I ran across this article in a newswire. It references some court deal, US v Ore dealing with hatchery stock, I guess. Apparently, a couple of million unclipped salmon and steelhead are purposely being released.

What's the deal?

So, what's the difference between a wild and a non-clipped hatchery fish? I know, I know...genetics, fitness, etc.

Here's the link:
www.newsdata.com/enernet/fishletter/fishltr154.html#5

Hog

Last year I spoke with a hatchery worker from zipperlip river and he told me they do release bucket fulls of silvers without their fins clipped! I did catch alot more "native" silvers this year than normal. I personally do not have a problem with this and apparently the hatch guys dont either.

We catch hatchery Coho at the Squaxin Island hatchery every year and pull in unclipped fish quite a bit. Since we are keeping them, it makes it a pain to have to throw them back since you know they are all hatchery fish. There is no river so they just come to the pins and wait to be netted or caught. The indians certainly keep everthing clipped or not, but I get in real trouble at the ramp if I have a non-clipped fish. This is the only problem I have with unclipped hatchery fish.

I cant believe the public was finally informed of this. I hate to say it but on several of the rivers I am familiar with they have practiced this non ciipped fish released for years. This probalbly has been happening all over the Northwest as well. Who knows when it began?

The unclipped coho around Squaxin Is. may be 'wild' coho headed for the Deschutes. Some coho naturally spawn in the Deschutes ( though they aren't native) and smolts are coded wire tagged as an indicator of wild coho survival in south sound. Some creeks like McClane and Kennedy still have a couple wild coho in them...so it might be better to release them just in case...

Indians and gillnetters can keep unclipped fish. Fish checkers have to me that confiscated, uncliped fish have sometimes had CWTs indicating hatchery origin. Hatchery workers have told me that many silvers are indeed released unclipped.

Stopped by to see my cousin at the Lewis River hatchery today and he ran me through a updated me on all of the changing events. he showed the freezer room and there were two huge piles of clear garbage bags of the the heads of tagged coho. One pile Wild one pile hatchery. Labeled and all. About equal proportions. So their doin it too.

Also there was a huge Chinook that was caught on the lewis by a worker at the hatchery that had been frozen solid in teh freezer since Fall. he landed it with 12lb. main and #8 leader. This thing was a big ass tulie and had a mouth big enough to fit my head in. It weighed 53 lbs. Also they had a nice 23lb coho hung and frozen from the Fall as well.

You wont believe it but The Lewis River had a total return of 99,500 adult coho. Early and late combined. I didnt relieze they got back that many silvers. Also I mentioned on another thread that just over 13,300 summers steelies returned to the hatchery this year as well.

Stopped by to see my cousin at the Lewis River hatchery today and he ran me through a updated me on all of the changing events. he showed the freezer room and there were two huge piles of clear garbage bags of the the heads of tagged coho. One pile Wild one pile hatchery. Labeled and all. About equal proportions. So their doin it too.

Also there was a huge Chinook that was caught on the lewis by a worker at the hatchery that had been frozen solid in the freezer since Fall. he landed it with 12lb. main and #8 leader. This thing was a big ass tulie and had a mouth big enough to fit my head in.

The only thing different between hatchery and wild fish anymore is the adipose fin.

Another thing...the reason that lots of coho(not so much with chinook) are tagged but not adipose clipped,especially on the columbia,is because there are still a lot of 'double index' studies going on to evaluate whether fisherman are actually releasing 'wild' fish so a selective fishery can take place....
Here's how it works ....they tag 50k with one code and clip the ad fin ...then tag another 50k with another code but don't clip the ad fin...so now you have 100k tagged fish of hatchery origin but only 50K are clipped so you can actually tell...the other 50k look like 'wild' fish...
So...if the hatchery gets a lot of 'wild' fish back compared to hachery fish(clipped fish) then they assume some people are actually releasing the 'wild' fish....so please let unclipped fish go....or you might make it harder to justify selective fisheries in the future......

The reason the state doesn't require all hatchery fish marked is so that when fish are caught in tribal nets that still have fins, they can say, "Well, they're probably still hatchery fish anyway."

maybe its a profit thing, the Indians can sell to the fish buyers as "Willd" fish. looks good sitting in the ice at Top Foods, just a thought.

