Well they still got way more so called wild fish back than previous years, but the whole plan still ain't working that's for sure.

That's exactly it......... So called wild fish. Sure is funny how all of the wild fish we handled as well the group I fish with all caught cookie cutter wild fish. They were all similar 10-14lb just like the hatchery fish...................

Keith

Clip Clip...And focus our efforts on the area's that are left. Helluva a lot cheaper and might actually save some true wild fish.

You seem to think that there are a large number of unclipped hatchery fish.
Can you supply any data that shows a low ad clip rate?
Or is this just a gut feeling?
All the numbers I've read seem to indicate your wrong in your assumptions, but If you have hard data then let's see it.
Here are the hatchery ad-clip release summaries for the CR uprivier spring stock. Brood years 2004 and 2005 will yield the majority of what we all see out there.

It comes out to about 90%. Maybe just a tad under.

2004

http://www.rmpc.org/reports/AS121444.txt

2005

http://www.rmpc.org/reports/AS121478.txt

The links are dead for me, but would like to see the data..

Working on getting it fixed.

Evidence? Depends on how you look at it......

At the age of 35 I've had the chance to meet hundreds of CR fisherman and many who have polaroids as well as pictures from the early times... Ironically a lot of the Spring Chinook that were caught then were significantly bigger on average.... It wasn't uncommon to see pictures from late March and early April of limits of 20+lb fish.. Of course back then, very few if any were clipped so it was hard to distinguish the "true" native fish...

How is it that as time has progressed the "non-clipped or native" fish seem to follow the same trend in size as the hatchery fish???

On a different subject it sure is funny how the winter steelhead hatchery fish have turned to nothing more than 6-8 lb cookie cutters for the most part yet their true native brothers still exist from high teens to 30+lb fish....

Coincidence on the springers hatchery vs. wild? I think so.......

Is it inbreeding? I don't know, but as time has progressed the hatchery fish have shrunk in size....

Here's a question for you... What was the smallest spring chinook run to cross Bonneville dam?

Keith

http://www.cbbulletin.com/389844.aspx

Never going to rebuild the Wild Columbia Runs as long as the Dam's are in place..Didn't work on the Sac, Elwha, Klamath, and ain't going to work here.

there is no effort to rebuild the runs but there is a giant effort to conserve what we have left and develop hatchery only fisheries and live happily ever after.

That ain't what the boat ramp guys are selling..

Yeah, it is...they just don't know it.

Fish on...

Todd

Yeah I think the guys pulling the strings know what it is, the truth is very hard to package up and sell is the real problem.

Here's the brood years we just fished on 2004 and 05, so they are in fact ad clipping CR hatchery fish at a very high level.

Brood Year 2004 87.6% ad-clip
Brood Year 2005 88.2% ad-clip

I give up, these links just don't want to be posted, you'll have to take my word for it I guess.

This is upriver rates I take it, and one fact sheet had as high as 92% mark rate this spring if I remember right..But have a houseful right now so no time to dig..

I'm not insinuating that we have NO wild fish left, I'm just saying there's a lot less than people think...

Let me help you out a little with those links....

The majority of the 2010 adult returns for our spring/summer Chinook will be from brood year’s 2005 and 2006. Here is what the coded wire tag/ad-clip database RMIS reports...

Upriver CR Stock Spring Chinook

Brood Year 2005 = 87% ad-clip
Brood Year 2006 = 85% ad-clip

http://www.rmpc.org/reports/AS113647.txt
http://www.rmpc.org/reports/AS113695.txt

Lower CR Stock Spring Chinook

Brood Year 2005 = 94% ad-clip
Brood Year 2006 = 95% ad-clip

http://www.rmpc.org/reports/AS113843.txt
http://www.rmpc.org/reports/AS113894.txt

Upper CR Summer Chinook

Brood Year 2005 = 76% ad-clip
Brood Year 2006 = 86% ad-clip

http://www.rmpc.org/reports/AS114625.txt
http://www.rmpc.org/reports/AS114669.txt

Keith

Well if were clipping at 80% and returning fish are 80%...

http://www.nwcouncil.org/history/HanfordReach.asp


These are fall Chinook I believe..

Here's another way to look at it and the #'s aren't perfect, but you'll get the idea.....

2005 UpRiver CR Springer plants = 15,958,208 total smolt
Of that total you had:
2005 Upriver CR Springer nonclip CWT tagged = 1,984,261 smolt
2005 Upriver CR Springer nonclipped no tag = 409,686 smolts

2006 Upriver CR Springer Plants = 15,882,808 total smolt
Of that total you had:
2006 Upriver Cr Springer nonclip CWT tagged = 1,422,460 smolts
2006 Upriver CR Springer nonclipped no tag = 673,296 total smolt

If we had somewhere around a 1% survival ratio on these smolt that would put the non-clipped at an estimated total of 52,529 adults returning with an extra fin although they were raised in a concrete raceway....

We had an estimated 329,000 adults return in 2010 per Eyefish's #'s... If you had 52,529 estimated misclipped fish moving through that would have you catching 16% wild fish... That # is about 2 percent short of what jives with what me and all the buddies caught this year with a sample of roughly 300 fish.... That's counting guide buddies of mine as well...

Help me understand how our #'s are what they are, why aren't we catching 25% or more wild fish on the river?

What was your percentages of hatchery vs. wild landed? Anyone?

Keith

http://www.dfw.state.or.us/fish/OSCRP/CRM/FS/10/10_03_29wf8.pdf


Here's some mark rates from commercial test fishing, they look remarkably similar to freespools rates, small samples though.

From the first one on february 22nd to the last one on the april closer I had 35 springers hit the boat of those I can only remember 3 being wild. The last week of summer kings seems to be the other way around.