Seeking the Chrome Torpedo? Here it is!!!

[RipChord929]

Took a little trip around the neighborhood.. Checking out the rivers, because they change every year from the winter floods... This is the upper Hoh valley... Bigfoot country!!!  LOL!!!

Went to one of my favorite Holes for the last 4yrs, it WAS about 60ft across, and 15ftdeep, bowl shaped with a sweet gravel bottom... Bummer, it was blown out, but the river shaped it into an awesome 100yd run instead, still with that sweet gravel bottom...

Saw the fish rollin at the head pool, but they vanished into the shadows when I came too close, too fast... Stupid me, I know better than to do that... Wanted to get a pic of them in the water, nogo this time!!!

Gave em about a half hour to calm down and relax, being real still and quiet... Then casted a 4inch black streamer, (leach) on 8lb test Maxima, with 2 splitshot, onto the current... letting it sweep gently with the flow right past the first boulder.... WHAMMO!!! About a 30min fight, almost lost him twice, and VICTORY!!!
A perfect Chrome Torpedo!!!    Hoh river summer run wild Buck!!  Not one of the hatchery crap fish!!!

[Heretic]

very nice fish.   I fish for steelhead now and then and I know what you mean.  Its a blast.

[RipChord929]

Thanks Heretic... Guessin about 17lbs, nice for a summer run... I released him, never keep wild fish.. Fishing guides don't allow it on the Hoh... No hatcheries on that river, so Its an un corrupted strain of steelhead... Possibly the last in the lower 48... Its a sad story what has happened to the fish runs in WA state... They blame it on everything under the sun, except the one thing that has done more damage than any other... The state Hatcheries...
In about 80yrs, hatcheries have undone more than 1/2million yrs of natures own selective breeding.. Steelies aren't like salmon, they don't naturally die after they spawn... If they survive the trip upstream, and the rigors of the spawning ritual, they travel down to to the ocean again and start over.... Survival of the fittest!!!
Hatcheries breed those tank grown lethargic fish, (bloodline unknown), and release them into the rivers as smolts.. So when the spawning cycle starts, they spawn with the wild fish, mixing their worthless bloodline with natures own perfection... So on rivers with hatcheries, "wild fish" really aren't... To tell the difference, all you have to do is set hook on a wild stick of dynamite.. LOL, You know the diff, INSTANTLY!!!

Catching summer runs is fun, because of the wonderful weather, low clear water, and you hunt them by sight...
But winter runs are bigger fish, but the water can be high and dangerous.. Lots of guys die every year!!!
Now the "Springers" are the trophy fish, if you can endure standing in waist deep freezing water all day, while its 15degrees outside.. Most can't, and we like it that way, LOL!!!

RC

[Vulcan]

Ohhhhh so it's not some sort of marital aid then?

[TonyJoey]

Nice catch!

[oakranger]

greta catch.  did you eat it yet?

[Getback]

Oh! I need to go fishing immediately.

[Anaxogoras]

Ummmm, Ripchord, where do you think the hatcheries got the fish/bloodline that they raise?  Not from fish that have survived millions of years of evolution?  Blaming declining fish populations in the American west on hatcheries is just about the nuttiest thing I've ever heard of. 

The department of fish and game scientists know what they're talking about when they point to over logging, too many dams, and increased water diversions to not only feed, but also quench the thirst of millions of Americans who live in a veritable desert (called the American West).  I don't know the specific story of the Hoh valley, but if it is unblemished you are very lucky to visit and enjoy it.

Here's a report on the 2002 Klamath River Salmon kill.  Dams and water diversions slowed the river down, which caused its temperature to increase, which emboldened bacteria and parasites.
http://www.pcffa.org/KlamFishKillFactorsDFGReport.pdf

[v1st]

I love to go out west and do some fishing.  Northeast has great salt water and soso fresh water.
v1st

[RipChord929]

