Hatchery fish - keep or release?

D

downriver79

Steelhead
I was raised a bass fisherman with a catch & release mentality and always looked at it as a means to allow the sport to go on and fish to get bigger. If fish was on the dinner menu it was always catfish or crappie, but bass were released unless it was an overstocked pond or something. Naturally, that mentality transferred over to trout when I started fly fishing as an adult so I release the fish that I catch. I've caught a bunch of half pounders this year and they've all been native and released. I've caught one adult steelhead that was a hatchery fish that I released. Fast forward to a couple of weekends ago, I went on a public float where each raft had a different person that was directly involved with the river restoration project and I ended up in the raft with a fish biologist for the Yurok tribe. He said that hatchery fish should be kept, that they're put there to be harvested and if released they will compete with the native fish. Wondering what everyone else's thoughts are on this? It's one thing to keep hatchery rainbows from a lake or section of river above a damn where they'll never go to sea, but should an adult steelhead be harvested just because it's a hatchery fish?
 
downriver79 said:
I was raised a bass fisherman with a catch & release mentality and always looked at it as a means to allow the sport to go on and fish to get bigger. If fish was on the dinner menu it was always catfish or crappie, but bass were released unless it was an overstocked pond or something. Naturally, that mentality transferred over to trout when I started fly fishing as an adult so I release the fish that I catch. I've caught a bunch of half pounders this year and they've all been native and released. I've caught one adult steelhead that was a hatchery fish that I released. Fast forward to a couple of weekends ago, I went on a public float where each raft had a different person that was directly involved with the river restoration project and I ended up in the raft with a fish biologist for the Yurok tribe. He said that hatchery fish should be kept, that they're put there to be harvested and if released they will compete with the native fish. Wondering what everyone else's thoughts are on this? It's one thing to keep hatchery rainbows from a lake or section of river above a damn where they'll never go to sea, but should an adult steelhead be harvested just because it's a hatchery fish?
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If legal to do so, hatchery steelhead and salmon should always be harvested in my opinion. There's little to no benefit in releasing them.
 
That why they put them in there! I'm not a salmon guy so it is nice to bring a fish home every once in a while. Now that I rarely fish tips I find I rarely catch hatchery fish though.

Now a skater eater that does some acrobatics? Sometimes those get accidently fumbled.
 
I keep and eat wild trout from the WDFW's overabundant trout alpine lakes. Here's what the WDFW says: "Anglers are strongly encouraged to seek out these lakes and remove the legal number of trout each day they fish. Reducing the over-abundance of trout in these lakes lessens the impact these populations are having on lake ecology and native aquatic fauna."

I also also keep and eat hatchery steelhead. Don't want them messing with wild steelhead.

On a lowland lake with more fishing pressure I let the hatchery fish go so someone else can catch them.
 
Hatchery fish are all destined to be killed and spawned, and only a small portion get selected for broodstock. The rest are sold as dog or cat food or fertilizer. I'll only release a hatchery fish if I am unable to transport the meat home for some reason
 
Hatchery Steelhead = if you or your friends want fish for dinner keep it. I like my brats smoked or bbq'd. Ditto for the put and take high altitude lakes Dave refers to, especially the Brookies! Pan fried Brookies are a treat. :)

I always chuckle at the DFW's rule of 'mandatory' C&K on hatchery Steelhead. News flash - those genetics have left the barn and are a couple miles down the road. Closing the door now is just another ineffective rule by a posturing agency that joins other questionable rules that really don't address the underlying issues. If you really wanted to preserve the genetics you shouldn't have planted (and continue to plant) hatchery fish on those rivers years ago.

Just my humble .02 - keep the hatchery steelies or release them. You paid for your license, do what you want!
 
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doublespey said:
Hatchery Steelhead = if you or your friends want fish for dinner keep it. I like my brats smoked or bbq'd. Ditto for the put and take high altitude lakes Dave refers to, especially the Brookies! Pan fried Brookies are a treat. :)

I always chuckle at the DFW's rule of 'mandatory' C&K on hatchery Steelhead. News flash - those genetics have left the barn and are a couple miles down the road. Closing the door now is just another ineffective rule by a posturing agency that joins other questionable rules that really don't address the underlying issues. If you really wanted to preserve the genetics you shouldn't have planted (and continue to plant) you should have stopped planting hatchery fish on those rivers years ago.

Just my humble .02 - keep the hatchery steelies or release them. You paid for your license, do what you want!
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While I fully agree with you on the genetics side of things, I am in favor of mandatory retention. Most of the folks out there are fishing the most effective set up possible, bobber dogging beads with gear or fly rods from boats. Get your meat and get off the river to leave the wild fish alone. If you just want to keep fishing then change methods after the first bonked fish.
 
Where I fish, hatchery, sea run fish will eventually be removed at a fish trap, so might as well keep if you like.
 
