Having stuffed my share of wild steelhead in tubes, I'm having a gruesome vision of Todd stuffing some poor steelheader in a PVC tube. Maybe it's because I get claustrophobic at the thought of crawling through a small culvert. Never shoulda' watched that movie.

Sg

I know.....kinda scared to see him on the river now!

First, I have never supported the Wilson broodstock program. They started that POS program back in the 90's ( Yeah Kevin, it's been a hell of a lot longer than 4 years).

I was guiding the North Coast Salmon Rendevous in Tillamook when a prominant NW fishing celebrity was telling all of us at the dinner one night what a great thing this was going to be for anglers. And that the money we were raising was going to support this new program.

I was shocked. Yeah it sounded great for some anglers, but how was this supposed to help fish?

When I asked this question, I was greeted with a bunch of blank stares.

When I asked how taking wild fish from the river to produce inferior hatchery fish was better for wild fish.....Same blank stare.

Say what you want, I grew up on the Wilson. And the people who have been fishing it for 40 plus years like myself have seen no benefit from the broodstock program unless your only goal is to take fish home.

The only thing that has benefited the wild fish is mandatory CnR. It sure as hell hasnt been the broodstock program. The science is out there, ignore if you wish.

I do appreciate one thing it has done. It has taken a lot of pressure off the rivers with out broodstock and other hatchery programs. And those native fish rivers are doing well.

Better the the Wilson? Depends on who you talk to. Personally, I think they are for the simple fact it is keeping a bunch of people off of them.

Well Rusty it took me a little longer to come to my senses but once I did I couldn't believe how naive I had been.
Who does it benefit the most? The guides that's who! Those carpetbaggers from the valley who moved to Tillamook county after this program started and I'm sure you know to whom I am referring.
You and I don't particularly like each other Rusty but we are in agreement that this program is a POS and you apparently knew that way before I did.
Some may ask what this all has to do with the North Umpqua..simply this. ODFW is in love with this program and it has been discussed as an option for other coastal river managed for wild steelhead. The Nehalem and Kilchis are two of them and the NU also.
Another thing worth mentioning about the Wilson program. ODFW promised that they would not dump the smolt any higher than Mills or Kansas creek but they lied of course and they were released all the way up to the South Fork, some 28 miles upstream.
One Tillamook guide went so far as to say he was happy that the returning broodstock fish would be spawning with the wild fish. He said it would make for more steelhead in the river. This same guides father used to tether wild fish he landed and then carry them up the hill to a holding tank to transport to the bigger holding tank at Duyck's
I don't think he does it anymore.

Stew and Rusty,

Would you rather have the pathetic Alsea hatchery brats back in the Wilson? At least the fish you catch now are good fish. The people want to eat fish, period. I don't support the way the Wilson program runs the broodstock fish either, but at this time it is what we have.

I'm not sure most people understand how the Wilson program is so much more bogus than any other broodstock program.

#1. Anglers catch the wild fish and hold them in Duycks pond.
#2 in April those 25 pair are taken to TRASK Hatchery to be live spawned and then released in TRASK river to return to sea.
#3 Wilson fry are raised in TRASK water for 18 months and tehn taken to duycks to be imprinted for two weeks prior to release.


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.

There are several guides in Tillamook who don't want this information out there. but it is true.

The Trask has a great run of wild fish, but now is getting good return of hatchery strays from teh wilson. I know this is not good.

What I also know is the wilson still has a good run of wild fish. Not as good as it was 50 years ago. You must remember the Cedar Creek had a facility that raised lots of steelhead for the wilson. The flood of 1964 took out the facility. Those steelhead that were released into the wilson in the 60's were NOT clipped. Many people thought they were all wild fish which is not true.

I wasn't alive when some of the best fishing advances were made, but my Dad and his buddy Doug Fritz were at the top of the heap in fisherman. 100 steelhead a weekend was a normal one. Cook Creek from the Nehalem was the place and all of the fish were hatchery fish. Same with the Wilson, Trask, Nestucca, Three Rivers, Alsea, and almost every river on the Coast had huge hatchery plants, and none of them were clipped until the mid 90's.

How many of you were alive in the 60's and driving around to all these rivers and catching these WILD fish? You'd all be 65 years old now and most of you are still too young.

Rusty,

It is likely to be more like 6-8 years of returning fish and like 8-10 years of them doing the plan, I really have not been keeping track. I do know they stopped planting as many fish at the South Fork two years ago. I think the number is like 20,000 at the south fork now and other 60,000 at Mills or just above(kansas cr?). I'm not sure exactly.

