Now that returns of wild native steelhead are shifting into high gear for the year, it's a good time to review some valuable points from this old thread:

click here

Consider culling every legal hatchery fish out of your favorite steelhead stream, whether or not you even want to retain a fish, or even if it's a boot. If legal to do so, please bonk it and tag it... what you do with it afterwards is up to you. If you know someone who could use the meat, save it for them, otherwise consider "donating" the carcass back to the river from whence it came to help with nutrient enhancement.

If you tagged/killed a fish in California and threw it back in the river, I think you would get ticketed for wanton waste of game. I just want to make sure you not encouraging people to break the law. I understand you reasoning with hatchery fish genes, so dont get me wrong.

If you were "carefully" cleaning that hatchery mutant in the current and it "accidentally" slipped from your grasp while ripping out its entrails, but you then made an "honest" attempt to rescue the carcass before stumbling clumsily into the water where the free-drifting fish was no longer within "safe" reach....

C'mon... no one's gonna get a ticket for that.

Gee wish I could have found a river yesterday or today that we could have at least hooked a fish let alone "donating it back to the river for nutrient enhancement".

I think one is walking a fine line on wastage if a hatchery fish is bonked and thrown back. Such an action also can reflect unfavorably on the sport fishing community. Unfortunately, the RCW on wastage leaves the question open in my mind as the wildlife has to have a minimum value of $20 before waste occurs. I think it is a lousy statute as written. CO is another state where wastage charges could be filed.


RCW 77.15.170
Waste of fish and wildlife — Penalty.

(1) A person is guilty of waste of fish and wildlife in the second degree if:

(a) The person kills, takes, or possesses fish, shellfish, or wildlife and the value of the fish, shellfish, or wildlife is greater than twenty dollars but less than two hundred fifty dollars; and

(b) The person recklessly allows such fish, shellfish, or wildlife to be wasted.

(2) A person is guilty of waste of fish and wildlife in the first degree if:

(a) The person kills, takes, or possesses fish, shellfish, or wildlife having a value of two hundred fifty dollars or more or wildlife classified as big game; and

(b) The person recklessly allows such fish, shellfish, or wildlife to be wasted.

(3)(a) Waste of fish and wildlife in the second degree is a misdemeanor.

(b) Waste of fish and wildlife in the first degree is a gross misdemeanor. Upon conviction, the department shall revoke any license or tag used in the crime and shall order suspension of the person's privileges to engage in the activity in which the person committed waste of fish and wildlife in the first degree for a period of one year.

(4) It is prima facie evidence of waste if a processor purchases or engages a quantity of food fish, shellfish, or game fish that cannot be processed within sixty hours after the food fish, game fish, or shellfish are taken from the water, unless the food fish, game fish, or shellfish are preserved in good marketable condition.


[1999 c 258 § 5; 1998 c 190 § 21.]

In my mind, it's a value judgement on whether or not the fish is actually being "wasted".... is it? It is merely being recycled back into the natural economy.... which is exactly what would happen to it if it had not been caught.

Except in this situation you prevent that hatchery fish from polluting the native population of wild spawners. These genetically inferior fish are reproductive misfits that not only displace wild spawners. They also have the undisputed ability to waste the reproductive potential of natives when they hybridize with wild spawners. If someone released a booted-out hatchery buck that later managed to spawn with three wild hens, it would essentially have the same effect as bonking the same three wild hens.

That's a tragedy well worth "wasting" $20 worth of hatchery trash to prevent.

put it in the freezer and use it for crab bait?

the rules permit use of salmon for "fishing bait". so, using steelhead for crab bait is mostly likely not going to get you a ticket for "wasting"

Doc, You know that I agree with you about taking hatchery fish out of the gene pool however, by definition a kelt is a steelhead that has already spawned so where is pulling that fish out of the gene pool going to help. I would personally love to see some of these spawner hen hatchery fish come back in a few years for a second trip. Downstreamers are not going to effect the gene pool....they already did that!!! Now, dark boots that haven't spawned and have no table value should get the wood shampoo. What are your thoughts???

CM

Why would anyone kill a kelt?

There's always the *chance* that the kelt will come back as a freshie next year. If not, it will die and become nutrients. No need to take a spent fish out of the system.

Spooged out bucks are no better. They are not good to eat and are doing no harm.

I say let them go. Maybe they will come back next year.

Parker and I agree on this one???? I must be missing something. J/K

Doc the problem I have with that study is it was conducted on the Hood river. I don't see that study applying to my favorite stream, the Siletz, which has the only native summer run on the central/northern Oregon coast. All the summeruns get sorted at the trap and the natives are released to spawn above where they closed fishing. The hatches are rerun or are given to the local food bank. They used to have Alsea stock winteruns but stopped when they used to spawn with the summers, upriver, to create a third run late in fall. Now they have a successful winter broodstock run that return lower in the river. Any spawners should be allowed to return to the ocean. In conclusion all the summerun, hatchery or native, have the same genetics, even though they hatch them on the Salmon or Nestucca rivers.

What stock do the Hood river fish come from? Skammanian?

CM, you are absolutely right about spent fish. Damage done. Too late.

That's not at all what I had in mind when making my recommendation.

Will edit my last post for better clarity.

I thought that is what you meant and I agree. Pre-spawn hatchery fish should all get the wood shampoo, but kelts should be released and you never know maybe a few will make a return trip!

CM

That late season dark male hatchery kelt may still have enough juice left in it to ruin a batch of a wild female steelhead's eggs. The ecosystem is better off if you kill it. Must admit most of the kelts I catch are female. Probably because the males are still upstream looking for yet another female to spawn with. And if that female is a wild fish, that's not good.

I agree 100% Salmo g. I don't know that I have ever caught a true kelt buck. Every one that I can remember was a hen.

CM

Interesting thread.
I've always thought that hatchery fish are to serve one purpose, to have their eye's straightened out & eaten.
I wasn't aware that bucks spawn with more than one female either. "Rockem if you got em"

Not only do bucks spawn with multiple hens, but the reverse is true as well.

Salmonids are absolute whores! Multiple males gang-bangin' a female is a very common scenario. The bucks will participate in as many of these menage-a-trois/quatre/cinq as they can until they are either testically spent or dead. Ray Troll was serious when he coined the phrase "Spawn til You Die" on his famous line of T-shirts.

I put this up a few weeks ago, but here's the best collection of real live fish porn on the web:

click here for spawning videos