the decline because removing more native fish to boost the hatchery population effectively robs the stream of its most proficient spawners.

Chilcote has spend 29 years as a steelhead specialist, geneticist and conservation program leader with the Oregon and Washington departments of fish and wildlife.

His conclusions don't just apply south of the border where indiscriminate breeding programs have used multi-generation hatchery fish to boost waning stocks in troubled rivers -- thereby escalating the threat of breeding failure.

British Columbia's conservative policy of breeding only native fish to create the next generation of hatchery steelhead, annually removing about 10 per cent of a given population, is seen as equally culpable. On a better-than-average Lower Mainland stream with an annual return of 500 steelhead, about 25 breeding pairs of wild fish would be removed each year as hatchery brood stock.

About another 10 per cent of the wild population is lost because of mortal injuries suffered during capture and release by anglers.

Under the B.C. program, anglers are allowed to keep hatchery fish -- identifiable by a clipped adipose fin on their backs -- but must release all wild fish.

Chilcote says native fish captured for hatchery breeding are only marginally more successful than semi-domesticated hatchery fish at propagating themselves -- and neither group is even half as productive as fish that are left in the wild.

On some Lower Mainland and east coast Vancouver Island streams where the wild-capture breeding programs operated, winter steelhead populations have plummeted to less than 20 fish in recent years, forcing long-term angling closures.

On other streams where wild populations were large, such as the 5,000-steelhead Chilliwack-Vedder, the percentage of wild fish withdrawn for hatchery spawning was significantly below 10 per cent and those streams continue to thrive.

B.C. fisheries biologists say some of the decline on smaller streams is due to climate change, although Chilcote says he took climate change into account when calculating the impact of hatchery programs.

A fish and wildlife branch spokesman acknowledged that Chilcote's report raises some troubling questions and noted hatchery programs on some of the worst-hit streams such as the Capilano River have already been cancelled.

"We are going to take it seriously and have a look at it," said fish and wildlife use branch director Don Peterson. "We have our own concerns about the anadromous [seagoing fish] stocking programs and the impact they may be having on wild populations."

Peterson noted the branch is also funding long-term genetic research and alternative enhancement methods such as boosting the nutrient levels in streams in order to make food more abundant for hatchling fish.

Immediately after Chilcote presents his findings, Oregon fish and wildlife colleague Tom Nickerson is presenting a paper suggesting similar problems exist with coho salmon hatcheries.

Chilcote could not be reached for comment but Nickerson said after reviewing coho returns to Oregon streams in the 1990s, it appears hatchery programs are depressing wild salmon stocks.

Nickerson suggests that the release of massive numbers of hatchery coho smolts into Oregon rivers -- as many as a million into a single stream -- attracts exceptional numbers of salmon predators such as seals and seabirds. Wild smolts are among the victims of the subsequent feeding frenzies.

"I found that the more hatchery fish you had, the lower the productivity [of the wild fish]," Nickerson said. "There was a negative relationship with hatchery fish."

Salmon enhancement staff with the department of fisheries and oceans declined to comment on the studies. They have interbred coho and wild salmon in their programs, in a manner similar to that of the Americans.

Habitat and enhancement section spokesperson Carrie Mishima said Chilcote's report on steelhead falls within the provincial government's mandate, and said federal staff want to see Nickerson's full report before commenting on its implications for hatchery coho programs in B.C.

The department has drastically scaled back its salmon hatchery programs in recent years, and spent about $23.5 million in the last fiscal year on programs including hatcheries, community involvement and habitat restoration.

Coho releases from all hatcheries in B.C. in 2001 totalled

4.1 million fry and 11.1 million smolts. These numbers included releases from hatcheries operated by DFO, hatcheries operated under contract to the federal government and hatcheries operated by community groups.

The department has not issued annual reports on the effectiveness of its coho enhancement programs since the early 1990s, and a 1998 Simon Fraser University report on an ongoing coho population crash in B.C., Washington and Oregon says the department has little information about wild stocks off the southern B.C. coast.

However, the report does note a decline in reproductive ability of coho over the last 18 years.

Steelhead Society of B.C. president Scott Baker-McGarva predicts the report will generate controversy because hatcheries generate fish that anglers are able to harvest. He said there is "no doubt" many sport fishing lobbyists will reject Chilcote's conclusions if it means they can no longer keep the fish they catch.

"There is a social argument, and a science argument," Baker-McGarva said.

