Although I understand what you are saying, we can believe what we want to believe and point blame in any and all directions but the science is tough to defy. When pre-hatchery populations were 10-50x what we currently see in wild steelhead populations one would think it's logical to look back to when those populations took the hardest hits and almost all places you look it's right after the times that hatchery interactions started. These wild fish numbers have been extinguished long before any of us started fishing any of these rivers in discussion...

To me, it's a matter of time before hatchery fish are absolutely recognized for the demise of wild fish populations. My selfishness wants to see it happen sooner than later so that at some point in my life I can see the returns of wild fish like they once used to be. Call me crazy but I see this as something that can happen.

Part of being hell bent on the logic circles back to the Lewis River Fall Chinook known as the lower river brights. There has been 0 Fall chinook hatchery plants in this river since 1970 and it has always had an amazingly huge run of native fall chinook which has withstood all the ocean conditions, harvest, habitat, predators, in-river harvest, etc. When you get to fish the 21 miles of river below the dam and have such an amazing great Fall Chinook fishery and opportunity it makes you question hatchery fish in general. Every other sub-basin in the CR has hatchery plants and their native fall chinook populations suck.

In regards to steelhead, I've watched Pacific Corp and WDFW destroy the native winter steelhead population in the Lewis river over the last 10 years. They introduced broodstocking and numbers sky rocketed with cookie cutters then roughly 8-10 years later the Natural Origin spawning population is on it's lips. It's a sad thing to see. Pre-broodstocking this run actually was impressive.

I'm not throwing the towel in, but something needs to change.

Keith

Study just out! Hood Canal Bridge Fn up outward migration.

https://www.ptleader.com/stories/new-study-hood-canal-bridge-is-blocking-half-of-all-migrating-steelhead-trout,71906

My thought is that any of those studies are pretty specific to the watershed they were conducted in.

The "hatchery fish don't hurt" studies tend to actually be "don't hurt much, and we want hatchery fish really bad" conclusions...and that's ok, just need to be straight on what they are saying, and who is saying it.

In SW Washington, Keith is spot on, at least in regards to two rivers I have spent considerable time on...the EFL and the Toutle.

When Mt. St. Helens blew up the Toutle, it didn't take much time at all for significant runs of wild winter runs to return...my understanding is that lots of the Toutle wild fish used the Kalama, Lewis, and Cowlitz after the eruption, and then re-colonized the Toutle rather well in the years to follow.

We then put a zillion hatchery summer runs in the Toutle, which made for a successful and enjoyable summer run harvest fishery, but immediately turned the wild winters right around and depressed their numbers.

Keith's chat above about the EFL is spot on, as well.

That being said...steelhead in Puget Sound are a completely different situation...Puget Sound itself seems to be crushing all the outgoing smolts, hatchery or wild, and add in the Hood Canal Bridge on the streams there, and almost none even make it out, much less return as adults.

Hatchery fish probably played/plays little or no part in that, at least not at the level they are being planted now.

Fish on...

Todd

One of the big problems of hatchery fish was, pre selective fisheries, we simply hammered the early part of the wild run. Wild fish (used) to return in December, January, February.

The sport and net non-selective fisheries hammered them out of existence. Some of the folks who worked on major watersheds believed that it was the early returning fish that spawned in the tributaries. Data I saw, through '10, was that the tributary spawner numbers are falling. Some in the Skagit, tons in the Green. Had nothing to do with interbreeding, but simply a mixed stock fishery. Not the only reason, but it's one of them.

And I too remember catching big winter natives in the early 80's with my dad on the EFL in late November and December, ironically right in line with all the Chambers Creek turds that were brought it then the front half of the wild run crashed. I cherish a picture at my dads house of him and I 2 days before Christmas with a 25 and 21 pound steelhead he took that day.

It went through a phase where you'd mostly catch wild winter natives in Feb-April if you could find them but the front half of the run disappeared. Call it a coincidence but science tells me those Chambers Creek turds paired up with their share of those early winter native spawners nearly wiping that run out do their the reproductive fitness of HxW. It doesn't work. HxW doesn't work and BxW doesn't work either...

