[Guest]

I've only been fishing for steelies for 10 yrs this fall. That may seem like a long time to some, but for a lot of you - I'm just now begining to learn.

That being said, the first seven/eight years I caught mostly hatchery fish early in the season and natives later on. I fish the same waters, most of the time the same ratio swing vs bounch buggers, but was always catching the hatchery fish first.

The past few years it's been just the opposite. I'm now catching the natives first (early in the season) and the hatchery brats later.

I was on the Metow this last weekend, got into a couple of natives, and the guy just upstream from me tagged one too. In fact, most of the fish caught were natives that day.

Has anyone else experienced this? :hmmm:

 

[BDD]

I used to believe that unmarked fish were caught with higher incidence than their clipped counterparts, based on the ratio found in the river at any one time. In other words, wild fish were more aggressive and more readily caught by sportfishers. While I still think there is some truth to that statement, it may not be as high as I used to think. When you consider the number of non-marked hatchery fish into the equation, it certainly tilts balance more equally but that is a whole 'nuther issue.

As far as hatchery vs. wild return timing, there are a lot of factors to consider. Generally, I believe wild fish are more varied in their returns. Wild fish usually return earlier with the exception of perhaps a stock that has been managed or adapted to return earlier (e.g., Skamania). As far as winter fish, yes, hatchery fish, mostly using the Chambers stock, have been selected to return earlier than wild stocks so that the spatial and temporal overlap is minimized. However, there were earlier returning wild fish on many streams decades ago but they were overfished and have essentially been replaced with early returning hatchery stocks.

Another factor to consider is your three-fish sample size...hardly large enough to make any statistical analysis.

Another question I have often wondered is if certain techniques are more likley to catch a certain origin or even gender. For example, does nymph fishing tend to catch more hatchery fish than wild fish or are wild fish more likley to be caught swinging flies, or are large bucks more likely to be caught on spoons..or rather is it the water being fished more likely to hold certain gender types and/or hatchery or wild origin fish (e.g., hatchery fish are more prone to be holding in pools (nymphing) whereas wild fish are likely to be found in riffles and therefore susceptible to swinging)?

People say they can tell whether it is a wild or hatchery fish by the fight. I am suspect of such logic. I have caught wild fish that were less than spectacular and have caught the exceptional hatchery fish. Who knows the circumstances of each individual fish? Perhaps a fish was just recently caught and released (a guy I was with last week swore he caught the same fish I did 20 minutes after I released mine), or did an individual fish just travel a long distance without resting before it took your fly? These questions are what keep me excited about steelhead fishing in general.

 

[Salmo_g]

Oldskool,

I think two factors are influencing the results you observe. First, there has been an increase in the number of wild steelhead returning above Bonneville the past few years. Second, wild steelhead are "troutier" than their hatchery counterparts. That is, wild steelhead are more likely to hit a fly than are hatchery steelhead. There is some documentation of this from the Deschutes River, where the ratio of hatchery fish to wild fish is high, yet wild fish are caught in numbers disproportionately high relative to their abundance in the total steelhead population.

Oh, maybe more than two factors. Wild fish typically return over a wider time period than do hatchery fish, so they also might be more abundant both early and late in the run, relative to their hatchery counterparts.

Sg

 

[Split Bamboo]

Wild fish have 'flashbacks' to when the were utes...they remember chasing bugs not pellets.

Try tossing a Pellet pattern if you want to increase your % of bonkers!

 

[Guest]

Try tossing a Pellet pattern if you want to increase your % of bonkers!

I hope you're kidding....?

 

[Split Bamboo]

ummm yeah....

(note the quote from Carl Spackler ie Bill Murray in Caddieshack in my tag line.... I sometimes try to be funny, I know it doesn't always work! Crap, I hope someone doesn't post the 'I agree' Icon under this....)

 

[Guest]

Well, believe it or not, my buddy caught hatchery trout ( using a "pelet" pattern ) down in Oregon when a fish hatchery flooded into the river years and years ago. I am not making that up. He was not the only one to do so either.

His buddy joked about tying a pelet pattern after they threw everything at these fish and couldn't catch anything. He even described how he tied the fly.

So you see.....I wasn't 100% sure that you were kidding.

 

[Split Bamboo]

ok, well let me just say, I am a firm believer that trout and steelhead will put just about anything the can fit into there mouth. Not necessarily on a consistent basis mind you, and rarely when they are keyed in on a hatch. I had a clipped summer run last year with a 3 inch slug in its stomach. I have on many occasions tossed a tiny spit wad sized bit of paper off bridges to see if anyone is feeding below...

Fish don't have much mental capacity (maybe that explains my affinity to them), it's pretty much stimulus-response.

Touche to you...and actually I wasn't 100% kidding, lol.

 

[Guest]

I tend to believe what a wise man once muttered to me....hatchery fish will eventually have the bite bred out of them...i.e. aggressive ones are caught and bonked, the others scoot to the hatchery...
All I know is in a huge river with a thousand wild fish in it...I hook up more often then on a small one with 20,000 hatchery ones supposedly returning...