Why do the indians need to gill net fish? Don't steelhead and salmon return to a given point anyway? I know fish are removed from hatchery pins and sold regularly on many rivers. Why not imprint fish and release them low on the river through a fish ladder and them collect the fish fresh when they return on all "indian gill netted" rivers? Seems a lot less work than gill netting.

Now there is a great Idea! If we can only get it to fly with the tribes. They could have fish farms.

I've mulled this one over before and I think it's as simple as:

by-catch = extra $$$

Netting brighter fish lower in the system makes for a more merchantable product.

my .02 cents

BD

Ak Floater
Migh want to think a little more about that idea -

They could have us sportfishers go to the hatchery as well and just pick up our allotted fish as well. Just the thing to reduce incidental hooking mortaltiy of various juvenile fish, protected species etc. Save the cost of have river and bay accesses as well.

Suspect that the netters don't want to go to the hatchery for their fish for much the same reaasons you don't want to give up your various fisheries.

Tight lines
Smalma

Ak Floater Said; I know fish are removed from hatchery pins and sold regularly on many rivers.
i am curious about this ak floater. As a former empoyee of the Dept. of Fisheries(remember them) at the Cowlitz hatchery i remember taking many thousands of pounds of perfectly good fish up in the hills to be buried, because there were strict rules and moral ethics (yes I said that in the same paragraph i wrote Dept. of F&W) that these fish could not be sold because we did not want public perception to be that the hatchery system was subsidising a commmercial enterprise. Keep in mind here you have to forget the whole haychery fish caught in a net thing...
I only ask because if in fact fish are being sold from the hatchery it is in direct conflict with the mission of the hatchery system or at least what it used to be. And no I am not an Idealist I guess it is more of a morbid curiosity about how far the administration has wanderd than anything else.
By the way I have been reading this board for awhile now and I have to tell you all, I am really impressed with the common sense and intelligence I see here. Thank You all for this venue..

I must clarify myself to JohnnyDeep, I don't know of any state hatcheries that sell fish, however I've seen our state hatcheries give the fish to Indians that do. I know of one priviate hatchery in Oregon that collects the returning adults for sale on the open market. Their operation is located on tide water and get the fish while they are fresh.

Johnny Deep,

First, I don't have any current information. The state used to, and I don't know why they wouldn't still, sell surplus hatchery fish to various commercial buyers. When the fish return to the rack, they are state property, and they can only use so many of them for broodstock. In some years they get large surpluses. Some of those fish used to be sold for human consumption, but I believe that can only be done now if the fish are certified as not having been exposed to any FDA non-certified drugs.

In the case of the Cowlitz hatchery, Tacoma pays all the operating costs, so there may have been different arrangements there. Although burying adult salmon is silly. But there may have been a dispute as to who should receive the money if fish were sold. That's the only reason I can think of for not selling them. A lot of them end up in pet food.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

JohnnyDeep

The fish from the Cowlitz that were buried, were fish that had been given certain types of drugs to shop infection while they were being held in the hatchery. The FDA will not allow the WDFW to sell those fish for human consumption, nor will they allow the WDFW to release those fish in an area that people can catch them to eat. The FDA were the folks who were responsible for them burying those fish! Most of the drugs that WDFW uses, take about 21 days before the fish can safely be consumed as food by humans.

Cowlitzfisherman

Well my understanding of the whole thing was A] There was no market driven demand even for dog food because the supply was to sparodic, and the fish were not fit for human consumption, but not because of antibiotics or other meds, they were just plain rough from being in the ponds for so long and thus buried above Mossyrock. and
B] There was policy in place at the time that marketing fish from a state run hatchery was not in the best intrest of public relations. Most of the steelhead (nates) were returned to the river if they were not used but this was considered sound management by keeping as much genetic genetic diversity in the river as possible
I will clarify that in the early '90's I worked for the Dept. of Fisheries as a diver at cowlitz under Paul Peterson, Cowlitz fisherman may remember him. as I was on the diving safety board for the dept I didi do a little traveling to other programs and the modus operandi was the same at those facilities. in 1994-96 I worked for John Aukerman on the engineering side out of Lacey and got to travel all over the state to many different programs (as a construction laborer mind you) and had the opportunity to talk with a lot of peaple about a lot of these issues (spelling was obviously not a topic), And above all else That was a long time ago and as I implied before my deeds tend to have a rosier tint to them the farther back I look ;-)

jonny, many rivers up in the north end do sell the surplus fish .I can't remember the name of the outfit but i think it star seafood or all star seafood. I talked to one of thier workers up at the ditch hatchery, he informed me that if the fish was spawned they would be sold as dog/cat food or for firtlizer the fish that were not spawend would besold for fish sticks

The more i think about it the more I wonder how much of it had to do with Tacoma and their funding system. I grew up in Morton and Mineral and I can definitly remember some TCL boners. I do remember very clearly taking truck loads of fish up to the powerlines and feeling kind of pissed tha I had to bury so many fish. As I said before many were pretty rough but alot of them were just pretty ( I should proof read better). I always figured the biologists knew what they were doing and it wasn't really my concern,
I guess that would explain why it suprised me to hear about fish being sold.
Oh well it got me to log in