The Alsea stock is almost gone, and may be gone now. I need to look into that.

Todd, your description of the Vedder is what's happening on the Nestucca and the Wilson. Oregon's dept. Of Failure and Worstlife has no clue. The current creel surveys are being manipulated by the guides with a lot of help from the agency.

On the Nestucca Redd surveys were stopped in the section of river being targeted by the broodstock guides. I have surveyed Redd's in this stretch of the river and others for over 20+years. Within the second year of collection the amount of spawning fish in the target area had dropped by half. It may not have been from the removal of the fish but the added pressure associated with catching a broodstock fish. The displacement and removal of the wild fish is the problem. Another issue is the location of the wild fish being removed from the system.

How many of you believe that if you caught a fish in the upper river and took the fish to the hatchery for spawning purposes then upon the release of the smolt from this fish would create a fish that would return to the area of the adult capture?

The guides and the other miners of the broodstock program believe this. They actually believe that the fish removed from the upper river and then spawned and reared in the concrete tank has the homing instincts of the removed adults. The use of anyone other than agency personnel to collect fish is contributing to the problem even more so. The agency had the opportunity to use selected areas to trap the broodstock. This would have alleviated the pressure associated with the collection and the final outcome in the take of returning hatchery stock.

After all once these fish are removed for hatchery propagation they are no longer a wild fish. Yes the adults used are still wild, the eggs removed have nothing to do with a wild fish once they hit the plastic tray.

Let's look at the added pressure and the run timing associated with the broodstock program and the out of basin hatchery stock.

The out of basin hatchery stocks run timing is earlier thus creating the separation of the 2 stocks of fish which in the past was a good thing for the wild fish. During the use of the out of basin stock stray rates varied from 10 to 30 percent. This stock of fish also spawned earlier thus eliminating the negative impacts associated with the current program. The impact to the wild population was minimal due to run timing and the lack of continued angling pressure. The angling pressure occured from Late October through January with the wild fish begining to return in the later part of the month. Yes we still had a few hatchery fish in the mix to keep those bait anglers and cardboard eaters happy.


Now the broodstock program. Run timing is the most damning of all. Realizing that the impacts that the hatchery product has on the wild fish should be the first concern. These fish due to the collection and propogation are returning at the same time as the wild stock this is a given. The current stray rates in the upper river above the release sites are in range of 50 to 80 percent. The Redd's surveys have also shown a large amount of hatchery interaction with the wild fish. ODFW refuses to count or look at live fish spawning they only look at the movement of the gravel. On several tributaries in the drainage the amount of hatchery strays has doubled and the amount of wild fish spawning in the same section has dropped.

The other obvious impact is the added angling pressure on the wild stock of fish. In the past during the months of February through April angling pressure would have been considered lite a 10 boat day on the upper stretch would have been a lot of boats. Today the same tretch of river that used to see 10 know See's anywhere from 30-50 boats, with a total number of boats reaching 90+ on those good days. I believe we had 1 day last year with over 100 boats on the river on less than a 12 mile stretch, sounds like fun to me.

Was this river all that good for wild fish, yes it was. At one time the idea of having the 1 and 5 fishery on wild fish was a near reality. Luckily we didn't have the overall support to create the fishery or we may not have any fish left at all.

In other words the fisheries created by the broodstock program are killing more wild fish than they are helping. The so-called ODFW helpers are nothing more than miners and bad miners at that. The problem with these miners is the fact that they have failed to recognize that the canary has fallen over and is having difficulty breathing, do yah think.

Take the guides out of the collection picture, fire those at ODFW who have failed at performing the duties of maintaining the resource and preventing the continued degradation of all the wild stock fish that are left.

I am also a guide who has been keeping track of the fisheries for quite a while. The vision of sugar plumbs of the past are now nothing more than that. To those who pat themselves on the back for the conuation of this program good luck in the future with those hatchery brats you call quality fish, they are nothing more than junk.

That image of ODFW being the progressive force for quality fish management is beginning to look delusional. Sad. Seems like fishing is the priority and fish conservation is a distant second thought.

Sg

For the betterment of the wild steelhead? Hell yes!
At least those Alsea fish were pretty much done and through the system by the time the wild fish arrived.
The Alsea smolt weren't dumped right on top of the wild smolt!
Why is that so hard to understand Kevin?
Yeah they strayed but so do the broodstock fish so what is your point? Tillamook bait guide Jack Smith denies the huge stray rate but you and I know better and I'm glad to see someone admit the huge stray rate.
I know you and Barth hook a lot of fish in the upper river but think about the big picture for a moment.
The Wilson does not still have a good number of wild winter steelhead and to keep pillaging the eggs of these wild fish to make a better quality hatchery fish for the public is ignorant.
I think you really believe that too Kevin but don't want to piss off your guide friends.

whats even more depressing is how WDFW compares to ODFW. We have to wrestle the state to even consider taking hatchery plants out of ANY system. At least on the Oregon coast there are a number of unsupplemented (albeit full of strays) systems.