Where do the fish at the Hatchery tanks come from?  The hatcheries themselves don't even know... They collect roe and milt from salmon and steelhead all over the place.. Raise the fish in tanks, and release them into the rivers at spawning season, either as smolts, or full grown fish... I don't care what some egghead whitepaper says, I'm tellin ya what IS!!!   I have a freezer full of these worthless hatchery fish.. Flattened heads from running into the walls of the tanks, and fins and tails worn down from jostling against each other.. This corrupts the strain of fish that are specific to each river, by breeding it with fish that have never gone thru the natural selection process.. And more importantly, the fish from those hatchery tanks don't have that instinct to return to their own spawning ground.. Where are they going to spawn to, back to the FISH TANK?  Proof of this is obvious, when tagged fish from a hatchery on one river, are caught while spawning into a completetely different river system... This is a COMMON occurance among those lamebrained hatchery fish..  This is just plain fact!!! And taken from the word of the the ppl who work the hatcheries themselves... I visit the hatcheries regularly, talk to the the ppl, check the fish traps, because its absolutely neccesary for me to know whats happening on the rivers.. Wouldn't be able to charge the daily fee's I get otherwise, and offer the "hook set" guarantee that I have...

Has logging, dambuilding, water diversion, commercial longline fishing, gillnetting, etc, caused the decline in fish populations? You bet it has!!!  Those factors are reversable.. But the hatchery system has damaged the fish in ways so basic to the nature of the fish themselves, that they will never recover from it for thousands of years....

LOL, not all of the "American West" is a desert!!!

RC

[RipChord929]

Where do the fish at the Hatchery tanks come from?  The hatcheries themselves don't even know... They collect roe and milt from salmon and steelhead all over the place.. Raise the fish in tanks, and release them into the rivers at spawning season, either as smolts, or full grown fish... I don't care what some egghead whitepaper says, I'm tellin ya what IS!!!   I have a freezer full of these worthless hatchery fish.. Flattened heads from running into the walls of the tanks, and fins and tails worn down from jostling against each other.. This corrupts the strain of fish that are specific to each river, by breeding it with fish that have never gone thru the natural selection process.. And more importantly, the fish from those hatchery tanks don't have that instinct to return to their own spawning ground.. Where are they going to spawn to, back to the FISH TANK?  Proof of this is obvious, when tagged fish from a hatchery on one river, are caught while spawning into a completetely different river system... This is a COMMON occurance among those lamebrained hatchery fish..  This is just plain fact!!! And taken from the word of the the ppl who work the hatcheries themselves... I visit the hatcheries regularly, talk to the the ppl, check the fish traps, because its absolutely neccesary for me to know whats happening on the rivers.. Wouldn't be able to charge the daily fee's I get otherwise, and offer the "hook set" guarantee that I have...

Has logging, dambuilding, water diversion, commercial longline fishing, gillnetting, etc, caused the decline in fish populations? You bet it has!!!  Those factors are reversable.. But the hatchery system has damaged the fish in ways so basic to the nature of the fish themselves, that they will never recover from it for thousands of years....

LOL, not all of the "American West" is a desert!!!

RC

[oakranger]

In a week i will be in Northwest New Mexico and southwest Colorado going on a fly fishing trip.  Will be on the San Juan River and Animas River.

[Anaxogoras]

No doubt hatchery fish are going to suffer some ill effects from overcrowding and may show behavioral differences, but you claimed that

In about 80yrs, hatcheries have undone more than 1/2million yrs of natures own selective breeding...mixing their worthless bloodline with natures own perfection...

At least you have a gift for hyperbole.

[MORAY37]

No doubt hatchery fish are going to suffer some ill effects from overcrowding and may show behavioral differences, but you claimed that

At least you have a gift for hyperbole.

Anax,

You might as well stop.  He thinks he knows what he is talking about.  Therefore, he is impervious to logical reason.  He doesn't understand what you're even referring to, and has zero grasp on genetics. 

"flattened heads from running into tanks and fins and tails worn down from jostling".  Neither of these are genetic deficiencies, and there is no net decline in the stock for this.  The fish were not hatched with these traits, they acquired them after, and are not expressed in the genetic makeup, in any way or form.  The much more attractive native stock looks better, may even taste better, but has no difference in gene structure.

Farm raised salmon are serious problems, but not to the salmon genetic stock.

[RipChord929]

Well, My Bonafides is in the photos, where's yours?  I've caught thousands of steelhead and salmon over my lifetime... You?
In a mixed run environment, I can tell what kind of fish they are by the strike, without even seeing them, You?

Seems to me, that my gift of "hyperbole", is far surpassed buy your gifts of abject Boobery!!!

RC