I dunno, I release all of 'em unclipped, unless the regs state otherwise. They let you keep unclipped coho on the Chehalis up until Nov. 1. As far a Squaxin Island fish go, we let 'em go if they got a fin. A couple went home by mistake, but we try to be real careful. Also noticed they don't have any black in the mouth at all. It is a nice little fishery, combat trolling style! Just get in line and try not to tangle lines.

So do any of you legal types know how these decisions are determining how many hatchery fish get clipped? This seems to be the legal reason behind it:

1969 U.S. vs. Oregon (Belloni Decision)
Federal Judge Belloni held that the state is limited in its power to regulate treaty Indian fisheries. The decision indicated the state may only regulate when "reasonable and necessary for conservation," and state conservation regulations must not discriminate against the Indians and must be the least restrictive means.

1974 U.S. vs. Washington (Boldt Decision)
This decision from the U.S. District Court upheld the right of tribes in the Northwest to fish and to manage fisheries under early treaties; determines they are entitled to an opportunity to equally share in the harvest of fish in their traditional fishing areas, and finds the State regulations which go beyond conserving the fishery to affect the time, place, manner and volume of the off-reservation treaty fishery are illegal. This decision was upheld by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review District Court rulings.

Link to the Oregon decision: http://www.ccrh.org/comm/river/legal/sohappy69.htm

I have fish areas in the past that are 100% hatchery in origin (net pen fishery). The regs in this area allowed us to keep unclipped fish. Our catch rate of clipped vs unclipped was approx. 90% clipped to 10% unclipped. Of the 10% unclipped every single fish had a metal tag in its head, Yet, not one clipped fish had the tag. Thought that was pretty interesting.

I have heard that one reason for not clipping all hatchery fish was to allow for escapement.

"determines they are entitled to an opportunity to equally share in the harvest of fish in their traditional fishing areas"

Wow, does equally share mean that next time they net 80 or so fish next to me that I get to keep 80 fish also? Gee, equally share doesn't seem to be the case at all. Not that I mind, after all they are the ones producing the fish, but man. It seems nothing the government does to make things equal ever seems to actually be equal.

A year or 2 ago in the Oregon legislature, the tribes joined with the republicans to try and stop fin clipping in Oregon as an "unnecessary state expense" since we have lots of returning fish (now) and there's (in their eyes) little difference between wild and hatchery fish. The republicans wanted to make it difficult to distinguish between wild and hatchery fish so that ESA regs would be harder to administer with a less clear picture of declining wild fish runs. The tribes wanted more ability to net without conserns over wild fish, thus increasing their take. ie. If you can't tell the difference between wild and hatchery fish, who's gonna get upset over increasing tribal catch and rolling back wild fish protections, so long as the total number of returning fish is good? I don't believe the tribes or republican legislators give a dam about wild fish.
The legislation I believe was tabled due to a threatened veto from Gov. Kitzhaber.

Steve, I believe that it means sharing the TOTAL catch. If 100 tribal netters take 500 fish each, and 25,000 sportfishermen take 2 fish apiece, well... it still equals 50,000 for each group. (in theory anyway )

I guess you could look at it that way. What we see at Squaxin is maybe 15 to 20 sport fishing boats, each taking between 2 and 6 fish, depending on how many guys per boat. Let's say that might be 80 to 100 fish. During the day 6 or 7 net boats come in and take between 80 to 100 fish. That would be conservatively 5-600 fish. Doesn't sound too equal to me, nor does it look equal. Most sport fisherman don't limit every day because we have to rely on presentation and the fish biting. Nets take all fish whether they want to go or not.

I do think the tribe there runs a good fishery, the netters are usually friendly and sometimes will give you a fish or two on a slow day. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't have this opportunity. But, where the runs are natural and wild, it doesn't seem fair to me, that's all. I don't think I have ever seen a real Indian netting out there anyway-indians usually don't have red hair! Not sure what the requirement is to qualify as Indian, I may just be one for all I know!

I see, you're referring only to the Squaxin island Tribal net-pen fishery. I was referring the the Boldt, and Belloni judicial decisions that affect the ENTIRE fisheries of Washington and Oregon respectively.

So then if you've got a trout pond on your property that you paid to have stocked, should you share half of the fish with the local tribe?