Who'd a thunk that budget reductions may be the key to retiring obsolete commercial fisheries that have been sustained by General Fund "welfare" fishing appropriations?

The more I think about it, the best sport fishing outcome for sport fishing in Grays Harbor and Willapa bay might be the closure of salmon hatcheries in those drainages and the elimination of the NT net fisheries that exist because of that hatchery production. Of course there wouldn't be any chinook production of significance in WB without a hatchery, so maybe operate one chinook hatchery with sport fishing license revenue.

SG - I agree with your first premise, but disagree on the second.

I don't fish GH at all, but I fish the Naselle Rv several times a year. If eliminating the Nasellle state hatchery also eliminates the gill net fishery, that would be a win-win for the wild fish of the Naselle River.

That river is a huge producer of both wild coho and chum, even with the nets. In fact, in some years WDFW allows the retention of three adult salmon including one wild coho. Production is high likely because coho and chum get past the nets. But the Chinook are the target species so both wild and hatchery get caught.

Without the nets, I believe the numbers of Chinook returning to the Naselle would not decrease at all, provided the commercial fishery is no longer operating and the hatchery is closed. All fish would be wild, which may not allow a huge sport fishery, but given the potential of that river, my sense is that salmon production would be high enough to support a modest recreational fishery in most years. But the Naselle River could never support a commercial fishery without the hatchery.

Cohoangler,

I'm not sure we disagree. My point is that without the NT net fisheries and without the hatcheries, sport fishing could continue to be quite productive, mainly for coho. I don't know that there would be any terminally harvestable chinook. Do you think the Naselle chinook would support the WB sport fishery in the absence of hatcheries and NT gillnets?

Sg

SG after running things all over the model in the past your look comes close I think. So if one was to reduce Chinook and Coho production, booted the nets out of 2T, further reduced commercial impacts on NOR fish by limiting time on the water in the other areas, the REC fishery would be fine. The budget proposal does most of that if it comes to pass then you have the agencies addiction to commercial harvest in Willapa. That would be the wild card. In the case of Coho one can not model all the hatchery & wild ( NOR ) Coho without wiping out the Chum and NOR Chinook so it makes zero sense to maintain that level of production.

About the fishing thing. Well looking forward to what is up this forecast jumped out. http://www.nwrfc.noaa.gov/weather/10_day.cgi It looks like around the 25th we have a front coming in. It seems to pick up the most rain in the upper Chehalis so time will tell if we get enough rain to get a large movement early like last year. The QIN have a two day set starting Sunday so things should drop off a bit but if we continue to get the water temperature down things will pick up.

The WAC CR 103 for the NT Nets is out. Not sure if WDF&W has it on the website yet but if anyone would like it just do the PM bit and I will forward it on.

Also the thing where the gillnets are laid out stuck on the mud or tied to a object was addressed. The credit for this goes to Softbite who stayed with the issue for FIVE years and never gave up. Good job !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dave

Driving into Aberdeen this morning, tribal nets everywhere.

With this rain, they're probably catching a "few."

Forgive the formatting & typos but this post is the notes of a preseason meeting between WDFW and the QIN. A bit brief to be sure but you can get the jest of what QIN staff positions are.



4-1-2014

QIN – Ed, Junior, Tyler, Jim
Quinault– all the –ations, upper Quinault, sockeye. impacts from logging and farming.
Queets – un-employment.
Climate and changing climate issues concern us; building capacity to better.
Need to ensure that the fish prosper to ensure that our communities prosper.
Forecast wild chinook 3,575 878 indicators
Coho 1408 – 8,465W 10,338H
Wk 36-40 5d/wk, 41-2, 42-1, 43-2 (large mesh wk 42-43) 47 – 2, 2, 50-5d/week
Sport 6% chinook, 5% on coho
Esc. 2,169 W Chin 593 ind. (2,762T); coho 5,846W; 5,247H
Meet escapement goals for Chinook and coho
GH
Cheh
39, 2, 3, 4, 4, 2, 2, 1, 2, 5, 5
Hump
39, 4, 3, 3, 3, 3, 1, 2, 3, 5, 5
Week Chehalis Humptulips
QIN WDFW QIN WDFW
39 2 0 4
40 3 0 3
41 4 0 3
42 4 0 3
43 2 2 3
44 2 3 1
45 1 3 2
46 2 2 3 2
47 5 0 5 3
48 5 0 5 2