Steelhead society director Poul Bech, a former fisheries technician who carried out the B.C. government's steelhead enhancement program in the Lower Mainland region, said "this study shows that hatchery programs are often not beneficial and sometimes are actually a detriment to wild steelhead populations."

He said wild steelhead have adapted genetically to survive a variety of challenges in their natal streams, the ocean and along migration routes.

"Climate, ocean and stream conditions are changing at unprecedented rates resulting in potentially dire consequences for steelhead populations," Bech said.

"If wild steelhead populations are to survive over the long term, the priority must be to maximize the adaptive potential of those populations to ensure the best possible chance of successfully adapting to conditions as they change."

Lynn Hunter
Fisheries and Aquaculture Specialist
The David Suzuki Foundation
11-630 Huxley Street
Victoria, BC V8Z 3X8
Phone 250-479-0937
Fax 250-479-9154

Robert Allen --- I think you are out of luck if you think that local fisherfolks in Southwest Washington would stand still for a stop to hatchery plants on the East Fork Lewis. But the weir or trap above Lewisville would seem to make some sense. Have you ever talked to the Fish First people about your idea?

Wild Chrome --- I know that my opinion is in the minority here, but I think you are wrong to generalize about the fighting abilities of hatchery vs wild steelhead. True there are wimpy brats, but there are also ass-kickers like our North Fork Lewis summer hatchery fish. Virtually all are in the range of 8-14 pounds and they will tear you up. We've had them nearly jump over the boat. Wonderful fighters. On the other hand, the really large wild fish (15-20+ pounders) that I have caught on the East Fork Lewis in recent years have been very poor fighters for the most part. The males in particular just kinda swim around like a big old submarine. Most do not jump at all. Generalizing in either case is probably not very useful.

Robert Allen3

This isn't about some ones thesis, or paid for study, this is about "options"! Please don't come down on other posters that think, and have different opinions other then yours. Let's first hear what everyone else has to say before anyone else criticize what they have said. We have all seen enough studies now to gag a fish! Lets just see what "others" think may be the answer. Fair enough?

Cowlitzfisherman

Is the taste of the bait worth the sting of the hook????

Bob All 3

Get over yourself already!!!! We all know that the science proves that the brats are bad for the nates. OK! Enough said about that. Now, lets face the realities of the situation.

Most, if not all of the river systems along the I-5 coradore have at least one hatchery on them. So you would most likely be out of luck shuting down those hatcheries.

Wait, I think the Stilligaumish system is devoid of hatcheries, so there is one that could be managed for nates with restricted fishing methods (flyfishing only). Yea Baby!

As for the lewis/cowlitz/snohomish/kalama etc....Rivers with established runs of hatchery fish on at least one of the tributaries, shuting them down will not happen. Population densities, and poularity with BONKERS from accross the state will keep the hatcheries alive and well (I know, hurting the wild poulation).

Perhaps a few rivers out on the coast could be operated for nate only.

You have to remember that money(Bonkers) talks, and as the majority will get their way.

Nothing will be simple, but I really like the way Cowlitz Fisherman is going.

To Bob All 3, How about the N.F Stillaguamish, I believe Lee Wolf helped in designating that as a a fly fishing only section of river . I believe that season starts in April. As far as I know,
there are no hatcheries on that river.

If you've never fished it, the runs are beautiful and the scenery is spectacular.

Wild Chrome

I was just re reading all of the replies, and something you said caught my attention!

You said; "I target wild fish, so I'm fishing rivers that are known for their native fish and in some cases (Trask, Nehalem), are managed by ODFW for wild steelhead. More power to ODFW! Great fishing in February and March and those fish don't cost taxpayers a dirty dime!"

Whenever any state agency "manages" our resources, it's costing us plenty of money! It doesn't really matter if they are managing it for either "hatchery" or "wild" fish. If the money isn't spent on "hatcheries", then it will still will get spent! The "money" always is COMPLETLY spent! Usually it almost always spent on their own jobs and their benefits. Just look around and smell the roses!

Cowlitzfisherman

Is the taste of the bait worth the sting of the hook????

Well guys i'll tell you what all you guys who want more hatchery fish better not start complaining when rivers start to close (as is already happening). That is what WILL happen!

Adding more hatchery fish will cause continued decline of wild stocks at as a result more and more rivers will close as a result, and you better not say a word about it! If you want to pressure WDFW to plant more fish then the decline of wild steelhead is directly your fault so you better not complain when every river is closed because of additional ESA listings!
It seems to me that some of you aew unwilling to give up anything in the short term to help the long term survival of out quarry. I am saddened that you feel that way.