If for some mysterious reason we have an increase in wild steelhead over the next three years, what will we attribute it to? I know what your answer will be if there is a decline.

Kevin,

If you have a significant increase in wild steelhead in all the rivers in the general area you're discussing, it will be most directly due to wet summers keeping streamflows up and or an uptick in marine survival. That's the easy situation, but not the one we usually find ourselves trying to explain.

Sg

We'll see!
I sincerely hope we do see an increase of wild steelhead over the next three years.
I'm going to end on this
You take a number of wild spawning steelhead out of the equation. You take their eggs and their milt and all the genetics that make them unique. You do this every year for almost a decade.
Do the math!
The abundance you talk about has not been there. Sure you and JB are hooking a lot of fish because you know the river and fish a lot of holes that no one else goes to and you are both good fishermen.
I float the Nestucca and for the past few years we are seeing the wild redds number dwindle.
ODFW does creel surveys but they don't do redd surveys like they should.
The guides want to keep this BS thing going because it gives them a late winter fishery that they never had in the past when it was only the lower river Alsea strain that were available. Do you really think they are going to tell ODFW that the fishing sucks and there are few wild steelhead? There is money to be made and the wild fish be damned.
Think about it!

Stew,

I agree that last winter was not as good as past years. i'd even go as far as to say it was poor. I didn't get out as much as I would have liked. I know several very good fisherman who did get out and fished many streams with pathetic results last winter.
I also know that the steelhead fishing was really good two years ago in the Nehalem, Trask, Wilson, Umpqua, and many other streams that need not be mentioned.

Judging a return of fish by spawning numbers is the only way to get an accurate count. i don't have access to those numbers, but i'd like to see them and how they correspond with the broodstock program.

I'm all for ending the broodstock program if there is GOOD evidence that shows the population of wild fish declining is a direct effect from the program. I also don't think we want to wait until it's too late to make that determintaion.

North Oregon coast rivers all suffer from poor water quality, (exceeding maximum allowable summer temps), they also suffer from lack of large woody debris, lack of stream complexity is also a factor.
All reasons why even in good years the runs are but a fraction of historic levels.

The only way I'll ever support a broodstock is when the fantasy program comes along that actually helps wild fish, rather than steals their eggs to make hatchery fish to harvest.

I call it a "fantasy" program, because every piece of science about it has shown that it can't, and won't help wild fish, and besides stealing eggs from wild fish, it might actually be harming them in more significant genetic ways.

Fish on...

Todd

[quote=kevin lund]This is where it is wrong. The Trask stray rate of those broodstock fish is huge. I fish the Trask alot and catch a ton of Wilson Broodstock fish. There are enough of them in the Trask that several guidees have figured it out and they are now fishing it hard. The whole thing is messed up. Not only did they mess up with raising Wilson fish in Trask water, they put the live (wilson) parents into Trask river to return to sea.[qoute]

Biggest problem so far that I see. The stray's have got worse year by year. In the 90's it was extremly rare to catch a hatchery steelie on the Trask. It has become common the last couple of years.

Get rid of all the hatchery fish, wont hurt my feelings at all.

Need I say more.

Get rid of ALL the hatchery fish on the NC.

Kevin, I have caught those NF turds as high as Vernonia.

I rip there gills and fertilize the river, just as I do on the Trask and Wilson.

I think that most of us agree that the guidestock steelhead program is a farce. To believe that the guidstock program is beneficial to the wild fish only shows how ignorant the miss-guided public has become.

Here is a saying coming from 1 of Tillamook's finest pie faced guides " Mark my words it'll be better in 2 years" this Say's it all, not a clue.

Quit trying to find things right with the current fiasco, there aren't any. Nothing worse than defending a sinking ship and trying to keep it afloat.

How about agreeing that the fish runs are in trouble and that the state agencies have no-clue as to the reason of the decline.
Let's look at the culprits in the last 2 decades that could be the natural reason for the decline. Would anyone like to start the list of reasons. I think I'll just throw out a couple.

Let's start with the obvious, hatcheries.

if you were the state game department and a giant chunk of your money came from mitigation hatchery funding money would you want to restore the fish runs and risk losing that funding ??

Washington steelhead fishing sucks ballz, wilson R. Oregon broodstock fish are spectacular, large returns with less smolt planting required. 20 pound keepers caught every season. Have fun with your dismal chambers creek mini fish doughballs.

You're kind of a dumbass aren't you?

i think he`s a door to door hatch box salesman

Salmonbake gave up on anything resembling constructive discussion a while back.

Sg

There is hope in finding the reasons to our salmon/steelhead declines. For those of you one sided anti hatchery people. It is okay to say the hatcheries are the cause for the decline. When you get done drinking your koolaid and vodka, please rejoin the discusion. Keep in mind that chinook and steelhead runs are in a decline arrcoss the board and that not all of these fish come from a hatchery. Most certainly not the over abundance of wild coho we have had for the last two years. Take off the hatchery hat and lets find our why we have had these awesome coho returns. Is it an improved habitat in all areas accross the NW region? Maybe it could be the Ocean.

And I have caught hatchery clipped springers in the Siletz too, but it's not the norm. There is always a stray rate.
Rusty,

Are you going to tell us that the Nehalem doesn't have a good return of wild fish and that the NF turds ruinied it too. Cmon now, we both know better than that.

habitat is the number 1 reason.

Marcia,

Take a deep breath and look over at the thread "Poor Chum returns" these fish are not and have not been influenced for many years by any hatchery fish, or harvest in 20 years and yet they decline.

This year we are fishing on adult chinook that came from a 2004 spawn. Do any of you remember how awesome that was. I do, up and down the coast. Those massive returns put out some serious wild chinook smolts in tons of rivers. Yet this is the pathetic returns we get from one of the best spawns in a long time. How did the hatchery fall chinook program do that to an entire region? it didn't.

I'm not trying to push any hatchery fish on anyone. I'm trying to find a run of fish without hatchery interfierence that is improving and not declining. This way we can determine what makes those fish increase in numbers and others decline. The only problem is that they appear to be declining or increasing accross the board. Which suggests it must be a problem that all fish share in common. Which must be the Ocean. if habitat were an issue, we would surely see a river with great habitat outperform these ones with poor habitat. Only problem is they are not following that pattern.