I was mailed a report on a fish I caught because they wanted the wire tag in the snout.The steelhead was caught at Drano Lake Sept 28th. It seems that it was raised and released in the Lewis River which apperently was quite a miss buy the fish. Since this was the only fish that they checked I wonder how many of the others went to Drano Lake too. Any insight would cure my curiosity. The Duck

Duck

When Tacoma was doing the required fish studies on the Cowlitz a couple of years ago, it was revealed that 25% of all the fall chinook that were spawning naturally in the Cowlitz Rivers were strays from the Lewis River. Apparently fish stray way more then originally believed, especially fall chinook on the Cowlitz.

To me, that would indicate that it appears that each river system may vary highly depending on the species and river.

Cowlitzfisherman

This high rate of straying is another good reason why the use of hatcheries should be limited and potentially phased out. Hatchery fish have been shown to stray a good deal more than wild fish (a quick google search for "hatchery salmon strays" will give you hours of reading) and this leads to increased interaction between wild genetics with the hatchery fish. So even in a system with no hatchery program there can be similar problems with competition, dilution of gene pool and increased fishing pressure seen on systems with hatcheries. Hatchery fish have definitely been shown to be less fit and not nearly as good at reproducing as their wild, native counterparts. These wild fish have had selection pressures specific to the river system where they live to mold the gene pool to be most successful, while the hatchery fish have had very little selection pressure at all, other than which ones can swim in the best circle around a tank (obviously this is only pre-release). This looser selection process probably plays a role in their tendency to stray, as there isn't 10,000 years of evolution specifying those fish to a particular system. so, go bonk a hatchery fish!!

Matt Korb

Can it also be argued that having hatchery strays in the system is a good thing?

Both wild and hatchery steelhead and salmon stray from their home spawning rivers. In the past when there were huge numbers of wild fish everywhere there were comparatively huge numbers of wild strays. That is what gave what we consider native fish their genetic diversity, spread the run timing out, etc. Am I correst in saying that a "river A" hatchery fish is just a severly dumbed down "river C" wild fish? After a generation or two of spawning in the wild they are essentially wild fish right? Why are the hatchery origins of these strays a problem unless we can define an what an "excessive number" of those fish are?

I too just received a tag analysis in the mail for a coho that I caught at Westport this summer. It stated that the fish was a soos creek fish , from the Big soos creek hatchery. Is this the same soos creek on the green river near auburn or is it on the coast somewhere?

Steve

FishNg1

Check it out !
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&i...G=Google+Search

Pasco steelhdr - I would argue that the idea of having hatchery strays in the system being a positive influence on genetic diversity isn't quite right because the genetics that are being spread around are "weaker". For example, if a hatchery takes eggs and sperm from 20 adults and turns it into 100,000 smolt (numbers are just for illustration of the point) there is genetic material from only 20 fish being artificially expanded into several thousand returning fish. This is further compounded by using hatchery fish as an egg source the following cycle, this magnifies an even smaller set of genes. In the wild the rate of return would certainly be lower for the same amount of eggs, but the genetics of the returning fish would be relatively much more diverse. Now as far as the idea of a river A fish being a "dumbed down" river C fish, this dumbing down is a nature of how small of a subset of river C fish were taken to establish the hatchery stock. For these fish to become "wild" by many definitions, only one generation must be spawned naturally, however, this doesn't make the fish comparable to the "native" wild fish. Many generations of natural production and lots of mixing of genes would be necessary to make them comparable to the native fish. However, this process of introducing new, what I would call weaker genes, if in big enough numbers, irreversibly affect the wild populations.
Matt Korb

wild fish stray as well...some systems/species more than others....the matter of hatchery straying is part of the hachery reform stuff going on now i believe...for hatcheries that have high rates of straying they may close or cut production or create 'sanctuaries' for wild fish like they are trying on the kalama where only 'wild' fish go upstream....

also ...a lot of times fish that have strayed will back out of the wrong river and head to the 'home' stream when it gets closer to spawning (if it hasn't ended up in a hatchery pond or barbecue by then) if it can't get back the urge to squirt takes over and it'll try to spawn where it's at... a true stray is one that has actually spawned in the wrong spot...

This all sounds good and all, but can you guys "explain" how, and why this theory falls so short on the Toutle?

Please reread this thread (my response to Spawnout) and get back with an explanation please!
http://www.piscatorialpursuits.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=015647#000025

Maybe you can answer what he did not!


Cowlitzfisherman

i think the toutle may be an example of the survival mechanism involved in straying in wild fish....could be that wild fish of toutle stock strayed to other rivers and returned to spawn there or recolonized it once some areas of the toutle became good enough to use again...
straying can protect against the loss of an entire stock due to some catastrophic event in the home stream...if there were no straying, areas that lack spawners due to poor conditions or restricted access won't become recolonized if conditions improve...

sometimes fish are tagged with the wrong code too...oops ...

