The present steelhead situation reminds me very much of what we endured several years ago regarding Eastern Wa pheasant hunting. Once upon a time pheasant hunting was a way of life for us in the Yakima Valley. Then, things started to go bad. Birds were hard to find. Special closures were instrumented. The offical WDFW explanation was "habitat loss, habitat loss, habitat loss". This is undoubtedly a factor, but it was a dammed big coincidence that WDFW quit releasing pheasants at just about this same time. But they never mention this as a factor and now they (WDFW) are singing the same song about the steelhead. I do not fish for steelhead much, but I am saying don't let your steelhead go the way of my pheasant!!!!!!

barnettm,

I'm not familiar with the pheasant situation in E. Wa, I haven't hunted it for many years...I didn't even know that they planted pheasant in E. Wa, I though it was just here on the west side. I used to do my hunting in Hay, near LaCrosse.

Anyway, in an earlier thread you said that WDFW doesn't want to be in the hatchery fish business, but you must not have checked back to that thread after you stated that.

Go back and read it if you haven't yet, here it is...

The World\'s Largest Industrial Hatchery Complex

It gives the number of how many steelhead and salmon hatcheries there are in Washington State. Washington State has the largest salmon/steehead hatchery complex in the entire world, and by a large amount.

This may or may not have anything to do with the pheasant issue, but it definitely shows that Washington not only is not getting out of the hatchery business, but that it is the industry leader, worldwide, in the hatchery business.

Fish on...

Todd

P.S. Hooked a couple of those hatchery steelies today, as a matter of fact...and one little nate to go back.

Todd,


I believe that Indian, federal, and power company programs comprise the majority of the facilties referred to in your stats. And they seem fairly stable to me. What I was referring to was the state programs. It seems like state facilities are closing all over, viz, Ringold in EW, some Skokomish facility that I read about, some threats to close Cowlitz hatcheries, etc. It is these state facilities that I am worried about.

I don't think the Ringold hatchery is closing, I think it's changing the proportions of the fish that it is releasing. I don't know any more than that, so if anyone has some info I'd be interested to hear it...is it steelhead or salmon that they're changing?

The Skokomish hatchery might stop planting hatchery steelhead, but will continue doing silvers and other salmon. The hatchery steelhead run there is almost nonexistent, in spite of the dollars being spent to produce all the smolts they release.

The Cowlitz may reduce the amount of steelhead they produce. Even if they get the most reduction that they are hoping for, they will still be largest steelhead hatchery in the world, producing more smolts than any other steelhead hatchery in the world.

There are hatcheries funded by power companies and the feds and tribes, but WDFW runs the ones funded by the power companies, and even if you don't count those, the feds' , or the tribes', over 80% of the hatcheries are strictly WDFW hatcheries. The power company hatcheries are also run by WDFW, and some of the federal/tribal hatcheries are cooperatively run with WDFW.

Fish on...

Todd.

We also have had a major decline in pheasant numbers on the last 20 years. For the most part two items are at fault. Habitat loss due to more efficient farming is number 1- Next is increase in predators. The increase in Magpies in the last 25 years is startling. Also the increase in the number of red fox ( do not get trapped anymore because they are not worth anything ) Stocked pheasants really have nothing in common with hatchery steelhead. Most are killed in a matter of days if not hours. 300 birds released = 300 birds killed. Its a pretty safe assumption that the days of good pheasant hunting are over. States like North and South Dakota still have huge tracts of cover, and lots of birds as a result. All I have to do is take a short drive and look at all the bare dirt tilled to perfection with concrete ditches or steel pipe and its pretty easy to figure out what happened..