Nice fish Bob! How have the returns/results been for that program so far? Any estimate of return rates, etc.?

Return this year has actually been pretty good so far from reports that I've gotten. We're coming off of a plant of 100,000 for this year (future returns will come off of 50,000 as the state says there were "TOO MANY" fish in the system ... yeah right!) It's difficult for us to judge, as those fish that are harvested are recorded as regular hatchery fish on punchcards (I'm sure guys killing wild fish probably mark some as wild as they probably don't check well enough). In addition, the tribe keeps crappy record of what they catch ... two years ago at an in-season guide meeting, we counted up over 70 Snyder fish caught with the handful of guides at that meeting ... the Quillayutes claimed they had only caught 14 that entire year.

These days, lots of steelies are spawning in Snyder Creek itself as well as the area around the confluence (sorry, that area is closed to fishing), where there weren't too many before ... that's a good sign in my book. And while I like to see them all let go ... a harvested buck is not the end of the world ... but PLEASE release the hens, we can use wild bucks with them to keep the diversity if needed (such as last year when terrible water conditions in January didn't allow us to get as many fish as we had hoped).

Thanks for the info, Bob. Always seems like there is some problem with the numbers when you start extrapolating. The guide numbers are a little misleading too since some fish would be caught numerous times. I would think the fish checker numbers might be of some use.

It would be helpful to have a good return estimate to show the state that this is a successful program. One other question, you target the early returning fish, what is the fishery cutoff date and do they also seem to spawn earlier? If you don't have time to respond I understand, just curious.

Happy New Year everyone and let's hope we see lots of fish in 2000.

The checker numbers wouldn't do any more good ... first off, they only check a fraction of the boats, and secondly, you might have the same recounting as you discussed with the guides' observations.

Until the largest harvesters (uh, we know who that is) keeps accurate counts, the state will never show for sure ... seeing what those of us on the rivers a lot see, we've had pretty good results.