Probably not a revelation but, I was thinking about hatchery fish being "imprinted" with certain thoughts or memories while young. My question being... has anyone on this board ever thought of or tried putting the little pellets they feed smolt at the hatcheries into those store bought spawning sacks and drifting them like eggs? Before answering I know they also say fish don't have memories or very long ones anyways but, maybe it would be conditioned response or something?

Sorry about the double post.I had got dis- connected and didn't realize the first post went through. By the way let me explain why I got to pondering this seemingly absurd idea.This past summer I ran into a guy just launching at Blue cr. mid-afternoon who use to work the hatchery and he mentioned the afternoon bite would come on at a paticular time because thats when they use to feed the smolt. Sure as [Bleeeeep!]! Twenty minute bite came off just as he said it would.

Sid Fishious

Don't waste your time trying to figure out a new way to use them fish pellets! Many years ago, when I was involved in rearing fish in our net pens, we had the same idea. We tried using the "fish food" as bait, scent, and every other way that it could be used

At the time, we were using "demand" feeders in our net pens and they always had a colored "corky" at the bottom of the feeder that the fish would peck at to release the pellets of food into the water. We even tried using the same colored corky that we used on the demand feeders to see if the fish could remember the color that they used to feed on when they were growing up in the net pens. That too was another futile attempt that failed!

None of the above worked!

Fish seem to go on the bite for many different reasons! In my opinion, it's not because of the time of day that they had feed at the hatchery. Many hatchery fish are feed by demand feeders. That means the fish decides when, and how much it wants to feed.

There not feed that way when they are out to sea, so why would they change when there back in fresh water? Besides, our salmon species start there dieing process when they enter fresh water to spawn, and for the most part are not really great feeders. I believe it's more to do with barometric pressures, light, temp, and water traffic if you're in a boat. Personally I think light conditions plays the biggest part that effects when fish go on a feeding frenzy. It just seems that each river system seems to have its own time when fish like to feed the heaviest.

That would make sense, because a lot of fish pretty much shut off as it gets dark. The excepting to that rule would be steelhead. For some reason, they seem to bite quite well during the night hours, just like all the other species of trout do. Salmon usually seem to back off of feeding at night for the most part. I guess that's one of the differences between salmon and steelhead. Maybe someone else can put a better spin on why fish tend to bite at certain times better then other times.

Cowlitzfisherman

Myself and a friend also played around with hatchery pellets and a few other ideas along the same lines . Oh well you never know tell you try.

how about pearl Pink fish food pellets???

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Rob Allen:
how about pearl Pink fish food pellets???


Those only work on wild fish we are talking about hatchery fish here.

Damn, you figured out the secret behind my series of white boats ...

Feed truck is white at the hatchery and any bigger white vehicle that drives through gets hoardes of smolts to follow and splash around ... dark colors do not.

Figured I'd try to get that "latency response" out of them and have a white boat for feeding time

I was under the impression that Power Bait was made from the same stuff as the hatcheries use. Is that true?

actually, I've seen guys drifting power bait in spawn sacks on the Hump.

yes power bait is made to smell and taste like the hatchery food that they feed trout. I remember reading about it when it first came out. some guys in northen cal. have been trolling with power bait for a few years now and it works pretty good.

I once worked for the Puyallup Trout Hatchery when I was a kid.
They put a corky at the end of the automatic feeder's dispensing stick.
When the fish get hungry, they would strike at the corky which would vibrate the release disk and cause the feed to fall down.
Hmmmmm.

I thought some of you guys/gals might be as obsessed as I am. Now I'm convinced!!! Thanks for your input. Sid out.