Although the footage was really cool, the only post eruption footage that I saw was of the South Fork Toutle. The North Fork Toutle was affected much worse, and these effects are still being felt to this day. The proposal for the wild steelhead gene bank for the Toutle and its’ tributaries only includes the North Fork Toutle and the Green Rivers (North Fork Toutle tributary). Considering the fact that the only contemporary footage was of the South Fork Toutle, the message at the end suggesting that all interested parties attend the WDFW meeting on January 9th and support the establishment of a wild steelhead gene bank seemed rather disingenuous. Especially considering that summer steelhead plants will continue in the South Fork Toutle. (I am willing to admit that I might be looking too much into this.)

Habitat in both N Fk and S Fk was sufficient to support large numbers of returning adults in the early and mid 1980's. Freshwater habitat conditions have not deteriorated in the 30 years since then, so a reasonable person would have to conclude that freshwater habitat there is still capable of supporting healthy numbers of steelhead.

Remember that during the mid 1980's, rivers all across W WA were also seeing large numbers of steelhead returning, followed by an abrupt decline in returns thereafter. Steelhead returns in streams everywhere followed much the same pattern as the Toutle.

I'm not advocating one way or the other on the selection of the Toutle as a gene bank candidate, just saying that judging the quality of the habitat in the Toutle (or any other river) based on adult returns can lead to false conclusions because fails to incorporate the ocean influence that is currently driving the low returns.

I have a wild 20lb Toutle River summer run on my wall of death caught in 1979 by my mother-in-law. It would be nice to see those come back in numbers.

Something to the effect of when the catchin is real good then in a few years it won't be.
Don't forget that some runs are virtually wiped out with kill nets while targeting salmon.

yeah cause you can't catch fish without bait. i mean there's not enough places to catch hatchery turds while mindlessly side drifting bait. [Bleeeeep!]

Experienced some great years there post-eruption before it got discovered.

Can't say that now.

You know, I certainly don't have it figured out but let's take a look at something for a second.

As much as I hate to admit it, I'm 90+% sure this is going to work...

Example, the Lewis River is the only river in the LCR that has a self-sustaining population of Fall Chinook. One thing that is very interesting is that it hasn't been planted with hatchery fish since the early 1970's. So again, it's a self-sustaining population of Fall Chinook capable of all the CR netting and in-river harvest. It has shut down a handful of years but for the most part it has sustained harvest. How is it the only river in the LCR that's like it? Keep in mind it's escapement is 6600 returning fish, that's 6600! Not the measly amounts all the other rivers in the LCR get with their hatchery plants..... I heard from some reliable resourse's (spawn counter's) the Lewis received 25,000+ fall kings returned in 2013.... That's amazing!

The Lewis has no hatchery plants that have jacked up the native population, that's how.... It certainly isn't a pristine watershed at 21 river miles in which 7 of them are tidewater. It certainly isn't pristine habitat as it's been rip-rapped and channeled in many places and it certainly isn't pristine habitat with it's DAM....

The Gray's River is one of the few left that meets escapement some years with wild winter steelhead, it does get hatchery fish but has a hatchery on a side tributary which sucks most hatchery fish from the river and keeping them from spawning with the natives...

The Kalama is second best at meeting escapement for steelhead, ironically it has a falls/hatchery that selects and sorts hatchery fish out and only allows wild fish to the spawning grounds....

It does suck losing hatchery steelhead plants, without question... I hope they're onto something. I'd love nothing more than to have what my dad and friends had in the late 70's and early 80's before the steelhead #'s diminished.. I'd love to see those 20+ pound natives coming in full force....

How we didn't see this in the early 90's baffles me... It's truly sad to have seen it go this long. Hopefully it's not too late. But I'm all about the EFL going to a gene bank. I hope in 5-10 years I can float that river and see those big pigs I used to catch.

Keith

Basically are... and one day a viable run of wild steelhead.

Let em' have a few rivers and let's find out. Go kill [Bleeeeep!] on the Cowlitz.

The winter season has been shut down for 33 years on the North Toutle. Someone please tell me how the wild winter fish are doing. I'm, of course, assuming that there were no hatchery winter plants during those 33 years, but why would there have been?

Something else to consider is that there are now two barriers above the mouth of the Green, one of which is about 500 feet above, that would preclude any up-river migration to what used to be most of the spawning habitat

Here's a scenario that some might shoot holes in. Make the Green hatchery a mega-hatchery. Truck the fish with an adipose that show up at the Fish Collection Facility up river to the many tribs above the Sediment Retention Structure and let them spawn where they used to.

This way the hatchery fish and wild fish could not "co-mingle" and the smolts of each group would not compete for food. The only time they would meet each other is at the out-migration.

The benefits from this are obvious. All those hatchery fish, steelhead and salmon, would be accessible to fishers from the ocean,up the Columbia, the Cowlitz, the main Toutle and North Toutle.

I guess I don't see the N. Toutle as a viable "mecca " for wild fish. Silting and limited spawning grounds are downsides as I see it. There may be better rivers or river systems that would be better for what seems to be a "grand experiment." I would rather see lots of retainable fish from the ocean to the Green.

There even may be other rivers with a hatchery that would be of better use as a "sacrificial lamb" and appease the two adversarial sides.

I'm a little biased as I caught my first winter fish there in 1956 at the Stillmeadow's property. Did not know to the extent it was private property, but that is another story.

Totally agree, use that hatchery for what it was built for...planting fish! There are other streams that are in the area they can use and have less impact on sporties.

It's not nice to fool mother nature!