Either find a way to segregate the hatchery fish from the river or eliminate them in rivers with native populations. It's a fix no one wants to see but it's a fact in fixing it...

Keith

Didn't know you made it down to these stomping grounds much Todd, let's connect in a couple months. I could put you up and we could go chase some of those big 20's... Not it, you're rowing....

Keith

River specific:
The Nisqually. Has never had hatchery steelhead plants, and I can't remember how long it's been closed. Seems to have had and maintained the same declining number trends as the other So. PS rivers. Until the last few years has any sign of any recovery occurred. I have buddy that works at Centralia PUD and they trap and count them at their diversion dam.

The Puyallup, hasn't been planted since 08 ?? I think, man time flies! and has shown little sign of recovery. Has closed the last 10yrs by Dec. 31st. The Puyallup Tribe (with WDFW) does run a small supplementary hatchery program that plants a modest number of 30,000 broodstock winter steelhead on the White River system, in an effort to boost the winter steelhead population there.Those steelhead smolts are released in a tributary of the Clearwater River. Seems the White/Stuck has always sucked since I can remember from back in the 70's.

The Green, gets a measly winter plant of 10-50k and also closes by Dec. 31st. It's wild run has also struggled similarly. I think they still operate a broodstock program and not sure of it's success.

Bottom line is even though little to none hatchery steelhead plants have occurred on these rivers and all still struggle to meet escapement. I am not convinced that can't coexist.

I am convinced that certain rivers are a lost cause for recovery and should be loaded with plants to provide some recreation. Cowiltz being one. That is, if we can get them to survive. My 2cents.

The broodstock fish on the Duc don't seem to have caused a crash there, at least based on WDFW's graphs. Why is that?

The Kalama is the same, it has a hatchery facility that draws them back too. Snyder Creek sucks most of those fish out of the river and off the redds imho... I've never read studies on the brood program there but every brood program is different. Whether they consistently use Natural origin spawners for their program or do they keep reproducing from the brood stock returners? It seems as if those programs that keep reproducing from their brood returns reduces the reproductive fitness and creates more strays.

Rivers that do have dams/barriers to sort hatchery fish out, Clackamas, Kalama, etc. seem to do ok with hatchery plants as long as those fish can't make the spawning beds... I haven't been up to the Duc in years though, it was a fun river!

Keith

The Nisqually is a great example of hatchery fish NOT being the problem. How can the anti-hatchery people explain this? Puts a hole in that argument for sure. Lots of time , no fishing and the run is functionally gone. That run generally peaked in March, April, so netting by the tribe does not exist at that time of the year. It's been at least 25 or 30 years since they declined.

No really way to tell if the Snider program was good, bad, or indifferent, so far as wild fish goes...there were no metrics to measure it.

Some notables, the program only used wild fish, and not that many. It definitely returned fish, caught several every year.

Fish on...

Todd

Shut em all down and call em gene banks.

Your not gonna reverse the impact man is having on this rock until you reverse man's population and that ain't gonna happen.

Might as well bring back the dinosaurs while your at it.

The Wind River in the gorge has not received any steelhead hatchery plants since 1997 and is designated a wild gene bank. Below are the Total Natural Escapement of Summer Runs in the Wind since 2000. The trend is flat, no real increase or decrease in the past 20 years.

Year Adults
2000 219
2001 489
2002 691
2003 1,114
2004 895
2005 601
2006 660
2007 769
2008 640
2009 607
2010 767
2011 1,500
2012 817
2013 762
2014 282
2015 577
2016 1,015
2017 1,061
2018 241
2019 481

River specific:
The Nisqually. Has never had hatchery steelhead plants, and I can't remember how long it's been closed. Seems to have had and maintained the same declining number trends as the other So. PS rivers. Until the last few years has any sign of any recovery occurred. I have buddy that works at Centralia PUD and they trap and count them at their diversion dam.

