Native's Or Hatchbox Remnant's

[Mikie]

Here's one for all you ifish steelhead fanatic's. I'm not a fisheries biologist or anything like that , but was just kind of curious about the number of steelhead returning to some other river's this winter season. It seem's that a fairly large percentage of the fish are native's , in that they don't have fin clip's. I talked to a former fisherie's biologist this last weekend and he said that historically true winter run steelhead return' beginning in late january to late march . Native's to the Alsea that is, he also indicated to me that the majority of the early returning non-clipped fish were remnant's of STEP hatch box egg's supplied by the hatchery's during the eightie's. We started catching unclipped fish in november and are still catching them. I think hatchery remnant's can and do successfully reproduce in the river's. MIKIE

[Deleted User]

Before finclipping evolved in hatchery management, one way we used to make a good educated guess whether the fish were nates or brats was by looking at their big dorsal fin on top. The nate's fin is generally fairly straight and intact. The brat's fin is not as straight and is irregular and slightly notched along the back side of the dorsal fin. This is because the fry nip each other's dorsal fins during feed frenzy time when the pellets hit the holding ponds at hatcheries. Not pure science but fairly consistent. You must release non-clipped fish regardless! But you can quickly check this fin while gently handling the non-clips in the water before release, to quench your curiosity. - RT

Edit: I didn't address the right thing above http://www.ifish.net/forum/images/graemlins/smile.gif . Read the "RT, maybe you can answer this ..." thread which adresses this topic of natural spawning of hatchery fish.

[This message has been edited by RT (edited 02-06-2001).]

[Hoosier Daddy]

Fish returning from hatchboxes does not necessarily mean the parents spawned successfully in the wild. Those eggs are spawned in the hatchery, then placed into hatchboxes on the streamside. Good point on telling hatch. from native RT, love those rounded fins, they also occur from fish rubbing the walls of their concrete home. Again, though, the only sure way (that's why the law is this way) to tell a hatchery from wild is by the clips or marks put on them in the hatchery.

[This message has been edited by chnookie (edited 02-06-2001).]