Cowlitzfisherman

There have been dozens of studies done over the last 30 years all pointing to the fact that hatchery fish have a negative impact on wild fish. Suggesting that Mr Chilcote would find the results he is paid to find what he found is absurd. That would be the same as calling him a liar. I personally do not believe that most or very many scientists are out there fabricating studies.
There is no study that I have ever heard of to suggest there has ever been anything but a negative impact on wild fish when hatchrey fish are introduced. I have looked extensivly and have never seen a study indicating hatchery fish were anything but bad for natural populations.
What happens most of the time with salmon related studies is they are absolutely ignored by fisheries managers because the actions called for by the studies it too politically expencive!! If managers had been doing what their scientists told them was the best thing to do we would not have the mess we currently have.
There is NO absolutely NO reason to think that hatcheries are anything but bad for wild fish.. Anyone who believes otherwise came to that conclusion by 1. being irrational 2. ignoring the overwhelming scientific evidence

Robert Allen3

99% of these people, who do these studies, do it for money! Not for fish, not for you, or me…but for Money!

One must first see who is paying the money before one can even begin to make any judgments. If no money has exchanged hands, then that "study" may really have some meaning. I have personally done a lot of research and I have found that many (almost all) studies have been heavily influenced by the people who has paid the bill. Many times the "study" has been berried, because it did not show the results that were desired. You may not like it, but that's been my experience, and believes me, I have read many!

You want to talk studies? Let's talk about the BS studies that Tacoma Power has conducted on the Cowlitz River Project! Maybe then you will understand what I have stated above!

Cowlitzfisherman

Is the taste of the bait worth the sting of the hook????

I am reading the Chilcote study now. It is based on facts in history. No one is faking fish counts for personal benefit. The science is clear there is no way around it hatchery fish ARE!!!!!!!! (there is no doubt) bad for wild fish. That is much a fact of life as gravity! Like it or not!

BOTTOM LINE.......The elitiste fly fishing, bunny hugging, tree saving, fish kissing greenies are the ones that care most about the wild fish!!!! Lets shut down all of the hatcheries, Cause they sure are bad for those poor Wild Fish. Now lets shut down all of the fishing....Cause what is next, the study on catch and release mortality.....You bet some of those beautiful Wild Fish you catch, Adore, and release back into the great green wild....DIE!!!! You shoud have just BONKED the poor ******* in the first place and put him out of his misery.

The ULTIMATE SOLUTION........Owtlaw all fishing........The only way to get a nice fresh steelhead is to go buy it from one of our friendly Native Amercan friends..........LONG LIVE THE WILD FISH!!!!

Sorry Robert, Cowlitzfisherman's right regarding his last post. Like you said, "Like it or not".

James

WISHINIWASAFISHIN, You've got a point there, A few years ago ,My wife and I were fishing with Bob on the Hoh at the end of March. We wanted to go catch and release some Nates. It was my wifes first float and we had a great day . The only bad part of the day came when my wife landed a beautiful chrome 15 LB Native. No matter how hard our guide tried to revive that fish it just wasn't going to live. We had to just watch that fish float belly up downstream and around the corner. So what do you do? Food for the birds I guess.

Really I can see it coming to the point where our fishing privileges will be diminished , if not eradicated altogether. I can sense some PETA influence in some of Bob All # 3's posts. Such as," I would rather have closed rivers full of wild fish than no wild fish" Another post of Not having a Blue creek on every river, because it spawns the type of fisherman that don't belong in these N.W. rivers. Well ,LA ,TEE, DA!!

To, WISHINIWASAFISHIN, one more thing. I wonder if I can get some lynx hair from Bob ALL## to tie some flies with?

Think what you like, everyone is entitled to their opinion. I just think the fish's survival as a species is more important than our ability to go fish for them!
We can strike a balance between hatchery and wild fish. There will always be both in our streams however having every river loaded with fish like the cowlitz in the wrong approach and WILL !! cause the extinction of wild steelhead. I have been to the hatchery hole on the North Lewis during the salmon run and during the winter steelhead run I don't care what anyone says the scum who sit there and snag fish all day long at the hatchery intake don't deserve to be allowed anywhere near our streams.
I am not PETA influenced I am common sence influenced. I am sorry if you guys feel that it's your right to fish until the last fish is dead. I think you are wrong and that is an extremely selfish attitude.
By the way CnR mortality for barbles single hook atrificial.. 3%

BOB ALL 3

I hope you didn't just call all of the fisherman at the Lewis hole, and the Blue Creek drift a bunch of SCUM........ If you fish these holes are you also a snagger?

What about all of the guides that make their living fishing these "meat Holes"? Are they SCUM as well?

