[ODFW-News] Broodstock Collection At Troy Successful

[ODFW News]

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife 	
Contact: Information and Education 503-947-6002	
Internet: www.dfw.state.or.us
	

For Immediate Release	Monday, November 1, 2004

Broodstock Collection At Troy Successful

ENTERPRISE - Volunteers and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
(ODFW) staff successfully collected 107 adult steelhead in the lower
Grande Ronde River at Troy in the second year of a hatchery management
project.

ODFW biologists selected steelhead adults returning to the basin early
in the run to use as hatchery broodstock to explore whether their
progeny also will arrive in the fall. Early arrival of hatchery
steelhead to the Grande Ronde basin should improve fall steelhead
angling in the Grande Ronde River and reduce the numbers of fish
straying into other river systems.

The fish were collected during a two-week period in October by 33
volunteer anglers and ODFW and Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla
Indian Reservation staff. After landing a hatchery steelhead, the
anglers placed the fish into a tube and laid the tube in shallow, moving
water with the nose of the fish facing upstream. They then placed flags
along the road to indicate the location of the tubes. ODFW officials
collected the tubed fish each day, injected them with an identifying tag
and transported them to Wallowa Hatchery in Enterprise. The fish will
stay at the hatchery until they mature and will then be spawned.

Resulting progeny will be reared as a separate group at Irrigon
Hatchery, marked uniquely and released in spring 2006.

Returning adult from the progeny of the steelhead captured in 2003 will
enter the Grande Ronde River in the fall of 2006, and adults from this
year's collection will return in the fall of 2007. ODFW will compare
their performance in terms of return timing and straying with the
existing Wallowa stock adults.

Historically, most of the returning wild adult steelhead arrived in the
lower Grande Ronde in the fall, and a large number still do. Adult
hatchery steelhead also begin to arrive in the fall with the run
continuing through March, with a higher proportion arriving later. More
adult hatchery steelhead returning to the river in the fall should
improve the fishery as anglers are allowed to keep hatchery fish only. 


"Without the help of the volunteers, it would have been impossible to
collect the number of fish we needed in the identified time frame,"
said Brad Smith, ODFW fisheries biologist. "The continued success of
this project is dependent on the contributions made by volunteers this
year and in the next few years."

ODFW plans to continue this broodstock collection project for two more
years.

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