You should check out the Upper Columbia hatchery and wild fish situation. Steelhead season was closed the first of Jan above Rock Island Dam (except the Okanogan) because of possible ESA restrictions, but there's several thousand hatchery steelies still in the system. The genetics of the steelies are all jumbled together (hatchery/wild crosses from the hatcheries) from what I've read/heard.

Salmo.......

Do you mean that May Creek is now extinct of the wild steelhead I used to catch there as a kid?

Not long ago, you said that May Creek has a run of wild steelhead. Could you clear this up?

Pretty much sums up this thread...............

Slab I would bet that they are still in May creek as resident rainbows. I caught many of them back some years ago. it was where I first learned about cnr. one summer I got 7 really nice sized fish in a few days behind my grandfathers house. then didn't catch a thing for 3 years. can you say over harvest? after that I brought one home a year. and had many good days of catching and releasing

Salmo G
Thanks for the answer. I know we are a long ways off from the perfect solution. Frankly I am good with continuing to try new things, as long as we go small till we figure out what really works. and no I don't think we will ever build the perfect fish, just one that has less negative effects on the natives that are left while still providing fish to catch and some meat to eat. Just like in your post the wild fish need to balance food for cover, we need to balance numbers for damage to natives. and to do that the hatchery practices need to evolve. with the same survival of the fittest approach.

Slab,

May Ck joins the Wallace right at the salmon hatchery. I don't even know which reference document to look in to see if the creek is the hatchery's surface water supply. Why don't you just call the hatchery? That would be faster.

Sg

I think the water intake for the hatchery is on the Wallace River proper, about 1/4 mile upstream from May Creek. May Creek is completely blocked off by the hatchery weir/fish trap.

Fish on...

Todd

Throw this into the equation. A study in Oregon found that native rainbows are mating with steelhead. The study said that rainbow and steelhead are one and the same. That also dispels any talk of steelhead being salmon. There was also an article from a former head of our state's fishing debacle and he said they found that when the steelhead numbers fall greatly in a river they residualize into rainbow waiting for the right time to again hit the ocean and become steelhead. It’s funny that we all go over this stuff so much yet it still seems that all of us know very little when it comes to the mysterious steelhead. I'm the first one to admit that after 50 years of fishing for steelhead I still don't know sh!t!

Both the Wallace River and May Creek are surface water supplies for the Wallace River hatchery.

Despite the fact that steelhead mate with rainbow trout they are still Onchorynchus mykiss.

Hatchery vs Wild fish - A topic that never fails to generate considerable discussion and debate. This thread is no different.

Although I would note that when we start debating the differences in PHoS and PNoB, we've either gone too far over the edge, or the intellectual capacity of the PP clientel has increased to the point where we all need to spend more time fishing, and less time behind the computer......

Having said that.... As RiverGuy mentioned, I'm also concerned that much, if not all, of the research on this topic involves steelhead, but we automatically assume the results appy to Chinook and coho. That's not a fair application of the results. Steelhead are a very different than Chinook or coho. They sorta look alike, but past that, they're a completely different animal.

Perhaps the most striking difference is their reproductive potential. For example, I know of no commercial fisheries that target steelhead on a large scale. I realize the Tribes catch some steelhead and sell them to the fish mongers at Pike Place market, or wherever, but this is not a major fishery. However, both Chinook and coho are pursued wherever they're found by industrial-size commercial fishing outfits. The reason is their reproductive potential is considerably larger (provided we give Chinook and coho a decent chance). We've all seen huge schools of coho, but I've never seen a huge school of steelhead. So given the differences in reproductive potential, we should not be saying that whatever applies to steelhead applies to salmon. Rather, we should be conducting more of the same experiments on Chinook/coho salmon as we do for steelhead.

However, I'm not the first person to make this observation........

That would be a shame. May Creek used to have a huge run of silvers, and a pretty good run of steelhead.......I'm talking about days before the Wallace hatchery. I used to inner-tube down May Creek in the Summer.....all the way to the Wallace bridge where we would be picked up and taken home.

Always something.....

I can't believe that the State would completely obstruct an anadromous fish bearing river.......who do they think they are?......the Elwha Dam folks?

Wow -
Slap Happy you are much older than I thought. The Wallace Hatchery has been in operation for approximately a century.

I guarantee you that there were runs of salmon and steelhead up May Creek......I don't know when that ceased, but it definitely was after my childhood.

