Seriously there are years of great runs and some that just stink,,,thats expected to happen. However why are we trying to revive an already dead native fishery??? They are only going to have to swim past hundreds of nets, pass thousands of birds and then at the end deal with us and after they do there deed they deal with how many other things?

If we are wanting to have some substantial runs we in my opinion are going to have to plant hatchery fish heavily. Whether or not we clip the fins or not why would it matter? Let’s plant the heck out of every major river system and keep the fishing ways as they are and then let’s talk about how many fish are heading back to each river year and year out.

What the heck do you think we've been doing for the last 150 years? Do any of you have ANY idea how many MILLIONS of hatchery salmon are dumped into our rivers, year after year? The bigger hatchery fish compete with native fish for habitat and food in the river AND in the ocean. They attract huge amounts of predators, they succumb to disease quicker than natives, and they compete on spawning beds, but rarely are successful at reproduction.

It isn't working. It will NEVER work.

The only reason sport fishers are getting any seasons now, is because WE can selectively fish. If you stop trying to save the wild fish, and opt for hatchery only, like the commercials WANT you to, there will be nothing but blood baths with NO restraint on the part of commercial and tribal fishers, from AK, to BC and in every single coastal and inland fishery.

Sport fishers will still be left with crap and STILL whining.

Get fricken real people.

Francis

I agree Hatcheries do no work in regards to rebuilding Wild runs, But they have absolutely been effective in allowing a harvestable fish where without them no fishing would be taking place at all. Mistakes were made in the past when hatcheries were considered the saviour and no doubt they have done considerable damage. To this day I have seen very few plans that have a chance at reversing these mistakes. Some will say ban hatcheries, which most on this board will disagree with. Some will say stop harvest even though some biologists will say that it will have very little effect. To me the dams will forever hinder any recovery. But we have alot of other rivers that are just in need of some serious habitat restoration, why hasn't that been taking place to a point that we have seen some success. Where is the progress. I really don't see anything changing in our lifetimes other than wild runs continuing to dwindle while our oportunities dwindle with them.

Somebody smarter than me please come forward with a plan that can work and I am all ears. Until that time I am all in favor of providing opportunity that keeps people interested in the sport.

Kevin, If you or anyone else knows what is the current status of the Coho Fall Salmon in the Tillamook area? There hasn't been a commercial coho harvest there in years thus no heavy hatchery plants.

No heavy hatchery plants there Marsha, so hows the status of wild fish in the Miami, Trask and Wilson? Anybody know?

It would be interesting to take a few river systems in several geographical areas on the NW and remove the Hatchery Production problem, Sportfishing and commercial fishing, and create a ton of pure pristine Habitat and then leave it alone for 12 to 15 years and then see hoe Mother Nature responds.

I'm with Kevin on this. The Ocean is a Habitat that is the hardest to maintain and keep healthy for our salmon (wild and Hatchery). El Nino and El Nina both affect the Ocean. How do we control that? And please don't give me an Al Gore Answer, Global Warming!

Another question that needs to be looked at is How many of these rivers really had "actual" naive fish in them? Did Drano ever have wild Spring Chinook in it or was it planted just for Harvest by sporties and commercials in the lower river? how about Wind? Lewis? Kalama? How about Youngs Bay in Oregon? ( Go ahead Vince Chime in!) Klatskanie? I do believe that the Cowlitz and Willamette are the only True rivers that had Native Wild Spring Chinook in them.

One thing I do kow about planting Hatchery fish heavily. The Cowlitz always has an excellent summer steelhead return from plants of 500,000 smolts or more. Last summer was Horrible. The plant was less than 200,000.

Now we are complaining about the poor returns to the Lewis, Kalama, Cowlitz, Wind and Drano. But look at the plant numbers. Are they lower, equal to or higher than previous years? Yakima River 10,000 springers expected. Are they Wild or Hatchery? The Snake 154,000 springers expected, are they wild or hatchery.

Is there one system or answer for saving any of it or do I believe what my Grandfather told me during the Boldt years. Catch as many as you can now cause one day you aren't going to be able to anymore.

I have no idea, but it REALLY has little to do with the overall picture Jerry. Nobody ever claimed hatcheries were the ONLY problem, and some of you seem intent on making it so, or making it look like I am trying to. I was responding to the idiotic notion of ignoring the native fish in favor of hatchery fish.

WDFW tells everyone and his brother to expect great returns on the "C" this year. Do you suppose BC took FULL advantage of such an announcement? Damn straight they did. Everybody wants their share and nobody wants to make a sacrifice. It would be real interesting to sample the BC catch, eh? Wanna bet the majority of the springers caught came from the lower "C" rivers, AGAIN?