4-5-2104 - Ed, Reggie, Junior, Tyler, Jim – Steve, Kirt, Chad

EJ - Uncomfortable about modeling these fisheries – general concern about escapement; we are well aware. Without Hoh v Baldrige. QTA had all pursued that. Backbone of river by river, run by run. Implemented by PFMC and PST.
Dealt with habitat, sometimes you don’t get to fish, we have experienced that. Three stock that have aligned and we brought our request of how to is it. Looks like, with what we have laid on the table that we are in good shape – always aware of escapement and on the mark.
ST – yesterday with our constituents – concern for escapement; conservative and error on the sides of the fish. Low chinook escapements, low numbers of wild coho.
EJ – don’t see the concern in the ocean. The state has yet to move off of your high number. Good shape compared to elsewhere. Cannot help that you’re being lead down this pristine path about conservation. What other tools are being offered to use?
ST – taking significant action to meet the needs of the fish. Marching orders.
EJ – Marching orders are not correct – sector allocation, has nothing to do with us. Conservation concern is unwarranted. Been in the game a long time, you have managed that system for hatchery production. MSF comes along and now there is a concern. Habitat loss, mitigated with hatchery fish. Given history and looks to me like now we are meeting the criteria. Precision, reason and benefit of HR management. We are a lot better at it today than years ago. Crazies finding Grays Harbor, dam in the upper Chehalis, fecal coliform, etc., Public Policy is mis-guided.
[Quinault Beach Resort?]
Reggie – Ocean, monitoring, in-season…
EJ – caucus
Modeling – ocean option (1408) wondering where we are going. Comfort at low TD and fishing below the goal. We are proposing fisheries that keep is above the goal.
We desire having an agreement.
GH POLICY discussion – Phil, Ron, Steve, Chadwick, Kirt – Ed, Reggie, Junior, Tyler, Jim
EJ – Comfort level of escapement, conservation creeps in to the conversation. FWC policy, staff has read, interoperating the inputs of our staff – we make objectives. We are in good shape. Our outcomes do not raise issues, to us it is a perpetuation of life styles, and for many these fisheries are their living; what even they got to do to survive. We are all about better data, more data, more precise. Steve has done a good job of representing what he has been instructed to do. Where are we at?

I thought some will find this letter interesting reading. It is one person's view but it is from a individual that has spent years trying to restore natural spawning stocks in the Willapa Bay tributaries.



Dear Editor,

Washington Fish and Wildlife Department (WDFW) - Commissioners have recommend the closing of Willapa Bay’s Nemah and Naselle State salmon hatcheries, in their 2015 biennial budget request.
The WDFW Commissioners have acted in a rational and thoughtful manner. On Sept 4, 2014, the WDFW Commissioners adopted their policy for WDFW budget cuts. This was necessary as a directive was received from the Governor’s office to cut the capital budget across the board by 15% or about $11 million for WDFW (cuts in future biennia is to allow the state to meet its K-12 educational obligations under the McCleary court decision).

I have listened to the commissioner’s budget discussion and read their policy budget document. They have approached their decision using a metric for the department as a cost/benefit ratio measurement for sports and commercial fishery. This metric evaluates the departments’ costs to support a commercial and separate cost for a sports fishery, and what is the income to each of these as a benefit.

Recently the commissioners had raised the sports licensing fees. They report it will be necessary to be raised again, to support the sports fishing cost/benefit ratio. At the Commissioners meeting on Sept 4, 2014 it was reported there was a general consensus among the sports fishers groups… ‘They agree to an increase in license fees’…but,

In the Willapa 90% of the salmon harvest is by commercial fishers, which is being subsidized by the sports fishers. The sports fishers are adamant they do not wish to continue to subsidize the commercial harvest.

In Summary: if the Commercial fishers want to continue their harvest they will need to pay for it, if not the Nemah and Naselle hatcheries will be closed.

I have written several letters about the poor management of Willapa Fishery by WDFW. Over the years I have worked with Commercial and Sports fishers groups, they have both worked very hard to be a part of salmon recovery in the Willapa, and have committed their time and treasure for salmon recovery. There has never been a rational and dependable policy of “conservation” by WDFW for Willapa salmon stocks. As a result the salmon stocks have been overharvested. Most of the 746 salmon bearing streams in the Willapa now don’t have salmon; hatcheries alone cannot support the salmon populations in the Willapa.