I wish we had a couple of meat holes up north, so I wouldn't have to travel so far to BONK the fish I SNAG(sic).

Bob, Me thinks you are beginning to show your true colors. BOB ALL 3 = SNOB!

As I said think what you like I could really care less. I never said I was fishing at the meat hole on the North lewis simply that I was there. I'd never join that mad house. At far as I could tell The guys fishing below the hatchery intake on the North lewis ( at least during the Coho run ) were ALL snaggers! If thinking that these lowlifes are scum makes me a snob then so be it.
I won't comment on Blue creek becaise I have never seen it during the same conditions.
There are more than plenty of hatchery fish to bonk everywhere in the state. If you can't catch enough of them tp be satisfied then the answer is to go out fishing more. Not planting more hatchery fish.

I think all snaggers are SCUM as well. To bad there wasn't a local authority near by you could have called to come in and snagg some of those SNAGGING SCUM!

Makes you want to just start pushing them in the water.

BONK ON!!

Reality is the river system is like a circular food chain.. You have to have salmon to come back in big #'s for them to die and nutrients to be recycled into the system.. Check all the rivers with a healthy or rivers that meet escapement goals for winter native steelhead and they all have a good solid fall salmon run..
Take a look at AK, it has the entire "circular" food chain that thrives off each species year in and year out. Once a part of that food chain or "cycle" is lost the whole system goes down...

I beleive that we are buying time for the wild steelhead with hatchery salmon being planted to make up for the wild runs of salmon that used to be in most systems in healthy runs..
Keith

I really hate to step back into this thread, because I think we should all move on, but I gotta show Bob All 3 some support. A few bonkaholics above noted that the funding of research will bias the results...True! So ignore all research?! Give me a break! I suppose you don't take medicines because some money-driven drug company stands to profit from the research that developed it! Think about that the next time you reach for a bottle of Advil because your arm's aching from so much bonkin'! Any true scientist knows, when reviewing studies on any subject, you have to put your trust in what the majority of evidence indicates is fact. Bob All 3 is right in stating that the majority of studies out there indicate that hatchery fish do harm wild fish populations. I would not accept that as fact myself if I had not done a lot of reading and talking with biologists myself. I encourage anyone to do the same before forming their opinion.
After painfully reading through most of this thread, I've come to a conclusion about the gotta-bonk community: You guys couldn't care less about whether native salmonids survive. All you care about is whether or not there is a fish you can kill in your favorite hole. All the inspiration and beauty that comes from seeing salmon spawn (with some possibility of success) and return to the river where they were born (circle of life kind-of stuff),...To H*$# with it! To H$#@ with what it means to the millions of people who don't fish and who think for some strange reason that salmon are fish that return to the stream where they were born! You may say you don't advocate killing wild fish, but what's the difference between bonking them to extinction and pushing them to extinction through innundation with hatchery fish? Your short-sighted self conscious?
I bonk plenty of brats and I release plenty of nates. I see value in both. I agree with Bob All 3 in that there's plenty of potential for good fisheries to exist in Oregon and Washington for nates and brats, but not necessarily in the same rivers. Can't have 500,000 hatchery smolts planted in your favorite local river because they damage native fish?....Boo hoo hoo! Gimme gimme gimme!!!!!!!! After all, this thread began with a comment to the effect that we should give up on restoring the nates and dump more brats in the rivers from a person who didn't even know the difference between wild and native.

WILD CHROME

EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!

I am done with this thread!

Bottom line stop Netting on rivers that have no hatcheries and create a more ridgid constrants on rivers with BRATS that stops netting when the Nate's main run come in........ At least the Nate's will survive and we can all Bonk the brats............. They already have stoped CnR durning this time on most rivers.

Wild Chrome, I agree whole heartedly that there can be a balance between Nates and Hatchery fish , But not necessarily on the same river. For instance , the Sauk is opened for C&R now and I love that fishery. I could care less if I could keep a fish now. It's such a beautiful fishery in March and April. You have a chance of hooking and playing a fish of a lifetime.

It would be great to have Bonking places and C&R places. On the Sky, the Nates usually come in later than the hatchery . So it makes it pretty nice. To bad they closed it the end of Feb, I love to float the upper river at this time C&R is great into March and on the lower Sky into April. The last couple of years we hav'nt been able to enjoy that opportunity.

I live on the Sky above Proctor creek and about May the Nates are in the Eddy right below my property. I can see them all the way up to the cable hole. So even though I bonk hatchery fish, I agree that we have to help see to the survival of the Nates.

I've learned a lot from this thread, it's help me understand the biology a little more.

Made you think!!! I learned a lot myself. Thanks to all who contributed.

Rivers for nates, and rivers for brats, not a bad idea.

I am all done with this thread.