And got the card back. Bought a 6-7lb coho, caught a few miles directly out in front of the siuslaw river. It was born headed back up the Columbia river system, to the cowlitz, up the toutle then into the green river to the hatchery. Pretty cool.

So, a clipped adipose was your clue?

We've picked up several Columbia Basin steelhead over the years and a couple saltwater bottom fish that were carrying pit tags. Had no knowledge of their presence (steelhead were adipose clipped), but an agency fish squeezer waved a wand over them at the takeout and asked if they could slice a chunk off their noses. Never got any feedback, but I suspect the steelhead were two salt fish originally a product of the Deschutes hatchery. No idea how/where/why the salt fish were tagged.

Pretty neat. Didn’t think they were keeping track of those saltwater fish.

Not sure what percentage they tag down south but up here we coded wire tag (CWT) a large percentage of our fish. Fish and game and the hatcheries use the information to extrapolate the data out to figure out survivals. Pretty sure Alaska only CWT kings and coho. Alaska fish and game has a whole website where you can track it all.

Here's some more info on this website-

CWT data


The tags are tiny, about 1mm long and they are put into the fish when they are smolt usually, although you can tag them when they are about 6g.

When the fish checker wands your fish you can ask for a postcard. I’ve gotten a few, it’s pretty cool.




P