Columbia Hatchery Salmon

[Navigator]

There have been a couple of threads that have gotten me confused on the marking of Columbia River hatchery salmon. FM2 caught a nice looking clipped Chinook and wondered why the fish (being a Fall run) was clipped. David Johnson posted that funding under the Mitchell Act might jeopardize marking programs for hatchery Chinook (and the hatcheries themselves) - implying both existing marking of Fall Chinook along with expanding the marking of Spring Chinook could be in jeopardy. Also, we did get to catch and keep fin-clipped Summer Chinook. To make this confusing, last year we had to release all Columbia Chinook (both clipped and unclipped) during the Buoy 10 season for Coho (at least in August), while this year we can keep any Chinook in the Columbia and out in the ocean.

Does anyone know the fin-clipping strategy for Columbia Chinook? Is it really just for Springers, or will we be moving toward clipping Tules, up river Fall brights (if we are not already doing so). And why were Summer Chinook clipped to begin with when no-one anticipated the sport season to open up.

The corollary question is, what is an unclipped Columbia River Chinook. An unmarked hatchery fish or a wild fish that many of us would prefer to see released?

Just wondering.

[Lured In]

Navigator...for what it's worth (maybe a wheat penny) I believe that some of the confusion can be cleared up relatively easily. For starters, the traditional fall run (upriver bright) spawn naturally in the Hanford Reach of the Columbia. This run is apparently healthy and not directly supported by hatchery fish. Yes many of these are really wild fish.

Springers on the other hand have not been doing very well historically, the last two years being the exception. These are a combination of wild Snake River and other Idaho fish and many hatchery fish along the way. The hatcheries include everything from the Cowlitz to the Wind and Little White Salmon, on up the Columbia and Snake drainages. These in some cases are marked hatchery fish(such as the Willamette springers) and others that are unmarked hatchery fish such as the Wind River springers. That alone makes it confusing enough.

The summer run fish I am relatively clueless on, but from what I have heard it is the most depressed of the runs. It too, apparently is supplemented with hatchery fish.

As far as who clips which way (ad fin, ventral fin, maxillary...etc.) I really couldn't say. Should be interesting to get some educated feedback on this.

[Chum King]

The easy answer is that almost all hatchery releases of salmon have associated coded wire tag groups that are assigned to them. Traditionally (starting in about 1976) the adipose fin clip was unilaterally assigned as an indicator of the presence of the coded wire tag. That designation was removed (I believe it was in 1996) in response to a need for an easy fin clip to identify hatchery fish for selective (hatchery only) fisheries.

There are numerous hatchery programs that do not fin clip all of their releases, but still have adipose clipped salmon with coded wire tags. Usually about 5-10% of a release group has the coded wire tags.

[SureSet]

What seems amazing to me is that we haven't had a rec fishery for summer kings since '74 or so, but they are obviously still clipping the hatchery fish every year. Is there a reason to identify a hatchery fish in a fishery that for all practical purposes, doesn't exist? Why not use those funds spent on 20 years of clipping fish no one can typically keep to clip more spring fish? I'm not complaining, it was a pleasure to take part in an unexpected boon of summers, but all in all, I would have understood if they kept it closed because they wern't clipped.

I'm sure someone out there can educate me on why we spend the effort to clip summers and not wind river or tules......

SureSet

[Navigator]

Thanks for the replies. Sending this to the top again to see if we can't get this corralled.

[Crashin' Bait]

Sureset, they are being optimistic. If returns are high enough, then, because of the fin clipping, the option to open the fishery still exists. In my opinion, all hatchery releases should be marked for easy identification(which isn't the case at this point in time). After all, hatchery fish are keepers.