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[Suther]

There seems to be some confusion on the topic of hatchery-marked fish, so I figured I would put something here about it.

Not all hatchery fish are clipped. Period. Clipping is done on a volunteer basis, so if there are not enough volunteers only some of the fish get clipped.

Back in July, Noons Creek hatchery was able to get about half of their fish clipped, according to this article. (this means the other half of their Coho will in fact be hatchery fish, but because they are not marked we can't keep 'em.)

http://noonscreek.org/july-2013-hatchery-update/

I have heard similar reports from much larger hatcheries, where 110 000 fish were released and only something like 35 000 of those were clipped.(although I have no evidence of this particular instance, its just here-say.)


The problem is there is no way to determine a fish is wild or hatchery if it isn't clipped, so you must make the assumption it is wild.

The only way to fix this problem is to get more volunteers out to do the clipping. The more volunteers they get, the more fish that get clipped, and the more clipped fish in the streams for us to catch later on.

Bottom line - if you wanna see more keepable fish, figure out when hatcheries are doing their clippings (Its usually done over a single day or weekend from what I gather) and go volunteer!

Once it becomes that time of year again, someone should start a thread so we can figure out when all the local hatcheries are doing theirs and coordinate who should go where.

[RalphH]

DFO is committed to marking all hatchery coho. In some remote places they don't have the seasonal staff to do this. Some community hatcheries may not do so either.

Simple fact is the retention laws refer to hatchery marked. In some locations both marked and unmarked may be retained ...but not in the Lower Mainland.

[bkk]

Your correct with a lot of this information but there needs to be some clarification. First the major hatcheries run by DFO such as Chilliwack and Capilano clip all of their coho smolts. They usually do not clip their fry releases for coho as these releases are numerically not very large.

You are correct when you talk about the Public Involvement Projects ( volunteer run hatcheries ) as a lot of the time they do not clip all of their smolts due to labour shortages. Most of these sites run on very little money so your idea to coordinate the volenteers is a good plan. A decent clipper can clip 700 - 800 fish an hour so your only talking a couple of days work at most sites.

Old guys like Dave and Buck should be good at it!

[1son]

Was fishing today and had a conversation with an old timer he said sometimes they clip the maxilary that's how u can also tell it's a hatchery fish... Not sure if this is true or not but found it pretty interesting cause I've never heard that before.

[Dave]

Old guys like Dave and Buck should be good at it!

 

[KP]

Like your much younger!

[bkk]

Only by a hundread years or so if you add up Buck's, Dave's and your age. Should you not be out harassing coho instead of being on the internet?