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By Mark Freeman Mail Tribune October 31. 2014 12:01AM Washington steelhead rule not migrating south When anglers release the hatchery steelhead they catch, only four things can happen, and all of them are bad. For one, the stressed steelhead could go belly-up. If it survives, it could make it all the way to its hatchery of origin, which likely is already clogged with excess fish. Or it could stray onto wild steelhead spawning grounds, where the genes from this coddled fish could alter things such as run timing and maturation rates in wild fish over time. And last, some other mope could catch it, kill it and do a worse job barbecuing or smoking that steelhead than you would. Now, in areas of Washington, there's fifth possibility: It could land you a $250 ticket. Washington is looking to extend its new requirement that anglers kill all the hatchery steelhead they catch to a handful of southeastern Washington streams where stray rates by hatchery fish onto wild spawning grounds is deemed too high. Already a handful of northwest Washington streams have the legal requirement of turning the eyes of hatchery fish into X's. It's come with some growing pains for anglers occasionally forced to keep fish they otherwise would have released, and it's been tough on law enforcement shackled with a rule that's difficult to enforce. But Washington fishery officials believe it's a tool they need in order to curtail the hatchery steelhead stray rates as high as 50 percent on some streams. "It's taken some education, working with anglers and law enforcement, and people are getting used to it," says John Whalen, fish program manager for the department’s eastern region, based in Spokane. "I haven't heard of many, if any, citations so far." You probably won't hear of any such plan in Oregon, where stray rates are far lower on streams such as the Rogue River despite its hatchery programs meant to mitigate for lost spawning habitat for summer and winter steelhead from the building of Lost Creek and Applegate dams. There are currently no plans to join Washington in the mandatory program, "but that's not to say it might not be a tool in the future," says Bruce McIntosh, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's deputy administrator who runs the department's inland fisheries program. Killing and grilling hatchery steelhead has been something of an ingrained civic duty on the Rogue for years, for a cornucopia of concerns. Releasing wild summer steelhead has been the law of the land since 1990 to help recover what has been a sensitive wild species. Winter steelhead are more abundant, supporting a limited take from anglers of one per day and five per year as part of the two-steelhead daily limit. So hatchery steelhead are like door prizes to anglers, even though they likely cost hundreds of dollars per pound if you factor in all the fishing gear bought to catch them. Hatchery steelhead generally are released strictly as part of a numbers game. Kill two hatchery fish and your day is done, so letting a few fin-clipped critters swim away is simply the by-product of staying on the water for those few gonzo days that make up for the skunked ones. This is most true this weekend, when the switch from flies-only to bait and/or lures on stretches of the upper Rogue will bring out anglers quite used to double-digit catch rates during the popular Nov. 1 rules flip. Also, Oregonians have a salmon-steelhead catch card with space for 20 wild or hatchery fish. So an 18-inch hatchery summer steelhead could take the place on the tag reserved a more desired 30-pound chinook salmon when in season. It would force anglers to buy separate $16.50 hatchery-only tags to stay legal and still save precious tag space for those wild 30-pounders Rogue anglers seek but don't always find. In Washington, anglers can — and on some streams, must — keep up to three hatchery steelhead a day and 30 fish per tag. Almost the entire state is closed to the killing of wild steelhead, so anglers are pretty well versed there in targeting fin-clippers for their grills and smokers before calling it a day. "If they catch three hatchery steelhead in a day, that's a pretty good day," Whalen says. "We want these folks to enjoy these mitigation fish." But there would be no joy in seeing such a program migrate south, for no other reason than it means stray rates of hatchery steelhead onto wild spawning grounds would have soared. Besides, it seems awfully un-Oregonian to fish under the credo that, if releasing hatchery steelhead is outlawed, only outlaws will catch and release. Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 541-776-4470 or [email protected]. Follow him at www.twitter.com/MTwriterFreeman.   http://www.mailtribune.com/article/20141031/NEWS/141039974 © 2015 Copyright © 1995-2011 Crain Communications Inc. All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use Privacy Statement -->