Bob;
I just saw your post on the Daily Reports in regards to tethering Native Fish. Are you looking only for the marked ones? or any Wild Fish.

A Group of us will be fishing the Sol Duc the 19th & 20th between the Mary Clark Hatchery and Maxwell Bridge. Is Maxwell bridge one of the collection points?

We would appreciate any insight in fishing that stretch and hope to participate in the collection program.

(edit) I presume that you must record these fish on your punch card, right?

GutZ

[This message has been edited by Fishguts (edited 01-13-2001).]

Just UNMARKED hens is what we're looking for at this point. One buck will do a number of hens so we're never short of bucks, but with a Jan 31 deadline and long rainout only a stormy night away, we like to get our goal (not postive exactly how many Sam needs this moment, depends partly on what size fish we have in there ... but there were only 7 as of Tuesday).

You can leave them near Maxfield Rd ramp ... just below the ramp or even just above the bridge on the right ... you'll see a bunch of tether lines tied to roots there. Thanks in adavance for your help

Insight on your trip?? Don't choose a float a week out and hope the big rain headed our way holds 'til next Sat like it is currently looking.

Bob has the topic of the mandatory release of Snyder fish as a policy for Fork's guides come up in your association meetings? If yes, what has been the general consensus?

Here on the eastside, we place wild fish in pvc tubes with holes in them. This keeps the fish alive and they don't get beat up. On certain years, we have a wild fish collection like your doing. Have the tubes ever been tried there, and do you find much mortality of the tethered fish?

we use tubes on the Satsop also. I think we had 1 fish die last year. we harvested 150 fish. I believe that is a very good ratio. we are very carful of how we handle these fish.

dcrzfitter

How widespread is the practice of harvesting wild stock for hatchery production I am only familiar with the Snider situation. I'm hearing here there are more in other areas?

How widespread is the practice of harvesting wild stock for hatchery production I am only familiar with the Snider situation. I'm hearing here there are more in other areas?

Native: I guess you're just asking about steelhead, but if you include salmon, the brood capture is happening on the No. Peninsula, at least from Elwha east to Disco Bay (Dungeness, Jimmycomelately, Snow Crk), for summer chum and chinook.

Can someone tell me about the Snider Creek Project? I assume the eggs are harvested. Are the fry raised in a hatchery? What makes this project different from other hatcheries outside of using wild fish for brooding stock? Thanks in advance.

No Hoh (that's a pretty good rhyme ), the mandatory release has not come up at any of the meetings that I've been at (may have years ago) ... although I certainly encourage it in my boat.

We use tubes for the fish once we get them to an accessible area (for the truck). It's pretty hard to get down the 'Duc rapids with the tubes ... it's been tried We are now looking at perhaps getting some larger coolers and outfitting them with small battery-powered air pumps. We're currently just doing things the hard way ... the hen we tethered today was near the top of the drift and I didn't want to try to run the remainder of the fishing trip with a fish attached to the boat the whole way, so I tied her off and then went back down (at about mach 9 to the tie-off point) with Fishgal and then babied her down to the ramp ... a hassle, but one worth while. Corey's actually never seen what we do in person and she was pretty taken with the whole thing ... she even named the fish "Hope"

There's a page at www.piscatorialpursuits.com/wildfish.htm that overviews the project. The eggs are hatched out at the Sol Duc salmon hatchery and then transferred back to the rearing pen at Snider Creek. The wild brood stock is one of the only differences, but it's a HUGE one as you start dealing with genetics: natural selection, run timing, size, ability to naturally spawn, resistance to disease, etc.

Thanks for the tip Bob. We are fairly flexible in where we fish. We will be starting from the Cabin we found from your link a few weeks ago and are most likely going to fish that stretch wich will be our front yard. What a beautiful thought that is. The Sol Duc as your front yard .

I suppose it is obvious that you must recored these fish on your punchcard, right?

Thanks Again
GutZ

Thanks for the info Bob. Do either sex of spawners survive the process (post egg/sperm extraction)? I too was wandering if these fish go against one's Quillayute System wild fish limit and must they be punched? Are there plans to rely entirely on returning Snider creek fish? I promise not to ask any more Snider Ck. questions...hopefully. R Ridgeway

Big Bob - Yikes!! The Sol Duc River project sounds interesting and a good way to generate interest in restoring steelhead but you'd better check the male/female ratio for spawning purposes. Your earlier post indicated that "One buck will do a number of hens so we're never short of bucks....".
Nowadays, the standard hatchery practice is to spawn one male for each female. That reduces the chances of poor genetic traits being passed on and maintains genetic diversity.

For example, if by chance you happen to pick a male that has poor genes (low disease resistance, poor homing ability, or whatever) and use it to fertilize several females, those poor genes will be passed to all the progeny, and possibly to the wild populations in the future. Do this across several generations and the result will be decreasing genetic diversity in both wild and hatchery fish. This can lead to decreasing returns to the river. Sound familar? It should since it's happening in alot of places where hatchery fish are a major portion of the run. As a result, Pacific Northwest salmon hatcheries now use a 1:1 ratio of males to females. This maintains the genetic diversity of the progeny almost as well as it would in the wild. But just to be sure, you might check with the WDFW on this.

I'm not implying this project will adversely affect the genetic diversity of the Sol Duc River steelhead but I'm sure the project sponsors don't want to repeat the hatchery mistakes of the past. Particularly when the remedy is so easy: Catch a few more bucks to go along with those hens......



------------------
MSB

Cohoangler brings up a good point. But, Snider is not a typical hatchery. Before we criticize the use of one buck fertilizing more than one hen, I think it's important that we find out if this one buck is a Snider returnee or a tethered wild buck. I can see spawning Snider returnees on a one-to-one ratio as a long-term policy. But if it's a stud-muffin 18-20 lb wild buck, why not spread these super genes to more than one hen. Isn't this what happens in the wild anyway?

A note from vacation-land I guess I needed to clarify this a little more. Yes, the program usually uses more than a few bucks for the whole program (not quite 1-1, but close)... but, since the capability exists for the bucks to do more than one ... our first and formost goal is to get the hens as we have a Jan 31 deadline. A critical factor for us is the length of time the river can go out in January and ending up short. A note on the big bucks ... they take FOREVER to ripen up in most cases and the females we catch early on for this program are usually ripe long before them, so having a whole penful of big bucks isn't the best way to go ...