Escapement Report Questions

SilverFly

SilverFly

Legend
Having the administrative skills of a chimp, I don't fully get what the various columns mean on the weekly hatchery reports. I'm sure I'm not alone in this, so might be a worthy thread for folks following runs on their favorite smoker stocking river.

Specifically, how do you read these to determine how many fish for a specific stock are new arrivals? "On hand" could be fish that have been growing sweaters in a cement pond for weeks.

Another thing that showed up this week in my favorite coho river, was the letter "M" a new stock designation I hadn't seen before. Also weird was 2 "H" stock listing under the same hatchery?

Screenshot_20241205_111118_Samsung Notes.jpg
 
Stock-BO: The assumed or known stock and origin of the fish returning to that river or stream. Brood origin (BO) can be assumed hatchery (H), wild (W), or unknown (U). For eggs, the origin can be mixed (M) when parents were hatchery and wild fish mixed, or integrated H and W origin.
 
Hatchery reports mean nothing. Just go fishing. I have never found a reliable correlation between good hatchery reports and good fishing. Many years the fishing is terrible despite great hatchery returns. I wasted a lot of time following these over the years.
 
Hatchery reports just show what has already gotten by you 😅

The best use of them might be to look at decadal averages for timing and numbers, maybe even look at past weather/river data (or proxies if yer crick isn't gauged) to get a sense of how those particular stocks move.
 
SilverFly said:
Specifically, how do you read these to determine how many fish for a specific stock are new arrivals? "On hand" could be fish that have been growing sweaters in a cement pond for weeks.

View attachment 134869
Click to expand...
I believe the Adult Total and On Hand Adults are cumulative by week. If you look at the previous week for this river (11/25/24), the hatchery had Adult Total = 2,500 and On Hand Adults = 1,990. Compared to the latest report you posted appears to show approximately 239 new fish on hand compared to last week. But I'm not a hatchery employee and I could be as wrong as a soup sandwich.

I think the Escapement Report and the Sport Catch Reports are great tools when learning the run timing on a new river. There are other factors to consider, but these two reports are a good start.
 
Thanks all. Yeah, I agree pretty useless for immediate trip planning, but I still think useful to get year-to-year averages. Knowing what what numbers represent fresh, weekly arrivals is key.

The coho this year for example, seemed to be a week or two late.
 
SilverFly said:
The coho this year for example, seemed to be a week or two late.
Click to expand...

And that is why I say just go fishing. If you are in western WA, then October is your main river coho month and the rain storms are the primary driver of their arrival.

If I could fish every day, maybe I’d get more into the nuts and bolts of this, but generally I’d put a lot more stake in knowing where to go that you can effectively fish for your target species after the big rain storms than any data. Know your flows and where to fish during them.

I think internet information is highly overrated for improving fishing. I’d say internet experience is worth 1/100th of any day spent on the water carefully exploring and keeping track of the flows and how the runs fish on those given days.

It’s been fascinating and frustrating seeing the Information Age change fishing and many other pursuits. There is still absolutely no substitute for just going out and doing it with a slightly scientific mind and decent note taking.

As an aside, when I bought my fixer upper house people kept saying to just go on the internet and learn how to do things. In my experience nothing could be further from the truth. I had to just learn through trial and error almost the entire time.
 
Last edited:
_WW_ said:
As a guy with around 50 start to finish homes under my belt I can tell you that your method runs the risk of getting expensive real quick.
Click to expand...

I did alright. I didn’t rush and I always started tiny and sacrificial to learn the tools and materials. I didn’t buy a bunch of stuff until I knew.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top