WDFW has lots of slogans or bumper stickers about “Conservation”. But the only conservation they are interested in is their own jobs.
Millions of dollars have been spent by well meaning groups to recover salmon, and the Willapa Bay habitat has been greatly improved, and now could support a great deal more salmon if properly managed by WDFW. WDFW has consistently developed fraudulent data to show that more harvestable salmon exist, and then over harvest that amount with insufficient escapement of brood-stock returning to our many streams.

With the overharvest of brood-stock there is not sufficient returning fish for spawning, and the returning salmon are not sufficient to support the nutrient levels in the streams which is necessary for salmon to complete their life cycle. Without an honest estimate of salmon stocks in the Willapa, rational decisions cannot be made on the management of the stocks.

I applaud the WDFW Commissioners for their courage in taking this deceive action, this will help in returning Willapa Bay to a sustainable fishery. I hope this will be the first step which will lead to a new Willapa Salmon Plan for sustainable salmon, and hopefully a new WDFW management team. There is no reason that a well managed Willapa salmon fishery utilizing the new restored habitat could not be utilized which could support a sports and commercial fishery. But new WDFW management is required. Hopefully the WDFW Commissioners can now use this wise decision to direct a new Willapa Salmon Plan be developed with new WDFW leadership. Willapa Bay now has the habitat to support a larger population of salmon stocks; the limiting element for more salmon in the Willapa is WDFW management. The goal should be to make the restored habitat (746 streams) into the historical hatcheries that supported much larger salmon stocks.

I will take a copy of this letter to the Advisory Group which will be helping the agency draw up the "new and improved" Willapa Plan.

First order of the day should be changing the priority of the plan from a salmon harvest management plan to a salmon conservation plan.

This is one basin where ALL of the cards lie in the lap of WDFW. There is no running for cover for blunders under the guise of tribal co-management. WDFW owns it ALL.

Wasn't too long ago that Phil Anderson publicly gave the Region 6 Staff a grade of D- in "managing" Willapa Bay. I have confidence the new Fish Program leadership will do much more to change that.

Some more on Willapa. The link is to WDF&W's Commercial page and has the harvest numbers up. The nets so far have taken 12,700 Chinook & 54,429 Coho with more to go. It was modeled to around 7718 combined H&W for Chinook and 21,187 H&W Coho. http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/commercial/salmon/landings.html Here is the rub and it is a goody. The preseason forecast had Coho about 2 to 1 ( give or take a bit ) wild over hatchery. I have been told that WDFW staff have been tracking the mix / harvest and the NOR ( natural origin / wild ) are only coming up at 12%. What this means is simply that the Coho run proportionality ( H+W ) has been lost. Region 6 has zero idea if a massive overharvest has occurred and failure to make escapement for Willapa Coho is a distinct and likely possibility.

Now compare this to last year when Region 6 shut down the Grays Harbor Rec bay fishery with ZERO data to back it up. Strange how this agency works do not you think?

Nah. This actually answers WDFW's dreams. They are managing to get all the evil hatchery fish out of there. Significantly fewer on the gravel. They kept the gillnetters, and by extension the Leg, happy.

Since the wild escapement will likely be above the perpetuation floor (at its most extreme a single pair) what's the harm? Get the wild fish out of the way and we can have fisheries without the bothersome release rates, recovery boxes, selective rules. Back to the Good Old Days of "whack 'em and stack 'em".

Really, this money should be spend to redo the ramp at Johns River. The ramp at south Monte is a nice 3 laner and all three are good.

Many have tried and tried to get information out of WDF&W and failed. This results in either giving up or a Public Document Request which the agency spends a lot of time whining about. So all can gain some insight read the thread bottom up and I have highlighted a sentence that fairly well sets the tone for just why in the hell nobody believes these guys.

From: Mcclellan, Barbara A (DFW)
To: Scharpf, Mike M (DFW)
Subject: RE: Letter
Attachment(s): 7

Mike, attached are several documents for your use in responding to Hamilton’s letter.
The first attachment is my additions to your letter.
The next 3 are short one-page documents that I wrote up a while ago and thought might be helpful.
Maybe after talking with Ron or Kirt and getting some of the other questions asked like by-laws for advisory groups, are they public, and intent of not only the group but the documents that resulted that you’ll be able to put enough together.Keep it simple with the least amount of details that you can get away with.



