For nearly 100 years, the McKenzie’s native redside populations have been depressed, often by the very agencies we’ve appointed to protect them. Oregon started planting hatchery rainbows in the McKenzie River in 1921, and hasn’t let up since. By 1947, the wild fish population in the McKenzie was already reduced. According to creel surveys, 45% of the fish caught in those years were hatchery fish.

ODFW stocks the McKenzie River from Blue River to around Hendricks Bridge with 113,000 fish. Hatchery trout are introduced to the system almost every week in the prime growing season for wild fish. This competition for food and constant angler pressure for hatchery trout has depressed the wild population of redside trout in 38 miles of river.

There is a consensus in the scientific community that in general, hatchery fish harm native fish populations. Jeff Ziller, South Willamette Watershed District Fish Biologist has called this section of river a sacrifice zone. ODFW and Army Corps of Engineers biologists suspect from observational evidence that the depression of wild rainbow trout populations in the planted zone is substantial, or even severe.

There are several examples of rivers with wild trout populations that have rebounded quickly after stocking hatchery trout was ceased, including Oregon’s Metolius and Deschutes Rivers — and studies on the Lower McKenzie River when ODFW ended stocking in that section of river.