Had a long conversation with a fish counter at Seiku Saturday night over a couple of beers

He told me about checkin in two fools with 4 fish and three adapus fins. He informed them that they had screwed up and proceeded to scan all four fish. Two of the three "wild" fish set off the nose ring alarm deal.

It is a farce!

One would think that the hatcheries leave a bunch un-clipped to ensure their safe passage past the Piscatorial board members on their way to their spawning grounds.

The counter guy figured that the fin clippers are overwhelmed and get a bit lazy. Kind a like Lucy and Ethel working at the chocolot factory.

S-G is right .Hatcherys don't clip all so the fish can get through the straits Had the same talk with hatch personal and the gamees

Also, most of the tribes don't clip the coho they release. Nobody ever said all hatchery coho are marked.

Wild salmon smolts are also captured in downstream migrant traps, coded wire tagged, and released. Fins are not cut off as they are not hatchery fish. With the new wand that WDFW uses a missing fin is no longer an indicator of a tagged fish as it used to be - they just check them all. Anyway, I think the regs are pretty clear on releasing coho with an adipose fin, and those bozos are just ensuring that the season will be shut down sooner if they persist in killing unmarked fish

Well that makes a ton of sense. We want the wild stocks to come back so lets not clip hatchery fish so everyone thinks that there is a lot of wild fish. I've been under the impression that we pay for these hatcheries so we have fish to eat. Why would I pay someone to raise fish that I can't eat.

So if I get my hands on one of those wands and scan a finned fish that beeps am I legal? Course not, but it would make a good story for the gamie.

Glowball,

The vast majority of state and federal hatchery coho are fin clipped. It makes sense for you to pay for raising some hatchery fish that don't get marked when they are part of a special study group, so they aren't marked. The results of those studies can help improver fishery management, which in turn should enhance your fishing opportunity.

And as mentioned, there are many groups of wild coho that are CWT (coded wire tagged), and they cannot support hatchery fish harvest rates.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

For anyone interested, there is a certain number of hatchery fish that don't get marked for a very good reason. In order to determine the actual fishing season they need to know what he "hooking mortality" is on wild fish. The only way to tell is by NOT marking some of the hatchery fish. They tally the returns to the hatchery of marked fish with a CWT and the unmarked fish with a CWT. If there is a large number of unmarked fish with CWT's they know hooking mortality on wild fish is low. If the ratio of marked to unmarked with CWT's is close, then they know hooking mortality is high and they adjust seasons accordingly. It servers a viable purpose. It's not just meant to "mislead" the public. The idea is if they get the same number of marked/CWT fish returning to the hatchery as unmarked/CWT fish then there is either a huge hooking mortality problem or people are keeping marked fish. Either way, future seasons will be adjusted accordingly.

Hopefully that makes sense and answers a few questions.

strider great insite I never looked at it like that.
There was a post last winter about a group of guys catching blackmouth and returning them to the water due to not being fin clipped, If you go look in the rearing pond at friday creek none of the hold over (black mouth) are fin clipped, when I pointed it out these guys felt robbed....DJ

I don't have strong feelings one way or the other about failing to clip some of the factory fish, but I do have a question about reviving a wild run on the Cowlitz:

Assume a significant number of truly wild fish head up the Cowlitz, where will they spawn? Won't they just hit the Barrier Dam, veer off to the fish ladder, and end up in the separators?? Then what?

I understand that some fish are being trucked to the upper Cowlitz, but is that the only way to keep the wild run going--to drive them in trucks? Seems a little odd to me.

Anybody got any insight or deep thoughts that would clear this up?

Wader,

Modern, stylislh, wild fish on the Cowlitz take a truck upstream to the spawning grounds these days! (I'd insert one of those smily faces here if I could figure out how to do it.) Surplus hatchery coho, chinook, and late winter steelhead are also trucked to the upper river. It's weird, no doubt. I'm told fairly frequently that salmon were never meant to "take the bus." Of course they weren't. Does that also imply that rivers were never meant to be dammed? Doesn't really matter; some rivers are. The only way to maintain anadromous fish production is to have an effective means of passing fish up and downstream. Fish ladders are one alternative that work well in some applications, and trapping and trucking is another alternative that also works well in different, or even the same, applications.

If the reintroduction of wild salmon and steelhead runs is successful in the upper Cowlitz River, Tacoma will build a fish ladder at Mayfield Dam so that Tilton River fish and self-separate from upper Cowlitz fish. Fish will be trucked around Mossyrock Dam, however, because of the technical complexity and uncertainty associated with trying to build a fish ladder there. That is, there is a high probability is would fail to work as intended. That may, or may not, result in a fish ladder being built at Cowlitz Falls Dam. Once fish are in the truck, they could just as easily keep driving upstream of that dam, but the dams have different owners, and cooperation is uncertain at this point.

And CFM, good buddy, don't bother. I'm not going to rehash prior Cowlitz threads about the reintroduction, the FERC license, etc.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

Salmo

That’s really a lame one for you when you said;"


Unless one is blind, stupid, or combination of both, we can't understand your logic Salmo! I got some family things to do tonight and tomorrow morning, but you can bet you're sweet…. that I will give you a reply! You will have an extremely hard time rebutting it! The reason why you are not going to "rehash" THIS ISSUE here, is probably because you know that this issue is now under an appeal in the 9th Circuit of appeals!

But in the mean time, can you tell us what the 'legal" definition is by NMFS for "Modern, stylislh, wild fish"

Cowlitzfisherman