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[BwiBwi]

I've read in a few post that indicated some hatchery fish not been clipped because of budget cuts. Can someone that's working in hatchery confirm this and may be this activity can be helped by volunteers?

[2:40]

I dont work in a hatchery, but I know that a lot of hatchery coho that returned to the Vedder last fall were not clipped. I hope no one decided to bonk a adiposed fish and justified it as "it's probably hatchery". The wild coho must be preserved and it isnt worth the risk to the fish or getting a ticket.

Volunteer effort might be the way to go considering all the hatchery cutbacks and the ever-growing droves of guys wanting to take home their limit of coho.

Let us know if volunteer opportunities arrise.

[Xgolfman]

i'd be glad to volunteer...especially if you'd let me put one on my fly line..just to see how it feels

errrr...i mean i'd clip the little buggers too..

[searun17]

If all it would take to make sure the coho are being clipped is volunteers i don't think there would be much problem rounding up enough people to do it,hopefully with our new government in place the cutbacks will stop and the entire B.C. fishery will see better funding and improvements,as far as the vedder coho goes i personally would like to see the retention dropped from 4 fish a day to two or maybe a yearly quota of ten fish,this would hopefully thin out some of the crowding that goes on in the fall.

[2:40]

Without hijacking this topic too much, I belive quotas and lower limits are going to be necessary on Rivers like the Fraser and Vedder. I think it will reduce pressure and give more opportunity for more anglers. A lot of the guys out there in the fall are interested in table fish, so quotas will get them off the river sooner. I dont expect there will be too much problem with catch and release issues (poor release techiques etc) over what is currently happening out there.

Might improve things. Probably wont harm anything.

I hope that the only thing between clipping fish is just finding people to do it. If so, than that's an easy solution!

[Reservoir Dog]

If Hatchery Fish aren't clipped, and the average law-abiding fisherman catches a fish with the fin and releases it, logic applies that, that fish is able to spawn and produce more fish. "in my newbie opinion", this would be a good thing, would it not?

[flyfisherman]

Res Dog, right now we think any clipped fish is hatchery, some hatcheries may have less volanteers to do this as it's a task.
Wild fish spawning in streams or rivers has about 60% survival rate at incubation or less when hatchery's have a 96% survival rate.
Clipping must and should be done to all hatchery fish so one can summerize the returns properly.

[bkk]

Well I've worked in the hatchery system (DFO) for 20+ years now and I can say what we do but this might be slightly different than what the small Public Volunteer Program projects do. All coho smolts are marked from the major facilities UNLESS there is a conservation reason for not doing it, such as wanting the fish to help the native stock rebuild without being subject to a kill fishery. An example of this is on the Squamish system where the Squamish and Ashlu stocks are not marked but the rest of the hatchery stocks are. The marked fish are subject to a kill but not the unmarked hatchery fish. All of the marking is covered off under "A" based funding and there are no volunteers used. Chinook, chum, pink and sockeye are either not marked or just a per centage for assesment reasons. All steelhead smolts are marked. All of the fish are not marked for a simple reason - money and time constraints. It cost about 6 cents per fish (labour costs). Not alot but if you add up all of the hundreds of millions of fish released from SEP facilities, it's a huge amount of money. Money that no one seems to have. It is also not feasabile to mark 50 million chum as they come out of a spawning channel over a  1 month period. You just could'nt handle that many fish in such a short time. As far as survivals go, 96% would be nice but that dose'nt happen all of the time. Anything over 85 - 90% is accepetable but some groups get in the high 90's and others get in the low 60% range. There are lots of factors why that happens. Survival rates in the river are know where near 60%. A spawning channel may get that type of survival or the outlet of a large lake might get 40% but generally it's much lower. There is lots of evidence of survivals around 10% or less with survivals going down to 1% following a large flood (2003). It all depends on what type of habitat the fish spawns in, chinook / pinks in the mainriver will experience worse survival that chums in a upwelling gravel side channel .