Todd, your description of the Vedder is what's happening on the Nestucca and the Wilson. Oregon's dept. Of Failure and Worstlife has no clue. The current creel surveys are being manipulated by the guides with a lot of help from the agency.

On the Nestucca Redd surveys were stopped in the section of river being targeted by the broodstock guides. I have surveyed Redd's in this stretch of the river and others for over 20+years. Within the second year of collection the amount of spawning fish in the target area had dropped by half. It may not have been from the removal of the fish but the added pressure associated with catching a broodstock fish. The displacement and removal of the wild fish is the problem. Another issue is the location of the wild fish being removed from the system.

How many of you believe that if you caught a fish in the upper river and took the fish to the hatchery for spawning purposes then upon the release of the smolt from this fish would create a fish that would return to the area of the adult capture?

The guides and the other miners of the broodstock program believe this. They actually believe that the fish removed from the upper river and then spawned and reared in the concrete tank has the homing instincts of the removed adults. The use of anyone other than agency personnel to collect fish is contributing to the problem even more so. The agency had the opportunity to use selected areas to trap the broodstock. This would have alleviated the pressure associated with the collection and the final outcome in the take of returning hatchery stock.

After all once these fish are removed for hatchery propagation they are no longer a wild fish. Yes the adults used are still wild, the eggs removed have nothing to do with a wild fish once they hit the plastic tray.

Let's look at the added pressure and the run timing associated with the broodstock program and the out of basin hatchery stock.

The out of basin hatchery stocks run timing is earlier thus creating the separation of the 2 stocks of fish which in the past was a good thing for the wild fish. During the use of the out of basin stock stray rates varied from 10 to 30 percent. This stock of fish also spawned earlier thus eliminating the negative impacts associated with the current program. The impact to the wild population was minimal due to run timing and the lack of continued angling pressure. The angling pressure occured from Late October through January with the wild fish begining to return in the later part of the month. Yes we still had a few hatchery fish in the mix to keep those bait anglers and cardboard eaters happy.


Now the broodstock program. Run timing is the most damning of all. Realizing that the impacts that the hatchery product has on the wild fish should be the first concern. These fish due to the collection and propogation are returning at the same time as the wild stock this is a given. The current stray rates in the upper river above the release sites are in range of 50 to 80 percent. The Redd's surveys have also shown a large amount of hatchery interaction with the wild fish. ODFW refuses to count or look at live fish spawning they only look at the movement of the gravel. On several tributaries in the drainage the amount of hatchery strays has doubled and the amount of wild fish spawning in the same section has dropped.

The other obvious impact is the added angling pressure on the wild stock of fish. In the past during the months of February through April angling pressure would have been considered lite a 10 boat day on the upper stretch would have been a lot of boats. Today the same tretch of river that used to see 10 know See's anywhere from 30-50 boats, with a total number of boats reaching 90+ on those good days. I believe we had 1 day last year with over 100 boats on the river on less than a 12 mile stretch, sounds like fun to me.

Was this river all that good for wild fish, yes it was. At one time the idea of having the 1 and 5 fishery on wild fish was a near reality. Luckily we didn't have the overall support to create the fishery or we may not have any fish left at all.

In other words the fisheries created by the broodstock program are killing more wild fish than they are helping. The so-called ODFW helpers are nothing more than miners and bad miners at that. The problem with these miners is the fact that they have failed to recognize that the canary has fallen over and is having difficulty breathing, do yah think.

Take the guides out of the collection picture, fire those at ODFW who have failed at performing the duties of maintaining the resource and preventing the continued degradation of all the wild stock fish that are left.

I am also a guide who has been keeping track of the fisheries for quite a while. The vision of sugar plumbs of the past are now nothing more than that. To those who pat themselves on the back for the conuation of this program good luck in the future with those hatchery brats you call quality fish, they are nothing more than junk.