Read Bob's sticky post at the top of the forum and the answer is contained there.

Aunty,

What's your solution? Where is the model that will lead to a rebuilding of wild stocks.

There is no way to make a blanket statement about native or hatchery fish. We just need to use a little common sense and absolutely save what we can and what is thriving wild for sure. We really need to manage each and every river and body of water for what they each are, and go from there. There is no way to blanket rule all of them, that would be ignorant.

[/quote]
WDFW tells everyone and his brother to expect great returns on the "C" this year. Do you suppose BC took FULL advantage of such an announcement? Damn straight they did. [/quote]

So did the Cananians just selectively harvest the lower Columbia springers, (Kalama Cowlitz and Lewis) leaving all the rest to show up below Bonneville this season. No I don't think so.

I think those upriver tributaries were Planted Heavily with Springers and the lower tribs had so-so plants. Rumor has it on the Lewis and Kalama that Hatchery managers were so worried about the poor return numbers for Tule fish that the maximized raising them at the hatcheries leaving very little room for raising springers in the ponds.

Again are these river supporting wild springers or are they just mis-clips cause Mother Nature never put any there in the first place. if so plant them heavy with Hatchery Springers.

Just like the WDFW is trying to do when the approved the Statewide Wild Steelhead Management Plan.

Keyword=Statewide. Won't work.

Obviously, Red is on the right track.



Pretty much that. In addition, we need to stop thinking we can remove so many of these fish from the system and still have productive watersheds. It took millions and millions of dead carcasses to feed millions and millions of fry and our managers call that waste. Pretty sure mother nature didn't consider it waste.

Guess what? They have before! Between timing and location, they CAN impact runs from a specific area pretty hard. They've done it to themselves often enough to avoid it now.

You have to be kidding me, we don’t get it? Really? Interesting, the funny thing about the "millions of fish" that you think are deposited throughout our rivers systems is that the returns we get are piss pour.


Why did the Cowlitz for so many years have great returns?

Answer that and use that theory on every other major river on the west coast and then tell me how many you catch compared to now.

The truth is the native fisheries are gone, done, and extinct whatever you might want to call them.

There is no turning back now, so why have half assed runs of fish when we can just power plant them with hatchery strains and get a good return each year. Yes I understand it requires money, workers and a group effort but why don’t we go for it? how much money does WA and OR and even ID bring in each and every year to the state with the sport fishing industry? AND FISHING SUCKS!

DUH. Declines continue to decline if the rivers are nutrient poor.



No. I suspect something is extinct here, but it isn't native/wild salmon or steelhead.

BTW Jerry, you are assuming that the upper riverisn't being impacted the way the lower river is. Looking at the dam counts, I'd say you'd be making a mistake. I don't think the predictions are going to hold up.

I am also not saying BC took all the fish. I'm saying they took as many as they could BECAUSE of the prediction.

Then why would they target a low number return going to the Kalama, Cowlitz, and Lewis instead of the huge return going to the Snake, Yakima and Drano? 200,000 springers compared to 15,000. Doesn't make sence.

I don't think that happenned at all. I think the plants were low on the lower Columbia Tribs and very Heavy on the up river tribs. I can't wait to see actual return numbers for all of these rivers.

Again why was the cowlitz so good for many years?

MASSIVE HATCHERY PLANTS!!!!!

MASSIVE HATCHERY PLANTS!

Hatcheries are the only way we are going to maintain a selective harvest. Period!

Anyone that ever thinks that we can bring back wild fish to a harvestable level is truelly mistaken. ESA listings will never allow that. And I do not ever see our wild salmon stocks on the Columbia ever coming off those lists.

Aunty,

What has WDFW done that proves to you that that is a reasonable objective. I have seen very little that tells me the state is doing everything they can to save wild salmon. Are you putting all your eggs in the CCA basket. What track record do they have protecting wild salmon populations?

If you all think massive hatchery plants are the answer, you might as well find a new occupation, because the tribes and commercials will NEVER let you have very many of them.

The only reason massive hatchery plants of steelhead were successful in the Cowlitz is because they are a game fish and commercials could not target them and no tribes were netting them.

The world demand for protein will STOP you from getting what you seem to think is your fair share. Your taxes will go up, your electric bill will go up, and commercial and tribal fishers will EXPORT the heck out of your hatchery returns.

You STILL lose.

Jerry, I'll stick with CCA for now, because so far they don't seem to have any lame brained scheme to eliminate native fish and cut off their noses to spite their face, like some of you here.