Why is it that the rivers that have spawning fish full of eggs are open to fishing. Can the wildlife people raise more fish at a hatchery than mother nature can ?

Hatchery fish are created to be caught before they spawn. They must die!

Basically, you're asking why the rivers with fish are the ones open to fishing?

What i'm asking is why is it the Sound was closed to fishing because there was not a good enough return, but when fish that are spawning and making more new babies to re-populate the species they can be caught and the eggs destroyed.

That's why I ask the question can the hatcheries produce more fish than mother nature.

And I don't understand the response from wintersteelheadme

Tug,

The sound was closed because WDFW and the Tribal guys cut a deal under the false pretense that (since the coho forecast was predicted to be so low) the tribes would not net, thus sports would not fish! (limit impact on WILD FISH MORTALITIES)

Fish showed up, tribes started netting both salt and terminal area's before any real numbers were gathered to support any change. The tribes basically just said Fu*k you!

WDFW reacted to the back stab by opening limited areas, but kept most of the salt closed so as to not get sued by the tribes.

Remember, Sport fishermen are mandated to use single barbless hooks and to strict methods of release for wild fish. Harvest of hatchery fish is permitted, as these fish are not wanted to mix with Wild.

IT IS THE WILD FISH IN THE RIVERS THAT ARE "MAKING THE BABIES TO RE-POPULATE THE SPECIES" TO WHICH YOU ARE REFERRING.

Unfortunately, our "Children of Mother Earth" (Native Americans) don't give a shi* about how many wild fish get taken out of the rivers. IF IT"S IN A GILL NET, IT DIES! It's just money to them...

In the short term, yes. But at tremendous cost.

Over the long term, that production is unsustainable without a constant genetic infusion from WILD broodstock. So the bottom line is that WILD fish must be conserved in order to have hatchery fish.

I think people forget that every hatchery fish is technically the descendent of a WILD fish. Most also don't understand that WILD fish are required to maintain the hatchery machine. Without the constant infusion of wild brood, the hatch mutants become so horribly inbred that even with every advantage provided by the hatchery to promote their survival, they're so poorly adapted that they don't advance toward any meaningful adult recruitment. Before long, the returns are so poor, there aren't even enough adult recruits to meet brood needs for the next generation of hatchery production.

But stakeholders have become dependent (addicted?) on hatchery production to sustain business as usual. Without hatchery fish, we wouldn't be fishing... well at least not very much. And all that displaced fishing pressure would descend upon what few healthy wild runs remain. It doesn't take rocket science to figure out they wouldn't stay healthy for long under that scenario.

So we plug along with the mess we've made... each year, more users clamoring for even greater hatchery production to sustain the harvest machine. (Yeah we recs are a part of that "machine" too so don't anyone get too "holier than thou" about it).

The problem with increased hatch production is that half the surplus is automatically allocated to the tribes by federal treaty. How much harder would you be incentivized to work for your employer (hell even yourself) if Uncle Sam simply took half of every new dollar you earned? That's the position WDFW hatchery programs are faced with.

If the fish are caught in the salt, they won't be spawning either. One nice thing about the river fisheries is that we know what population the fish are from. Catch a fish in River A, and it's from that population. In many saltwater areas, a fish could be from River A, B, or C when only River A is considered to have a healthy population.

Gonna have to disagree with the Doc a bit. A well run hatchery program designed for harvest production does not need wild fish infusion. The broodstock needed of a large program is huge; well in excess of many of the existing wild stocks. The inbreeding of a wild run with a couple hundred spawners is way higher than say, Hoodsport chum to 20-50K spawners. You get in trouble when you have a small number of spawners. Period.

Plus, a well-run hatchery program selects for fish that as juveniles perform well in confinement and the well post-release. What survives spawns. But, if those hatchery fish spawn in the wild they bring hatchery adaptations to the wild, which is bad. You can't make one fish do both well. It is either wild or hatchery.

Hatcheries are significantly more efficient at converting water to fish. You need less water and less land to make fish there. Plus, since you convert more eggs to fish, you need fewer spawners (more harvestable). To use Hoodsport again, with Finch Creek and that few acres it produces more chum that any single WA river (management has something to do with that, too-but I digress). A Hoosdport-style operation on (say) the Skagit could put a bigger chum run there with lots of additional harvest. No ecosystem benefits but you could log/farm/develop the watershed.

If you want well managed fisheries on known numbers of fish you will either have to fish in the rivers and bays, where stocks are separated and updates can be done or you can invest in massive, daily, stock identification methods in marine waters (they used to do this with Fraser sockeye-mostly by scales) and do updates outside with daily changes in stock compositions. It would be much more complex from a people management perspective but could be done. Also cost a lot.

I'll concede your position on chums.... hell, I'll even throw in pinks. Basically, these are held for such a SHORT rearing period (just enough to absorb their yolk sacs) that the hatchery influence on future productivity is minimized.

Chinook coho and steehead released as yearling smolts.... not so much.

FishDoc - You can throw fall Chinook on that list too. They emerge, spend a few days or weeks in the river, and then go to the estuary or open ocean. The potential for interactions with hatchery fish is minimal. Almost zero.

It's a real issue with steelhead, spring Chinook, summer Chinook (where they exist), sockeye, and coho. But the other species and stocks, not so much.

CA, I didn't know that about Fall Chinook. May I ask where you got that information?

Chinook come in two flavors... stream type and ocean type.

Ocean type refers to expeditious migration to the ocean at just a few months post-emergence from the gravel.... in other words sub-yearling smolts.

Stream type spend at least a year in freshwater before dawning their silver coats for their outmigration to the big blue pond.

Not all fall chinook smolt-up as sub-yearlings. I was told by one of the OR policy dudes that URB's smolt both ways.

And not all springers are stream-type. Lots of the Dungeness springers were, by scale analysis, fingerling smolts.

FishDoc has the best answer to eddie's question. In general, fall Chinook are ocean type, in which the juveniles migrate as sub-yearlings. The adults are usually mainstem spawners (e.g., Hanford Reach). The juveniles leave the redds in early to late spring. When the water starts to warm up in early to mid summer, they leave for the estuary or the open ocean.

But it's not a "hard and fast rule". Some fall Chinook, especially on the Snake River hold over for a year before migrating to the salt. But the water has to be cool enough in the mainstem for this to happen. If it gets too warm (e.g., the summer of 2015), they're cooked. Salmon can't survive long in 70F water, and they're dead at 75F.

So the ocean-type life history pattern is a response to increasing water temperature. Which, in light of climate change, means that our salmon resources in the future are likely to favor the ocean type life history pattern.