02/11/2026
Howdy Rowdy Creek Fish Hatchery Facebook Fans,
We thought we'd take a quick break from collecting adult steelhead broodstock to cover an issue that seems to generate a lot of questions and a fair amount of confusion – the releasing of juvenile salmon and steelhead at the Forks in Hiouchi. The hatchery started planting juvenile steelhead in the Smith River way back in 1972. That year the hatchery released steelhead in Patrick's Creek, Knopki Creek and in the Middle Fork from Idlewild all the way down to Jed Smith Campground on the mainstem Smith River. For the next 20 years steelhead were planted all over the Smith River watershed, including major spawning tributaries like Mill Creek, Siskiyou Fork and Rowdy Creek. Steelhead plantings across the watershed were discontinued in 1992 due to concerns from State and Federal fisheries management agencies, not due to a decision made by the hatchery.
Agency regulators allowed the hatchery to stock steelhead at the Forks in Hiouchi, at the boat ramp on Fred Haight Drive or into Rowdy Creek at the Hatchery. Steelhead were planted at the Forks until 2010, when the fisheries management agencies changed course and told the hatchery that steelhead could no longer be released at the Forks due to concerns regarding the potential for negative interactions between hatchery and naturally produced fish. All hatchery reared juvenile steelhead were planted at the boat ramp between 2011 and 2022, a time when the numbers of juvenile steelhead released were steadily decreasing due to declining numbers of wild steelhead caught in the hatchery trap on Rowdy Creek (the hatchery is permitted to spawn only wild fish, no hatchery adults caught in the trap could be used for broodstock). In 2022, the Tolowa Dee-ni Nation, which co-manages the hatchery along with the Hatchery's 501(C)(3) nonprofit Board of Directors, approached the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the National Marine Fisheries Service about resuming the former release site at the Forks in Hiouchi.
The Nation's Fisheries Division proposed a study that was designed to investigate whether hatchery produced juvenile steelhead were likely to encounter (and thus likely impact) juvenile Coho Salmon, the only Endangered Species Act listed salmonid in the Smith River. The study involved planting Passive Integrated Transponder (PIT) tags in juvenile steelhead and then releasing them at the Forks. The tags are recorded when they pass over a charged cable array that lies on the streambed. Fisheries Division staff, along with CDFW, installed an array in the Mill Creek watershed, which is likely the largest Coho Salmon producing stream in the Smith River watershed. One thousand tagged juveniles were released at the Forks in 2023, and another thousand tagged juveniles were released in 2024. To date, no tagged individuals have been recorded passing through the detection arrays. The study has concluded and all juvenile steelhead will be planted at the Forks moving forward.
Juvenile Chinook reared at the hatchery were also stocked throughout the watershed during the early years of hatchery production. The change in release "strategy" happened earlier for Chinook than for steelhead, with only one juvenile release at the Forks between 1982 and the present (19,250 juveniles were released at the Forks in 1991).