For the Nisqually, Thirty to forty years ago, steelhead spawning runs averaged in the range of 6,000 fish, but the population crashed by 90 percent in the 1990s and continued on a downward spiral through the first decade of this century. No hatchery-origin winter steelhead have been released into the watershed since 1982, and the number of wild steelhead spawning in the river increased to more than 1,000 fish in 2015 and more than 2,000 in 2016 from a low of 269 in the 2012.

The Puyallup, hasn't been planted since 08 ?? I think, man time flies! and has shown little sign of recovery. Has closed the last 10yrs by Dec. 31st. The Puyallup Tribe (with WDFW) does run a small supplementary hatchery program that plants a modest number of 30,000 broodstock winter steelhead on the White River system, in an effort to boost the winter steelhead population there.Those steelhead smolts are released in a tributary of the Clearwater River. Seems the White/Stuck has always sucked since I can remember from back in the 70's.

Puyallup River steelhead
The wild winter steelhead escapement estimate for steelhead spawning in the mainstem of the Puyallup River is 197 fish. An estimated 1,366 steelhead spawned in the Carbon River in 2016.
This estimate includes fish spawning in the mainstem of the Carbon River, South Prairie,Wilkeson, and Voight’s creeks.

White River steelhead
Estimates of steelhead spawning below Mud Mountain Dam via redd surveys (295 fish) were combined with the number of fish transported upstream at Buckley trap (533 fish) for an estimated 828 White River steelhead returning. Of these fish, 34 originated from the wild brood
program and 23 natural origin steelhead were used for broodstock at White River hatchery. The progeny of these fish will be marked with blank wire tag and reared in acclimation ponds in the
upper White River consistent with previous years.

The Green, gets a measly winter plant of 10-50k and also closes by Dec. 31st. It's wild run has also struggled similarly. I think they still operate a broodstock program and not sure of it's success.

Ton's of hatchery/brood play in this river.. Looks like a mess on paper...

I'm not advocating for eliminating hatchery steelhead. I just want to get to the bottom of what the cause of population declines and the fact that very little if anything changes the population rebound until all hatchery / brood interactions are halted in a river basin... Just seems to add up when you really start spending time reading and spending time on the water confirming results..

Keith

You sure about hatchery plants in there, I thought I read that it received some winter steelhead plants in 2017-2019? Maybe it was the Big White Salmon? I don't remember...

Do you remember how many hatchery summer steelhead they planted in the Wind River annually back in the early 2000's?

Keith

I’d have to believe the Nisqually was planted with hatchery fish at one time, as just about everything was planted with something back in the day.
It hasn’t been opened since 1993 for steelhead fishing.
I agree with Jake, you can’t really compare coastal rivers with the Nisqually as Puget Sound and what is going on with it make them pretty dissimilar in my opinion.

The Puyallup system is getting plants of about 35K in winter fish.
I’m not sure if those are getting planted in the White or the Puyallup itself and what their source is. Maybe a broodstock program from White River native stock?
If anyone knows, I’d be interested to know the source of those fish and where they are planted.
SF

Cliff notes on this: Etiology of declining steelhead runs actually pretty complicated.

We love simple correlations, cause-effect, makes for a good story, makes us sound smart when we say it's simple-stupid, but doesn't apply to wild steelhead as a species.

Every basin is literally a whole different ball of wax, and merits its own study and set of solutions. I wish humanity cared enough to unwrap it and attack it, but too costly and inconvenient,

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Well said.

Well said.. I do agree that every basin needs a better definition it before it's too late.

Keith

Not really, the changes I suggest won't result in significantly less nates to gravel (except the Duc/Calawah, where forecasts say it can absorb it), spreads angler pressure out a lot more, improves angler experience by a lot, and gets hatchery fish out of the systems. Not sure I would personally benefit, I don't fish the Duc/Calawah anyways.

I don't cry about convoluted rules. I can read, and understand how complicated the fisheries are, so complex systems need complex rules. People who make that complaint in this setting should clue in and STFU,

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