1/4 pounders

[lee s.]

Well Shawn,
I have no experience at any "pro" hatcheries that are only minimally funded anymore, but I do know first hand....WET hand....that volunteers absolutely do handle and clip manually, all or as many as humanly possible, the fry at the Rowdy Creek hatchery on the Smith River. Those boys do a superb job, even with Ca government Fish and Game interferrence and restrictions.
IF one truley believes that our anadromous fisheries are soooooo depleted as to be detrimentally effected by what we disturb with a stick and a string, then THEY should ABSOLUTELY NOT fish them any longer. However, when that time DOES come, THAT will make no difference at all, as our rescource has and IS being lost due to enviriomental degradation....not stick and string molestation.
Let us force application of PROPER restoration and sustaining tools, and not these smoke and mirrors distraction tools and restrictions that are forced upon us. I DO believe in our anadromouse rescources and it pisses me off to no end to see soooo many of our efforts being wasted and soooo many of our good people duped by false restoration tools and propaganda.
Fix the WATER and fix the HABITAT or our rescource WILL be lost. ALL else is moot for the rescource....and THAT should be our goal.
.....lee s.

[Frank Alessio]

Electrocuted Monkey... That takes the cake for this week...

[Bruce Slightom]

I have worked for a number of years as a volunteer for the Humboldt Fish Action Council raising Chinook on Freshwater Creek, this is a trib to Humboldt Bay. All fish that are released into the creek are not only fin clipped but to distinguish these fish from others drainages the left maxillary is also clipped. The smolts are anesthetized for ease of handling then placed into a recover tank before being placed back into the holding ponds. This adds to the time that the fish are handled, hard to clip the maxillary on a fish that is about two inches in length. All work is by volunteers and about 100,000 fish are released each year.
There are very few mortalities if any during this process.