Good to hear the end of the Chambers turds in that basin.

sad that they ignored the moratorium during salmon season

Chambers as in Chambers Creek in University Place?

jfc...yes redhook..the Tacoma one.

sorry, that was harsh...but this is old news and that stock is at the center of the debate on hatchery productivity, broodstocking, recovery...everything! This is something that, for how much you post/talk should know something about...or at least google before you go asking a kinda dumb question..you dont work, and troll here all day, open the computer and your mind, gain some knowledge, skills and what have you..or volunteer locally and work it like a job while you learn this stuff

here, ill save you the trouble

Chambers Creek winter steelhead--This stock of winter steelhead comes from Chambers Creek, Tacoma, Washington and was first cultured in the 1920s (Crawford 1979). Chambers Creek steelhead have been introduced throughout western Washington, including the Puget Sound region, and in tributaries of the lower Columbia River. As much as 90% of steelhead harvested from some western Washington streams can be attributed to Chambers Creek winter steelhead, through artificial and established natural production (Crawford 1979, WDF et al. 1993). Concerns over genetic introgression into native stocks by Chambers Creek steelhead led to attempts to establish native brood stocks in Washington (Crawford 1979); however, the Chambers Creek steelhead stock is still considered essential to most of Washington winter steelhead hatchery operations (Huew et al. 1990, WDF et al. 1993).

I am happy with the outcome of the courts ruling..not neccesarily the ruling but that the tribe backed off the topic and is looking for other options..though I am kinda scared at what they may focus on next. it just hurts to watch, though they are federally backed(both in red-tape and their pocketbooks) these entities dont really do a much better job than WDFW..they are making a lot of the same mistakes the department did 20 years ago

yeah i dont care too much about all of that...

Chambers Creek is a damn sh!thole... whats so special about the Steelhead there?

heres a novel idea...

if rivers Steelhead runs allow for "help", meaning the run size is sufficient, do a Snider style program and breed them in the river... use the own rivers stock and breed them, dont bring outside fish into the mix, thats like putting 2 Betas in the same bowl...

if the DONT or arent capable of doing that, shut the river down to fishing for 5 years minimum, and look at it closely to see what happens... we have our hatchery rivers, IE, Green, Cow, Puke (was), Sky, ect ect ect.... dont screw up another river introducing non native stock into and expect it to do any different than any other rivers that are completely wasted now of wild fish...

this is only about money with them... i wouldnt be suprised if the took the alloted money they had aside for the Steelhead program, and dumped it into say the Chinook program to produce 3 times the amount of fish there, just to do it....

its about money, not the fish... always has been, always will be.. they probably use the Chambers stock because a ton return a whole 1/2 mile from the mouth to the wall.... yippie, tough fish for sure...

DUDE, do you understand things you read nate? you dont seem to absorb them well...

thank you for 3 paragraphs of professional opinion there..if you would have been paying attention you'd know that THAT is exactly what the argument has been about the whole time, but chambers as genetically a very easy and productively efficient stock to produce(when it comes to the figures for the hatchery at least), it doesnt really have much to do with how long that little sh!thole stream is.

boy you got the sh!t hole thing right though! right down to the "skim boarding" park in the creeks estuary..jfc!

as for your first statement of "yeah i dont care too much about all of that..."
really? so science, history, mother nature, years and years of work doesnt merit anything in your mind? you cant be serious....

OPEN A BOOK AND READ DUDE! ill even give you my old salmonid biology books if you want..only a couple hundred pages and if you can retain it you'll actually be able to run circles around a lot of these guys rather than just thinking you can.

come on nate, your smarter than this, apply yourself man!

Nailed it Redhook. Strong work.

i dont like the politics of this, i HATE it, all it is is arguing and fighting and finger pointing and bitching and blah blah blah...

so i dont even read much of it...

yeah i knew Chambers stock was used in a few areas, but didnt know it was that many, so thanks for posting that, i did learn something, but wondered why the hell that place would be chosen, its like a worse nastier Beer Bottle Beach in Renton on the Cedar...


how can Chambers Creek stock be better than Sol Duc stock?... or in this case, Elwha stock? they want production, not run establishment/repair from damage... well, a hatchery run establishment, screw wild fish right? wait, that means nothing either, cuz nets dont release fish....

im afraid to say it, but that river might be in worse shape now that everything is known about it, and what people want to do... might never return to its true glory of 100 pound Kings, and huge Ho's..... sad...

you hit it right with that one hook, I hear you, the fighting/finger pointing is ridiculous and childish..

as to your question, think about what your idea of a "better stock" vs the idea of what that is in the hatchery system. just like any other Production company, the product is only good when it is cheap and effective to make, maximizing usage or profits. the run timing is also distinct, which can help separate the fish we are allowed to harvest from the ones that we dont, that separation is a big point. and remember that, just like in the court systems, a lot of people did and still do think that "a fish is just a fish", genetics and science be damned..and that type of closed minded thinkin will certainly be at least one nail in the coffin.

I REALLY hope I get to eat my words here but I am afraid we have already lost a lot of the genetics that once made that system so great

I can see RH's point. If man farkes up a river that speaks ill of the native steelhead in that river . . .

Even if we have "lost the genetics" that made the Elwha what it was, so what? The fish, if given the chance, will adapt to the system. Which is different than it was 200 years ago even if the dams had never been put there.

What is nost important is to give natutrally reproducing fish the chance to spawn there, incubate there, rear there, and the proceed to the ocean for more rearing. If we want the fish to adapt to the system we need to give them as many options as possible which means don't kill them.

