Idaho releases millions of smolts and gets back ten(s) of thousands of hatchery fish. Of course, their returns have been trending downward also, however, they are still able to have some sort of consumptive fishery and meet egg take. I'm not insinuating to release millions into every stream in Wa, however, i think a reasonable number needs to be planted to offset losses. To have any chance at fisheries, you would think 500k smolts per watershed would suffice, although look at the Skagit back 20yrs ago, they released that much and got little return.

I would like to see predators(seals, sea lions, and cormorants) be managed and see what that looks like. It seems like one of the Big factors to address

That's what I was saying, it is the huge releases that return "enough" to fish. The water necessary to rear 500K to a million steelhead is huge and would require year-around water. These sites are rare. Which is why, to me, the hatchery programs should be focused in few systems and be huge.

Perfect! That's gotta' be it! WDFW says they are planting lots of fish when really they aren't. Little wonder that the returns are so bad. All they need to do is start planting the numbers of smolts that they have been telling us that they plant. And then lots of adult hatchery steelhead will return, and everything will be all right, and we can fish and kill hatchery steelhead to our heart's content. Perfect!

Those who want large returns of wild and hatchery steelhead need to invest in a time machine. Set it for the years 1968 - 1972. You'll wear your arms out reeling in fish.

It's on the Xmas list, we'll see how good I was this year. If you guys don't hear from me by noon tomorrow I will be sitting in a lawn chair by a roaring fire near my plunking shack on the Snohomish river circa 1969.

Wow.
Imagine that.
You gotta plant fish to have fish return.
Someone might want to tell the old farts who sit around collecting a pension and making excuses.

Merry Christmas.

Well, if you want to plant steelhead, or salmon, to your heart's content please petition Congress to change ESA. Or convene the God Squad and write off the wild fish. Until then, those "pension collecting/excuse making" staff will need to comply with the law. And while your at it, have Congress abrogate the treaties.

Note Salmo said "68-72". Pre-Boldt, pre-listing, and pre-millions more people.

Plant more so I can catch more.

Socialism much? $400, $500 per crappy little hatchery fish so you can do your thing?

"Plant more, and have a good fishery!" doesn't work. It hasn't worked since the mid-80s.

The number of hatchery fish planted is not the bottleneck that keeps us from having fisheries.

That's the fantasy they sold us in the 70s, that we could have salmon without rivers, steelhead without habitat, and fisheries with overpopulation.

That fantasy is what got us here...it won't get us out of here.

Fish on...

Todd

The Cowlitz should be run to full capacity if you ask me. They should be trying to see how many fish they can get back every year. When they get good runs it makes me question ocean conditions.

Hatchery fish are like sunshine to Frosty around this forum.

This is where the educated come to see who can make the best failure excuse.

Everyone's a winner!!!!

how long has it been since we were able to take unclipped steelhead in the chehalis basin rivers including the Hump.??? at least 20 yrs?? .. has it helped the the wild steelhead numbers grow???

if the state is so worried about the numbers WHY do they take the wild steelhead on the Wynoochee trap and put them up over the DAM???? knowing that (0) zero adults will get back into the river to go out to ocean and come back to spawn again!!!!

they been doing this for how long 30-40yrs?? how many wild have they killed off doing this???

And how many smolt survive the 170ft drop from the dam to the river below???

HMMMMMM something isnt right!!

Discontinuing allowing anglers to kill wild steelhead wasn't about making the wild steelhead population increase in size. What, you say? Then what was it about? Harvest of wild steelhead was not the limiting factor for abundance of most wild steelhead populations. Habitat productivity and capacity were the limiting factors. What the no-kill regulation did was, as fishing pressure increased and catch increased, the no-kill regulation prevented over-harvest from becoming the limiting factor. And it has worked in most river systems until last year, when returning run sizes were so low that even the incidental mortality associated with CNR fishing could become a factor, not the main factor, but a significant factor that limits the subsequent steelhead population size. Major suckitude - that's a scientific term that someone beside me made up.

I may not be up to date on the Wynoochee, but I believe WDFW stopped transporting returning adults upstream of the high dam because of the very poor downstream survival rates. I think they put some adults upstream of the barrier dam to take advantage of the couple miles of pretty good habitat between the two dams. And of course, fish are collected from the trap and taken for hatchery fish culture.

That they ever put adult salmon and steelhead upstream of Wynoochee Dam makes an interesting, but sad, story. When Wynoochee was built, the Corps said the juvenile fish passage system and water temperature control system were going to be fantastic. Shows what happens when you let a civil engineer and an economist play fish biologist. The fish passage part was a complete clusterfvck from the beginning, although the water temperature control part works quite well.

The USFWS studied juvenile fish survival through the system and found it to be extremely poor. It isn't the 170' drop that injures them. Long drops can be very successful if well designed. At the Wynoochee it is the multiple 90 degree bends in the pipe that injures and kills the fish. I don't know why WDFW continued to pass fish upstream. Probably because it was the only show in town, and agencies are really good at following inertia, either in motion or at rest.

Unless something's changed, I believe that the Cowlitz hatcheries are being run at full design capacity. WDFW shifted the numbers of some species and stocks around based on input from an advisory committee some years ago to better meet angler interests, but also to comply with ESA considerations. I know it's a tiring grind, but the reason for the lousy returns is because the smolts migrate out to the ocean and then most of them don't come back. When ocean survival was good, the adult returns were good, and we were all happy to have them. And now they aren't, and we aren't.

Ya' know, if the price of criticism was to offer even one positive idea, no one would consider you a winner.

ive been fishing with a buddy for the last few months, who is extremely knowlegable about most everything going on...

we ran up to the ponds on the Cowlitz and they were empty...

there was grass growing in some of them..

they have 8 back to Barrier, and 5 back to Blue Creek.. meanwhile Tokul Creek has 320 back.. and further south on the Lewis, they have close to 700 i think it was..

odd..

Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife
Wynoochee Trap Operations
Background
The Wynoochee River Project, operated by Tacoma Public Utilities includes the lower barrier dam (river mile approximately 48), the larger main dam (river mile approximately 50), and the reservoir (Wynoochee Lake) formed by the larger main dam. The two dams on the Wynoochee River impeded passage for all anadromous fish in the basin. Species include 5 species of pacific salmon in the genus Onchorynchus (Chinook, coho, chum, summer and winter steelhead and cutthroat trout) and pacific lamprey. Through partnership with TPU, WDFW seeks to pass fish upstream in way that maximizes habitat utilization above the dam sites and provide opportunity for recreational opportunity that is consistent with conservation objectives.
The current fish trap facility offers only a rudimentary ability to collect and sort returning adults. Sorting live fish requires dip-netted from the flume, handled and examined individually while in the dipnet. Adults are then sorted to a temporary holding tank, transferred to a transport tank, or marked and returned to the river below the trap. The current plan does not include the practice of recycling hatchery-origin fish downstream. This is due to budget constraints, increased potential risk to wild populations associated with genetic introgression between hatchery and wild populations, and hatchery operations that currently result in hatchery-origin fish straying to the spawning grounds. Future plans to recycle fish will be the product of pre-season plan with stakeholders that include clear objectives and evaluation.
This document describes fish transport plans occurring at the lower barrier dam for these species.
Chinook salmon
Previous analyses suggest that habitat between the two dams is suitable to support up to 100 (50 pairs) Chinook. Transport decision will be based on whether WDFW staff are present. If WDFW staff are present, Chinook salmon will be transported between the dams and marked for identification with a floy tag to distinguish between the fish entering the trap for the first time and those that dropped back over the dam and were recaptured. If WFDW staff are not present, Chinook salmon will be flumed back into the river.
Coho
The quality of coho habitat and the consistent returns of natural-origin coho to the Wynoochee Trap is an indication of productivity and successful passage through the Wynoochee Project and therefore justifies continued seeding of the suitable coho habitat upstream of the Wynoochee Project.
All hatchery-origin coho will be transported to Lake Aberdeen Hatchery until broodstock needs are fulfilled. Transportation of hatchery-origin coho upstream of the dam will be based on whether hatchery broodstock goals have been met.
Throughout the spawning season, WDFW staff will target a maximum number of 50 natural-origin coho to be transported above the barrier dam. The remaining natural coho will be transported above the reservoir. All fish passed upstream of the barrier dam will be marked with a floy tag to distinguish between fish entering the trap for the first time and those that dropped back over the dam and were recaptured.
Chum
Chum are seldom encountered at the Wynoochee adult trap. All chum encountered at the trap will be returned to the river below the trap to support natural production.
Summer Steelhead
Hatchery-origin summer steelhead will be transported to Lake Aberdeen Hatchery until broodstock needs are achieved. Hatchery-origin summer steelhead encounter at the trap in excess of broodstock needs will be surplused and used for nutrient enhancement. Unmarked summer steelhead will be returned to the river below the trap to support natural production.
Winter Steelhead
Hatchery-origin winter steelhead will be used for hatchery broodstock or transported upstream of the Wynoochee Project, with hatchery broodstock as the top priority. If staff or equipment are not available, all hatchery-origin steelhead will be transported upstream of the Wynoochee Project.
When WDFW resources are available, throughout the breadth of the run, up to 58 natural-origin winter steelhead will be used to fulfill hatchery broodstock needs at Lake Aberdeen Hatchery. All other natural-origin steelhead will be transported between the dams to seed the suitable steelhead habitat that exists in this area. All fish transported between the dams will be tagged with a floy tag.
When WDFW resources are not available wild steelhead will be returned to the river.
Coastal Cutthroat Trout
All Coastal Cutthroat Trout will be transported above the reservoir to seed the suitable habitat that exists in this area.

Pacific Lamprey
All Pacific Lamprey will be transported above the reservoir to seed the suitable habitat that exists in this area.

Huh? You make zero sense. Socialism?
Wtf? How? "Plant more and have a good fishery" works in all the lakes they plant non native trout in that have no chance at self propagation with no running water! Worked great in the in several rivers too. Hatchery fish taking up spawning grounds? Oh thats a good one. Psst, news flash they are held in concrete pens. Spawned into buckets.
Fantasy? It worked just fine until hatcheries stopped production but harvest increased, equals no fish. Simple equation.
I see nothing has changed here in 20 years. Still blabbing b.s . Hatcheries seemed to work great through the 90,s until people like you got involved. There were plenty of fish in my freezer back then, and plenty of space to fish while pressure on native stocks was reduced. So you got what you wanted and here we are exactly 100% where i said we would be with baseless anti hatchery policies, while ignoring why we have to have hatcheries in the first place! Yet here you are still spewing b.s. like this failed mantra is somehow still gonna work! Smfh and lol. Hatcheries were cut. Harvest was not only ignored but increased breaking the food chain, still netting in rivers, still netting river mouths, still wiping out whats left of the baitfish populations, still allowing ridiculess bycatch, cutting farmed fish production increasing demand on wild fish, closing more and more rivers concentrating mobs of snaggers on the last remaining healthy runs, and gill plate forward regs that enable the catch and kick back in of ridiculess amounts of fish until "legal" fish kept etc....... But hey the fish are magically gonna come back when we cut Hatcheries! Sheesh, i want what your smokin.

+1 .........

Lol, lay off the turnt up eggnog and 6 paper joints there Ricky

Says the pension casher.