CFM, dear Buddy,

The December - January peak steelhead run timing referred to in the Boldt Decision encompasses the aggregate return of both hatchery and wild steelhead, same as the timing of the peak aggregated return of hatchery and wild fish today. In that context there is no change in the peak run timing. I've got, or use to have laying around somewhere, steelhead run timing before the state hatchery program began. While the wild run began in December - or even November or January, depending on the river system, the peak run timing for winter steelhead was March for pretty much every river system.

Most rivers have lost their early timed component of the wild runs due to the greater harvest pressure that occurs during the early season on most rivers. Are early winter run timing genetic lost? Perhaps some, but not entirely, in my opinion. Let me use the Skagit as an example (since Yellowstone cutthroat are not relevant to run timing 8^).

When the Skagit closed the March and April fishery in 1977, the wild run began to increase, but mainly with March and April steelhead. As the run size increased, more fish began to show up in February. And now we see some wild fish show up in January, but it depends mainly on how large the run size is. So I think the message is that the environment will nudge the genetics of these fish - as it did in the first place - to assume behaviors like run timing and spawn timing that best contribute to overall survival. In order to see earlier timed fish consistently year after year, we need for more of those early timed fish to reach the spawning grounds. However, a wild fish in the river in January, or especially December, faces a lot of opportunities to eat a hook and end up in a cooler.

The new WSR regulation may contribute to more of that small number of early timed fish actually suriving to spawn, which would then place both genetic and environmental pressures on offspring to exhibit an early run timing. We'll see, but we probably won't have much science, just anecdotal observations reported among the angling community.

(BTW, you may not have appreciated the Yellowstone example of some days ago, but I maintain that it was relevant with respect to the key issues of mortality rates (and it was over harvest in the recreational fishery in that case) and population response when mortality was reduced. That one population is an inland resident and the other anadromous is not relevant to the point I was emphasizing or I would have used a different example. In regards to steelhead, reducing harvest mortality will contribute to increased productivity whenever over harvest is the limiting factor for the population. So on some rivers it could make a difference, and on others it won't.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.