There are, apparently, a few really big Chinook in the river. Stop killing them in the ocean. Let them reach 5 or 6 years old before they spawn.

There was an interesting experiment done with some bird translocations in the Pacific. They took some birds from Island A, put them on B. Island B had a slightly different food resource. The birds not only adapted to it (bill size changed) but the new population had MORE genetic variation in the population than the source population, which was the only population that existed at the time of the transfer.

If you want fish to adapt to the Elwha, and recover rapidly, let most of the adults spawn. If harvest is necessary, take it only in the river, only on maturing fish, and keep it to less than 10% of the return.

RH,

You don't ". . . care too much about all of that," but it doesn't stop you from posting an opinion that shows how completely ignorant you are on the topic. Your posts are the perfect illustration of the ". . . blah, blah, blah . . . " you carried on last night.

If you know anything, anything at all, you'd know that when you do this, you are a perfect waste of space. Do you even know this much?

Avid,

Among the things I've learned today is that the Elwha doesn't need Redhook's help.

It's nice to read that the suit was dismissed, but the Lower Elwha Tribe had already agreed to discontinue using CC steelhead months ago. The suit was then modified to oppose any hatchery use in restoring Elwha River runs, apparently preferring localized extirpations, since the lower Elwha is presently seasonally uninhabitable by fish life, and allowing natural recolonization to occur whenever and however it does. Unfortunately there has already been an approved Elwha restoration plan in place for nearly two decades that prescribes hatchery use as part of the plan. IMO the lawsuit was largely a waste of time and effort and is the one time I've sorta' regretted my annual contribution to the WSC.

Sg

Salmo,

Do you think the Elwha would have agreed to drop Chambers stock if the lawsuit hadn't been filed?

Seems to me that was a tangible success resulting from the filing of the suit.

I've been watching this "progress" since 1968.....talk of taking the dams down was approached way back then.

I agree that this could be a real test to how fast a river system, can recover......just hope the $$$$$$ from netting, doesn't dictate the future of the Elwha????

"Time tells all"

spot on there salmo, that why i usually stfu and read your post before i talk. it seems that the state/feds saw the hand writting on the wall a long time ago and did the right thing of starting the process early...even if they didnt involve the public much and used some flawed science...the public entities have only seemingly had it on their radar for the last decade or so though and have been trying to stem the tide of said ideas ever sense.

I wouldnt mind seeing a REAL naturalized broodstocking program happen there, something like the HC programs only better.
GPS track redds,
allow for eggs to harden and vacuum a certain percentage,
rear in hatchery environment for several weeks(bumping up our survivability several percentage points for this critical time),
And then sink them back into the gravel somewhere with the aid of an egg box,
sit back, pray, and start working on other problems with the system, near shore environment and other "use factors" directed at the system.
..but I doubt they will do that, its too scientifically founded/plausible.

carcassman-
"Even if we have "lost the genetics" that made the Elwha what it was, so what?"

so EVERYTHING! genetics is the frontier of fisheries management, I understand is a bit cryptic(i have problems with it too) but it is certainly something worthy of due respect and education. what you said is correct, the fish will eventually adapt, but it will take possibly several hundred years for the genes to come back to producing, on average, that historic size of fish...mother nature was designed to be veeerrry slow on this stuff and was never designed for the human influence factor. The other side is that as those genes/populations produce other factors will be hindering them..it is a horribly vicious circle..
I have read the bird study you mentioned and go back and look at its publication, while it has merit, it has received several peer-reviewed editorials punching holes in their findings. not to mention the fact that birds have a different life structure, reproduction time and other variables.
it is also hard to "select" NOT to kill those few remaining big fish destined for the elwah out in the ocean..and any one of a dozen non-selective factors can be referenced, from bycatch to out-right harvest to natural forces..the firsst one we can really dictate, the second not so much if at all(read between the lines about west coast commercial fisheries) and the third we have nothing to stand on...so...we are back to using the "best" science available to us..and i think that is genetics AND starting to talk bluntly but constructively about problems with our environment around us! (because it, the birds,fish, etc all work hand in hand to keep it running as we know it now)

Salmo,

my "i dont care about that" comment was in reference to the CnP that OTS put up for me to read, it had a bunch of court crap in it, and that is politics... i dont care for the politics in any of it... like i said, i hate it...

leave the damn river alone, and see what happens... it could become a model for a bunch of rivers if and when it takes off... why continue to keep it in a choke hold? what would that benefit?

Capt, your steering the ship wrong again... that CnP thing I put up for you to read had nothing to do with court stuff..those names and years in parentheses are called CITATIONS... and i kept them in there for a VERY important reason>>its so that you, the internet sleuth, could look up the data talked about and the reasoning behind it, teaching you a LOT more about why our fisheries work as they do, there are two critical papers to read there, go find them and DO IT!

like salmo said, its up to you to understand these fisheries, the regulations and the reasons, it will make you a much better warrior in the fight to save the fish and you wont look like your wearing a pointy hat in the corner of the room.
and as said b4 you are a smart enough dude, you can grasp this stuff, and your passion make you worthwhile to have(with the education of course)...I like some of your ideas and comments but they usually dont really pertain to this real world as it currently works, you can do better.

Can't wait to see 30lb pinks come out of there.

In all seriousness, this is great and it will be interesting to see if people can keep their hands out of the cookie jar and let nature, for the most part, do its thing.