In “The Fly of the Week” there is a link to Oregon’s Santiam river and the practice of recycling…
" The hatchery on the North Santiam now traps all hatchery fish and keeps recycling them downstream to run upstream again."
I’d be interested in how you would feel as you caught these fish the second or more time around.
BTW, that fly tied with purple might also be a killer.
I practice C & R for Native Fish, I keep Hatchery Fish (clipped fins). I limit my catch and keep, and use it same day, never for the freezer.
Parnelli
It is a very well liked practice. These are hatchery fish and, therefore, under Oregon Fish & Game theory are vicious, evil, unclean, miserable creatures. As such, the old practice was to club these steelhead and silver salmon to death then burn or bury them. On some rivers where they did this, the waters were not even open to silver salmon as they were supposedly endangered. Well, what happened is that one fellow videotaped the slaughter and released it to the media which then showed it to the public and the kukai hit the fan. The state immediately switched to recycling the fish in rivers and planting others into lakes. One of these lakes is a favorite of mine and a future FOTW is a hot number for them. Of course, on the North Santiam, the hatchery people get tired recycling them so after a while they just allow them to go up river to spawn with they aunts and uncles who are native fish. They are all the same strain, in any event. There is no trout fishing on these waters as they fear smolts of salmon and steelhead will be caught. They even do not allow you to catch and keep cutthroat. Locals have resorted to removing the adipose fins from trout they catch so as they grow they will become legal. Odd practice on both sides.
As for “re” catching the steelies. Few are recaught as most are invited home for dinner. There are also two salmon runs, but no sea run cutts. There is the Winter steelie run and the Summer steelie run. Most Summer fish stay over until late next Spring (about May) before spawning. As a result, I have caught steelies in this river EVERY month of the year.
Crystal clean water below the dam and good sized Atlantic salmon available in Detroit Reservoir.
The same practice is done on the Russian R. in N. Ca. Two hatcheries dump fish. A hole is punched in the tail with a paper punch for each arrival at the hatchery. I have seen fish with 3 and 4 holes. No way to treat such a regal fish. But do we, or have we, ever treated them differently!?
In my opinion they are simply deteriorated rags. My opinion ONLY. For some it is the best shot they will have at these fish and it is too bad they do not realize what is missing. I would rather fork them from a holding pond for smoking. Better quality from a holding pond than contunual bruising from continual “trying”.
…lee s.
good sized Atlantic salmon available in Detroit Reservoir … REALLY?? even after the years of letting it run dry (almost)? I always drive by it to lost lake because the bajillion boats running around.
The other problem is that the State of Oregon does not want to be in competition with private enterprize. As a result, they will not allow the fish to be used for any positive purpose like feeding the elderly.
As far as the reservoir goes, the state loves the money they make from the power generastion so they ran it low in the past. However, it turns into a river as there is cold snow melt feeding it. The fish do just fine.
Washington also practices recycling fish. I don’t have a problem with them. Plus, gives anglers another chance at them. Know a few rivers they do this with.
Oregon and Washington are now considering uping the % of salmonids that commercial gillnetters can keep vs sportsmen. Oregon plans on raising the commercial per centage of this by 5% at the expense of sportsmen. I have seen over 50 years of consideration by Oregon of eliminating gillnetting on the Columbia. I would rather see fresh salmon taken from the hatcheries for public consumption. I could see giving gillnetters proceeds from this for several years until they could find other employment. But gillnetting itself should be eliminated all together, in my opinion.