I've been searching to find out when the weir went in May Creek, but it's buried somewhere. It could have been installed when the hatchery underwent substantial changes in the early '70's. (link below)
I vaguely remember something about lampreys and a weir, but I have no idea as to any details and my memory may be totally mixed up on that.....just thought I'd throw that out there.

http://www.co.snohomish.wa.us/documents/.../m14wallace.pdf

I don't know how long the hatchery has been in.......I do know there was no weir blocking passage of salmon and steelhead when I was a kid. Maybe you have the answer to that?

Found this....longer ago than I would have thought. We were discussing the viability of planting fry......
If I knew how to link the conversation, I would.

hmmmm.....perhaps this? http://www.piscatorialpursuits.com/forum...html#Post570183

Salmo g.
River Nutrients

Registered: 03-08-1999
Posts: 8447 Slab,

Certainly no disrespect meant from this end either, but you've made a couple errors I didn't previously know about. May Creek is already inhabited by wild fish. So when you super-impose your hatchery fry on the wild fry that already live there, both will suffer. But the hatchery guys will suffer more in spite of their superior numbers, altho perhaps not immediately. They won't know where they are and will have to seek suitable fry colonization habitat. That habitat is already occupied by the wild fry that already emerged from the gravel. So both will have to compete for space. Having the advantage of having hatched from gravel, the wild fry will have an advantage over fry that are slightly less fit from hatching in a heath tray (it's an energetics and lipid reserves thing). I'm setting the rule that your hatchery fry are unfed; not giving the little bastards the longer term advantage of being fed fry, which is likely to produce the result of fewer eventual adult steelhead than if the hatchery fry had never been planted in the first place.

That difference in fitness between the hatchery and wild fry at the time of ermegence is small, but I think this is one time where small is significant. A newly emerged fry has about a week at most to colonize suitable fry habitat and begin feeding, or it dies. Starving fish usually end up as prey before actually dying of starvation however. That hatchery fry shares the instinct to feed, but they are not as good at it as the wild fry. I've raised several salmonid species in a hatchery setting; coho are best at going on the feed, steelhead and chum second, chinook third, and Atlantic salmon are the real dumb shits when it comes to feeding - it's a wonder they ever survive at all. Anyway, that hatchery steelhead fry does not go on the feed as readily as his wild counterpart. That's my contention, and I'm stickin' with it.

I've never heard of any indication of weakening because wild fry have to wiggle through the gravel to emerge. Even if they have to move laterally 10 or 20 feet as well as upward maybe a foot. It would only weaken them if they were delayed significantly in beginning feeding. And there is feed in the gravel in the form of very small invertebrates.

So, do you like your dog turds with gravy?

Sg

As has been discussed "on the other board" the Snake River falls were returning in the triple digits. There were 2 choices to make: let the stock go extinct or conduct a recovery program that would inevitably mean hatchery production.

Is this clear enough to you, or should I explain it a different way?

I'm still looking for info on the weir on May Creek. Anybody have any ideas where to find documentation?

A question for all: If it were true that the State blocked off a stream to wild migratory fish, would you consider that to be the same as the Elwha Dam scenario? Not that the State would do such a thing, we're speaking hypothetically here.
Would there, in your mind, be a reason good enough?

Crystal clear.

But at what point is the population considered recovered? And at what point, if ever, does the hatchery program stop? Or is it really just another harvest hatchery?

Recovery implies the run is restored to a "healthy" number that is self-sustaining. At which point a hatchery is no longer required to "support" the run. Anyone think that's really gonna happen?

And lastly, now that the hatchery component is part of the ESA-listing for this stock, does stopping the hatchery production constitute a man-caused assault/threat to "recovery" of the ESU?

Things that make ya go HMMMMMMMM.....

Salmo g?

And one more consideration about genetic swamping when 75% of more of the spawners on the gravel are hatch-origin.

Suppose the hatchery program were stopped due to genetic concerns (a worst case scenario) or stopped due to the run being deemed "recovered" (a best case scenario).....

What would become of the remaining naturally-producing population of fall chinook? Would they really continue to sustain themselves? Or would their reduced reproductive fitness (resulting from generations of genetic swamping by hatchery fish) result in fewer wild fish in subsequent generations.

Something tells me that we will never get to find out (well, at least in my lifetime) because as long as fall chinook keep coming back to the Snake in any numbers, the hatchery will be given credit for it.