Egads.....some topics are like soap operas...you can miss episodes for a month and when you turn on the boob tube again, it's like you never missed a show.

I, personally, disagree with the "ban hatcheries" bunch. Are there drawbacks to hatcheries? Sure. Are there drawbacks to relying solely on Mother Nature? Sure. Are there benefits to both? Sure.

It seems to me that the answer lies in moderation and common sense.

When I went to High School, science was used to prove a thesis using ALL available data, not just data supporting a preconceived concept. Returning to that would, I'm sure, benefit us all.

I grew up packing a rod and loving to catch fish and I'm sure I've caught more that an equitable share, and I would like for my son and his son to be able to do the same....so it is my greatest wish that whatever the outcome of "management", that it not harm that wonderful resource.

Fun5, right on! You've got a seat on my boat anytime.

Pasco, you're still welcome too.

I think folks are offering a wide ranging, and healthy perspective on the issue of hatchery fish. As with many things in this business, there are no simple answers, no silver bullets.

Hatchery steelhead are perhaps the most notorious group of "wanderers" out there. But let us be clear... there is a huge difference between "straying" and "dipping in." Dipping in can mean a fish entering a river that is not its "home" and swimming upstream one mile or many miles. These fish are not destined to spawn there. However, they often get caught in nets and by hooks and, if a tag is recovered, the data will indicate the river of capture was not the home stream. This does not mean the fish strayed... necissarily. Most often this fish would be considered a "dip in."

This is not to say there are not strays. Some tags are recovered from spawned out fish in a river that the fish was not born and released from. This is a true stray. Both wild and hatchery fish stray. In nature, the tendency for a small portion of a return to spawn in a stream other than the home stream, is necessary for "colonization" purposes.

Hatchery steelhead spawning in the wild are not know to have much reproductive success. Most hatchery winter steelhead programs are timed so the adults are spawning much earlier than the wild fish... at a most unhospitable time of year. This is not to say that managers ignore the issue of hatchery fish spawning in the wild... either the home stream or in a stream where the fish has strayed. State and Tribal hatcheries now operate under Hatchery Genetic Management Plans. Most HGMPs for hatchery steelhead programs address these and other concerns.

As for errors in coded wire tagging, this is extremely rare this day and age. So much time, energy and money is spent putting tags into fish (hatchery AND wild) that the checks and balances and quality control structures VERY rarley let a "wrong" code slip through the system.

Pacificnw

So what's your take on the Cowlitz fall chinook? Like I said, studies revealed that 25% of fall chinook that were spawning naturally are strays from the Lewis River. Isn't that an extremely high rate of strays for any river or speice?


Cowlitzfisherman

Years ago I caught a winter Steelhead in the Cowlitz at Blue Creek that had a speghetti tag in it. I turned it in and later found out that it had been tagged in the Kalama a few weeks earlier. So this fish swam up the Columbia, went into the Kalama, decided it was in the wrong place, swam down the Columbia into the Cowlitz and headed for Blue Creek. When I got the report I thought what a mixed up fish.

A couple points to remember. A certain amount of "straying" is key to the survival of anadromous species. Without that behavior how would rivers become colonized or re-colonized. 12,000 years ago most of our rivers where buried under great thickness of ice. After the glaciers receded our rivers would have been fishless and would have remained so without this "straying" behavior.

Two - both hatchery and wild fish stray. We just tend to notice the hatchery fish more - they are more likely to be tagged/marked.

CFM -
Regarding the falls on the Cowlitz you seem to be confusing straying rates with stray contribution rates. An example, lets say the Cowlitz escapement of fall chinook was 4,000 and 1,000 were from the Lewis that would be a stray contribution rate of 25% (1,000/4,000). For the same year let's assume that the Lewis escapement was 10,000. Then the Lewis stray rate would have been 9% (1,000/(10,000 + 1,000)). I of course have no idea what the real numbers were/are and have simplified the example considerably.

Tight lines
Smalma

cfm...i'm curious about that lewis fall chinook straying...can you cite the study so i can read it?
i've read the quinn and fresh one from '84 where they tracked cowlitz fall chinook fish for 4 years and they strayed at an avg. of less than 1.5% ...and most of the strays ended up near the cowlitz anyways...

pacificnw....i know codes are very rarely mixed...however i think i remeber that some green river ones might have been one of the rare mix ups... one of the DIT groups for coho...

"A couple points to remember. A certain amount of "straying" is key to the survival of anadromous species. Without that behavior how would rivers become colonized or re-colonized. 12,000 years ago most of our rivers where buried under great thickness of ice. After the glaciers receded our rivers would have been fishless and would have remained so without this "straying" behavior."

I think the above pretty much sums up the issue for 'Mother Nature.' Cross breeding by runs of fish keep the 'gene pool' freash and healthy.