If I catch a bleeder I take it home for my wife, otherwise back the fish go. I don't think genetic interference with wild fish is much of a concern. Over the last century my state stocked tens, no, hundreds, of millions of fish in any wet spot they could find. Every salmonid in the state is carrying inherited hatchery genes. As for hatchery fish competing with wild fish, I figure nature will cull the least fit.
 
doublespey said:
I always chuckle at the DFW's rule of 'mandatory' C&K on hatchery Steelhead. News flash - those genetics have left the barn and are a couple miles down the road. Closing the door now is just another ineffective rule by a posturing agency that joins other questionable rules that really don't address the underlying issues. If you really wanted to preserve the genetics you shouldn't have planted (and continue to plant) hatchery fish on those rivers years ago.
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This! 💯
 
Sometimes, you need to reconnect with your inner hunter gatherer self, and give one a rock shampoo. I prefer steelhead dry brined and smoked with alder. I also relish the look on fellow fly flippers faces when I come crawling up the back carrying a steelhead by the gills. Oh the horror!
 
The studies that I have seen don't show a whole lot of hatchery genetics in wild populations, at least for winter fish. The reason seems clear. Their offspring don't make it. The eason to kill hatch fish is to assure that they don't unsuccesfully breed with a wild fish. Since the wildx hatch offspring die, you are essentially killing the wild mating partner.

Hatchery genetics invading hte wild gene pool is often a red herring of sorts. The more important issue is not them succesfully passing on thier genes it's them unsuccesfully spawning with a wild fish.
 
Killing and keeping hatchery fish certainly does not harm to the wild fish population. Releasing a hatchery steelhead in a river that has a healthy wild population does no good for the wild population. So the question for some of us becomes "does releasing a hatchery steelhead harm the wild population?" Since it cannot do good, then it must harm, right? That depends. If the hatchery fish have enough of a difference in run timing or spawning location, then the degree of harm done to the wild population is insignificant. If thorough mixing of spawners is likely, then the hatchery fish probably shouldn't be stocked there in the first place.

We have examples of all kinds in WA. In Puget Sound, hatchery winter steelhead were stocked in every river system. The wild steelhead populations consisted almost entirely of late season spawners, so very little genetic introgression occurred with the early spawning hatchery steelhead. That's not to say there was none; there was some; but it was very little. The Stillaguamish River has a native summer steelhead population in Deer Creek. WDFW stocked hatchery summer steelhead from a pond about 10 or 15 miles further upstream on the Stilly. For whatever reason, the hatchery fish were not inclined to stray often enough into Deer Creek to affect the genetic integrity of the native summer steelhead. Might have just been luck, but that's how it turned out.

The Cowlitz River, a lower Columbia River tributary, has 3 major hydro dams, so all fish are blocked downstream of the lowermost of them. Only wild steelhead and cutthroat are passed upstream. Because of that management option, I'm OK with releasing hatchery steelhead and cutthroat that I catch. Doing so offers additional opportunity for other anglers on a heavily fished river, and there is no genetic introgression with wild fish since there is little to no effective reproduction of wild fish in the lower river due to a parasite.

Then we have mid-Columbia River tributaries like the Methow River, whose native summer steelhead populaton was extirpated many decades ago. Managers are trying to re-create a wild run from returning hatchery steelhead that spawn in the natural environment and from resident headwater rainbow trout that decide to migrate to the ocean and be steelhead. When there is a recreational season on that river, the regulations mandate retention of hatchery steelhead to remove surplus numbers from the eventual spawning population. Confusing, isn't it?

The upshot is that if you like to eat fish, keeping hatchery fish will not harm, and might even help, the wild population.
 
Hatchery fish are edible…
Keep if inclined.

As for genetics, steelhead have been intermingled for years now…diversity and inclusion has already occurred. To be equitable, steelhead intermingle natural from one watershed to another.

Broodstock programs have been good for return numbers and as it has already been mentioned, nature will cull the unfit…even the negative effects any hatchery environment may have introduced, after a couple of generations.

On a side note…if I recall, Coho were an introduced species above Willamette Falls. After years of non-stock or reduced stocking levels, they have exploded in numbers above the falls the past couple of seasons. Hatchery and wild are now available for harvest in the upper Willamette and McKenzie watersheds.
 
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It makes sense to me to release your first steelhead regardless of hatchery or wild. I did the same thing with my first and it was a hatchery fish. But going forward, I am all for removing the hatchery fish for the reasons @charles sullivan cites.
 
Not steelhead related, but there are a lot of unclipped hatchery fish being released.
You can keep unclipped fish in some marine areas or only during certain times. It may feel good to release a unclipped fish, but if you fish Puget Sound for coho you’ve undoubtedly released unclipped hatchery fish.
I have nothing against hatchery fish. Without them we’d have a lot less opportunities.
I just personally wish hatchery fish (chinook, coho and steelhead) were clipped regardless of what program they are produced from.
SF
 
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I have absolutely no interest in keeping, cleaning, or eating a hatchery or most any fish for that matter. With mandatory retention what am I supposed to do with the damn thing...plant it in my garden or trash it?
I wish there were food bank dropoffs or I could just release it and give someone else that's less opportunistic the thrill of keeping that fish.
 
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