Stew,

We may not agree on alot of things, but I do hate the broodstock. I miss 20 wild fish days on the stuc with a low gomer count. Now douche bags run amok with divers and bait the fishing is for sh!t.

One little clarifier, all the smolt are released the first week of April. Broodstock smolt are typically SMALLER than the hatch fish, due to later egg takes.

Sorry... carry on...

Stew,

Let's get one thing straight. I'm not here to build a relationship with my guide friends. I have a passion, just as everyone in teh fishing world does. I'm not sure if the broodstock program is right or not. I need more time to look at it and see if it is truely the reaason for depressed returns of wild fish.

The one thing I don't see is.......

An improvement of wild fish populations on river where no hatchery influence is had. Let's look at this seriuosly.

The main Nehalem.
It has been 15 years or more that any hatchery steelhead have been planted in this river. What kind of improvemnet have these wild winter fish made from that point in time til now? From an anglers point of view (MHO) it has good years and it has bad. Almost an exact duplicate of the Wilson or Nestucca river. The one difference is the Nehalem doesn't get the same fishing pressure as the hatchery streams.

How about a river like Drift Creek
It gets 0 plants and has a good wild run of all species, yet not as good as it could have. I have yet to see or catch any strays in this stream, but some years are great for wild steelhead and others are poor.like last year.

There are many streams that get no hatchery plants of winter steelhead and have little to no outside interfierence or habitat loss, yet these model wild steelhead streams don't have the runs that they should have.

I'm not saying the broodstock program is good for wild fish at all, but i'm not seeing our runs go to hell because of them. If the broodstock program is the problem with the wild populations, then why do rivers with no BS programs have declining populations too.

They held them longer this year in the Nestucca

Sorry... carry on....

stew,

Do you have any speculation on the declining runs of rivers with no hatchery influence?

Kevin,

It's unlikely that the wild steelhead broodstock programs are causing significantly reduced wild returns on any of the rivers. (Significant, as in measurable at the 95% confidence level - a statistical tool.) That is why you're seeing general swings in abundance in both the broodstocked rivers and the rivers with no hatchery stocking. However, it's important to recognize that no data supports the conclusion that broodstock programs increase wild run sizes. What data there are, scientific and anecdotal, are to the contrary. What the broodstock programs achieve is a greater abundance of harvestable fish. That becomes the justification for mining the wild broodstock at the expense of natural production. The broodstock programs can make fishing better, but they do not increase the wild steelhead population's productivity, as that is determined by the quantity and quality of habitat, the spawning escapment numbers, and the fitness of the wild spawners (which is higher if they are native and wild and lower if they are native and hatchery or non-native and hatchery or even non-native and wild.

I know it's probably a bit complicated, but I hope this helps.

Sg

What rivers on the north coast are you referring to Kevin?
I never said broodstock programs were the only factor but the smoking gun is there and the rapid decline of wild populations in rivers that were at least holding their own is alarming.
The thing is the rivers like the Nestucca and Wilson were holding their own as far as wild steelhead went. It wasn't huge but you could see progress being made.
Then enter the broodstock program and couple that with other factors and viola we have what we have today!
Why take wild eggs and make them hatchery fish just because you feel people need to catch a superior (your words) hatchery steelhead to take home and eat?

Stew,

The rivers i'm refering to are............

Nehalem
Salmon (lincoln city)
Drift Creek
Smith
Miami
Trask

The Wilson had a huge return of wild steelhead two years ago. How did the broodstock program effect that return?

The Nehalem isn't hatchery influenced huh? How about the NF hatchery.
The Trask has so many strays and you said so yourself that it is definitely hatchery influenced and the Miami hasn't had a big wild steelhead population for years even in the good years.
What would you call a huge return? I don't fish the Wilson much for winter steelhead anymore but a few of my friends do and they would dispute what you say.
SalmoG has it right. The decline of wild steelhead cannot be totally linked to the broodstock programs but from the surveys we have done on the Nestucca specifically we have noted a sharp decline since the programs began.
Do I think ODFW is lying about the returns? Absolutely! Do I think guides are exaggerating the amount of wild fish they hook? Yes!