{{I'm suspecting I will get alot of attention from this, but what the hay, it's either GL LOOMIS Vs LAMI's or a SLUGFEST on TRIBAL ISSUES! Either of which their appears to be no winner, just people getting their dander up!}}

One of my fishing buddies is pretty well informed on fisheries enhancment. However we have differing opinions with regards to Nates. I'm a NATE "ive" here on the Olympic Peninsula and a "fulltime" fisher now, having recently retired. He's not a NAT"ive" and I don't hold that against him either.
This old timer loves fishing and just as much, enjoys a fresh one on the barbie now and then. I've released lot's and thumped lot's too. ( You are not going to convert me, so don't even try or I will look upon you as I do some of those pushy suit and tie door knocking religious folk that come over and interupt my afternoon naps or a good ball game!)

We recently had a conversation,about the Nat"ive" declines.

Here's the QUESTION- Isn't it TRUE that a NATE can spawn with hatchery fish and be successful? He claims it happens, but usually is rare. But he doesn't have any hard evidence, nor do I.
Are these fish now titled NATES or what? Thanks and remember, You are not going after a fresh one to convert here, so be kind.

I would call it a wild fish.
This whole Nate versus Hatchery thing is ridiculous. Answer me this. Ok say a hatchery just started operations, They need brood stock. They siened a few holes from the river the hatchery is on. They captured pure stock specific to that stream. Would the prodgency of those first brood stock fish be native? Yes they would. They are not wild fish but native.
Down here there is a stream that has both winter steelhead and summer steelhead. All the winter are native. All the summers are not, even though we do catch some that were born in the wild. These summer steelhead were never present in the system until dams were built and a hatchey was built and the summers introduced.
Every summer I get into the Nate, Wild, Hatchery discussion with people who happen to land an unmarked summer steelhead. They call them native, I tell them its wild. Then I have to explain the difference.
Does this help or confuse?

Well isn't that nice you live here all your life, take up fishing in your retirement, and now you want to learn more about the fish than just how to catch them. Beware as this is the first step to enlightenment. It starts with a simple question and is followed by a complex and troubling answer that leads to more questions and greater investigations and pretty soon your fat ass won't have time to be watching TV you will be outside doing stream rehab and volunteer work on redd counts!
Far better to remain ignorant and to continue to harvest what you want when they let you and never pay any attention to the riparian uphevals that have been ongoing as you have lived and worked here on the OP.
Seriously hatchery fish are a real challenge to explain in many ways it pays to just look at how poorly the retuns to hatchery's have been over the long haul and you can answer your own question the fish from hachery spawn are not as successful as wild spawned fish. So it stands to reason that if you spawn a hatchery fish with a wild fish the progeny will be weaker than the wild wild spawned.
There ain't a hell of alot of releigion in the need for minimizing our harvest of wild fish and a "full blown catch as many as it takes too make you feel good C&R season " is as repugnet to me as the bonk em all before the other guy does mentality. I have been borned raised and fished on the OP since 1948 and have been realising steelhead and trout since the late 50's. To me it seemed like a good thing at the time and it still seems like a good idea. I am always a little suprised at how negatively the simple gesture of release can generate so much opposition. As a lad when obseved by elders in the act of release I was many times criticized as being wasteful and worst, but It was obvious then that the main complaint was about there greed to have what I had and let go. But I digress< take the time to read Salmon Without Rivers by Jim Lichatowich and if your TV runs out of electricity go to the library and checkout Haig Brown Return To The River.
As to fishing fulltime, congratulations best advice I can give you is buy some Breathable waders.

Blackjack,

It is true that a native steelhead can spawn with a hatchery fish, but be careful how you define success. Studies on the Deschutes River and the Kalama River have observed that the highest reproductive success, measured as subsequent returning adults, occurs from native X native matings. Native X hatchery matings result in vastly reduced returning adults, and hatchery X hatchery matings in the natural environment result in almost no returning adults.

Wait, there’s even more. Hatchery X hatchery matings of summer run steelhead are somewhat more successful than of winter steelhead. Don’t know why, but I suspect that it is because the hatchery winter runs have been bred to spawn at the wrong time for the natural environment, while the hatchery summer runs spawn more closely to the same time as their native counterparts.

If this news isn’t enough, consider this: hatchery X hatchery matings on the Kalama River produce viable fry and they rear in the wild up to the smolt stage as natural fish might. However, none of them have been documented to survive from the smolt to returning adult stage. This is important. Those HXH matings produced fry that used food and space resources that could have otherwise been available to fry from WXW matings that are known to be successful. The HXH fry can displace the WXW fry because their parents spawn earlier in the season, so the fry are larger sooner, allowing them to out-compete the WXW fry. So the successful spawning, but survival failure, of the HXH matings actually reduces total river system productivity by reducing the amount of food and space available for juveniles from the WXW matings.

The above information is from research reports by ODF&W and WDFW.

As to what a fish is, a native fish is derived from parents indigenous to a river system, all NXN crosses. A wild fish is derived from natural spawning parents, either of native, wild, or hatchery origin. A hatchery fish is derived from, well, hatchery parents that spawn in a bucket, not gravel. A hatchery fish can be a native fish, like in native broodstock programs where native spawners are used to provide fry for artificial rearing. Those are usually called hatchery natives. If those fish subsequently spawn naturally, their progeny are natives, and you cannot detect their hatchery history, although some biologists and geneticists suspect that their resultant survival in the wild is compromised somewhat.

As Native Son said, as you become curious and begin to learn more about the fish you catch, the more you want to learn. Next thing you know, you may become a wild fish environmental activist. And that can be a hard role to play on the OP.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

Native Son, Willierower & Salmo g.,
I want to thank all of you for your insight on what surely is a very complex issue. I've printed out your replies to study in more detail and plan to check on those books when I return from another Steelie trip. You have filled in some chuck holes for me and I appreciate it! Blackjack777

Excellent response Salmo g. You did a good job explaining a complicated issue. A fish is not a fish. Amazing that some think so. Hatchery fish are a domesticated stock bred, medicated and often forced to grow at unnatural rates to suit fishery needs. Do you know of any other effort to rebuild a wild population (of something other than fish - horses, wolves, birds??) that relies on a long-domesticated counterpart? Just curious?