Say Whaaa? Hatchery fish appear to harm wild stock.

O' Clarkii Stomias said:
After just deleting a novel/rant on this subject, I will say that catch and release had more to do with the success of the Madison rather than the elimination of hatchery stocking of the river.
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It's not hard to see how both measures would contribute to higher wild trout survival and productivity. No competition with hatchery fish = benefit. CNR means more wild fish survive to spawning age and reproductive success. I don't know which was more pivotal, but I think harvest is still allowed, although most anglers choose for forego killing the trout they catch.
 
This is all so much new information.....it's gonna take me a while to digest it....
 
Salmo_g said:
It's not hard to see how both measures would contribute to higher wild trout survival and productivity. No competition with hatchery fish = benefit. CNR means more wild fish survive to spawning age and reproductive success. I don't know which was more pivotal, but I think harvest is still allowed, although most anglers choose for forego killing the trout they catch.
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A minimal amount of harvest has and is allowed below Varney bridge.
There is no doubt that the invasive species of trout are self sustaining in the Madison. I don't recall any follow up studies that validated that not stocking of hatchery fish contributed to the success of the fishery. The reason for not stocking was an economic one. If you want catch and release, then what's the point of stocking?
To me, using the "success" story of the Madison as justification for the elimination of hatchery programs for anadromous fish is a bit of a reach.
 
O' Clarkii Stomias said:
A minimal amount of harvest has and is allowed below Varney bridge.
There is no doubt that the invasive species of trout are self sustaining in the Madison. I don't recall any follow up studies that validated that not stocking of hatchery fish contributed to the success of the fishery. The reason for not stocking was an economic one. If you want catch and release, then what's the point of stocking?
To me, using the "success" story of the Madison as justification for the elimination of hatchery programs for anadromous fish is a bit of a reach.
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The Madison is a success story even if it came at the loss of native cutthroat and it doesn't need a follow up study to validate it's success. This is an extremely common occurrence. You take a non native species and put in new habitat and they take off, put those same hatchery fish in their native habitat and you get nothing but the suppression of natural production.

Now, that alone isn't justification for ending Hatcheries but it is justification for being careful about where and how you use hatchery supplementation.
 
There are very few streams planted with hatchery steelhead anymore, and very few healthy native runs. The golden age of steelheading mid 60's(?) consisted of an incredible mix of hatchery and native steelhead in almost every major watershed. Give me an undeveloped free flowing river with a healthy hatchery plant, good ocean conditions and we'll have good steelheading
 
Rob Allen said:
The Madison is a success story even if it came at the loss of native cutthroat and it doesn't need a follow up study to validate it's success. This is an extremely common occurrence. You take a non native species and put in new habitat and they take off, put those same hatchery fish in their native habitat and you get nothing but the suppression of natural production.

Now, that alone isn't justification for ending Hatcheries but it is justification for being careful about where and how you use hatchery supplementation.
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Yeah, sure, it was a success. Let's don't try to understand why it was a success. Let's just plug the same formula into all fisheries. When it doesn't work, we'll find something else to blame.

My understanding of the successes of the rainbow and brown vs the westslope cutthroat populations has to do with spawning habitat. The rainbows and browns are more efficient mainstem spawners than the westslope cutthroat. The AG practices of the early to mid 20th century eliminated access to much of the westslope's spawning habitat.
 
O' Clarkii Stomias said:
Yeah, sure, it was a success. Let's don't try to understand why it was a success. Let's just plug the same formula into all fisheries. When it doesn't work, we'll find something else to blame.

My understanding of the successes of the rainbow and brown vs the westslope cutthroat populations has to do with spawning habitat. The rainbows and browns are more efficient mainstem spawners than the westslope cutthroat. The AG practices of the early to mid 20th century eliminated access to much of the westslope's spawning habitat.
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We live in a world that is altered from it's original form by human hands, it's not going to become unaltered. We need self sustaining fish populations for anglers, even if they are not native species..
What would the trout scene look like if it were not for the successful introduction of rainbows and browns?

Everyone would be in Idaho loving the cutthroat to death and cutthroat are much more susceptible to overfishing, even catch and release fishing. That's why on cutthroat fisheries the fish are bigger and more numerous the further you get from fishing pressure.

We absolutely need these non-native self sustaining fish populations. Even Smallmouth in the Columbia.
We are not going to restore the earth, so we need fisheries that adapt to our changed world.

As for steelhead I'm for Hatcheries as long as we keep HOS below 10%.
 
JACKspASS said:
There are very few streams planted with hatchery steelhead anymore, and very few healthy native runs. The golden age of steelheading mid 60's(?) consisted of an incredible mix of hatchery and native steelhead in almost every major watershed. Give me an undeveloped free flowing river with a healthy hatchery plant, good ocean conditions and we'll have good steelheading
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A healthy hatchery plant with good genetics! My long felt personal belief is the reason hatchery production doesn't work, is that we continue to throw the same genes back into the fish expecting a different result. If you want to continue to fish for steelhead, hatcheries maybe the only solution. My constantly evolving personal belief is that it maybe unethical to target wild steelhead. I know for sure that that is the belief of many, some of which are very influential.
 
Rob Allen said:
We live in a world that is altered from it's original form by human hands, it's not going to become unaltered. We need self sustaining fish populations for anglers, even if they are not native species..
What would the trout scene look like if it were not for the successful introduction of rainbows and browns?

Everyone would be in Idaho loving the cutthroat to death and cutthroat are much more susceptible to overfishing, even catch and release fishing. That's why on cutthroat fisheries the fish are bigger and more numerous the further you get from fishing pressure.

We absolutely need these non-native self sustaining fish populations. Even Smallmouth in the Columbia.
We are not going to restore the earth, so we need fisheries that adapt to our changed world.

As for steelhead I'm for Hatcheries as long as we keep HOS below 10%.
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Hard to find much with this that I don't agree with, but 10% of nothing is nothing.
 
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