By Alex de los Rios
The Idaho Fish and Game South Fork Clearwater Localized Broodstock program wrapped up after a big collection week on Saturday, March 15! We want to extend our thanks to the countless anglers from all over who contributed to meeting our broodstock goal. We couldn’t have done it without you. Now, I’d like to provide some ending statistics to help contextualize the fruits of the last 1.5 months:
Idaho Fish and Game staff sampled almost 1,100 steelhead put into tubes by participating anglers – ~9% of the total run! Of that number, we took over 680 steelhead back to Dworshak/Clearwater Fish Hatchery for spawning, setting a new record since the conception of this program. On March 11, 99 tubed steelhead were sampled in a single day, which set a new single-day record as well! The largest fish sampled during the program was an eligible 38.2” male on February 27, and the average tubed fish was around 32.5”.
Anglers also tubed over 300 likely natural-origin steelhead, which we were able to get invaluable genetic information to compare to our hatchery Parentage Based Tagging (PBT) genetic database. When we collect a genetic sample from nearly any adult steelhead, we can determine if both parents were spawned in the hatchery or if both hatchery parents spawned in the wild. Promising new genetic technology being developed will allow us to identify hatchery genetics from even as far back as the grandparents of fish that we genetically sample in the field. These genetic tools help us further understand how much hatchery fish contribute to successful natural offspring!
Once again, thank you to everyone that helped us make this year a success! We look forward to seeing you all again for the 2026 broodstock program!
Tight lines, folks!