From: Scharpf, Mike M (DFW)
Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2012 8:21 AM
To: Mcclellan, Barbara A (DFW)
Subject: FW: Letter

Morning,
Attached is a letter Dave sent to the Commission. Also attached is a response letter I started, but I don’t know much about the details of the GH framework or the tier system or Advisory Board requirements. Kirt has put a high priority on this, would you please help complete the response I’ve started. My thought process is to give a quick summary for the framework and tier system, then discuss the responsibilities of an Advisory Board.
Please provide me something ASAP.

Thanks




From: Warren, Ron R (DFW)
Sent: Monday, December 03, 2012 7:30 AM
To: Hughes, Kirt M (DFW); Scharpf, Mike M (DFW)
Subject: FW: Letter

We’ll need to develop a draft response to this one and assure we answer questions/address issues identified in the first letter as well.

Ron Warren - Region 6 Fish Program Manager 48 Devonshire Rd, Montesano WA 98563
phone: 360-249-1201; fax: 360-249-1229; cell 360-791-3945

Commitment-Accountability-Teamwork-

Professionalism-Integrity- Trust

email: Ron.Warren@dfw.wa.gov

http://www.wdfw.wa.gov/about/regions/region6/


From: Scott, Jim B (DFW)
Sent: Monday, December 03, 2012 7:14 AM
To: Warren, Ron R (DFW)
Subject: FW: Letter

From: hamilton.dave@comcast.net [mailto:hamilton.dave@comcast.net]
Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2012 10:57 AM To: Director (DFW); Scott, Jim B (DFW) Subject: Letter

Attached for your review is a pdf file of a letter dated 12/1/2012 addressed to the commission.

Wow. That's nice.

Better still is the motto in Ron's email signature. Practice what you preach comes to mind....

As a rule information I obtain in a PDR is made available to all with the only exception of ah .......... how about personal disagreements between staff. As one of the individuals in my previous post is part of this e mail attachment I felt it was relevant. In addition the actions of the staff in questions really do affect the Rec & Commercial users & the fish I felt this should not be held back but made public.

From: Ashbrook, Charmane E (DFW)
To: Mcclellan, Barbara A (DFW)
Subject: Work plan

Barb,

This email is to clarify my understanding of what you agreed to work on during our discussion yesterday afternoon.

1. Read and respond to emails (and I hope you will also read and respond to phone calls and mail correspondence, though we did not discuss it)

2. Visit Tokeland to research where we can place the head collection freezer and Voluntary Trip Report forms; as discussed, we need a space with an electrical outlet and the owner’s agreement for us to use the outlet. Report to me what you find and your recommendations. By the way, I spoke with Curt Holt this morning and he suggested we use a combination lock where the combination can be changed. Curt also offered to find out what a freezer costs to run per month so that we can offer to pay that amount.

3. Schedule the fish friendly class for commercial fishers in Willapa Bay and Grays Harbor as needed, teach the class, and report back to me the dates you will teach the class and afterward, the number of people that attended.

4. Write a draft advisory announcement for both Willapa Bay and Grays Harbor and email it to myself and Kirt for review (Kirt will pass it to Ron for review). After we have ok-ed it, send it out. Develop a selection process with input from myself and Kirt Hughes, then notify people if they have been selected or not, and let me know when this task has been completed.

As mentioned in my email that was sent yesterday to Kirt and Ron with a cc to you, you are refusing to work on any large (longer than a day) projects and will only work on short term projects that you agree to do. You stated that this is because you are waiting for Ron to provide you with a list of your work tasks for the year. I appreciate your candor and the time you spent discussing the commercial fishery and steelhead management with me yesterday afternoon.
Thank you also for dropping by a hard copy of the commercial gillnet observer sheet. It is clear that you have a lot of knowledge about these projects and it is unfortunate that you will not be participating. Please also be clear that your refusal to do work assigned by me constitutes a refusal to complete assigned work from your chain of command. –Your insistence that Ron make the decisions about work tasks and provide you with a list of your and my work duties is akin to if I were to demand from Jo Wadsworth or Jim Scott that they provide to me a list of both my and my supervisor’s duties.

Because you refuse to work on these projects, including working with me to divvy out tasks and setting up a boat for the Grays Harbor on board observing, and because the work is high priority, I will be the lead for the commercial sampling and steelhead management, and I will keep my supervisor, Kirt, up-to-date on the progress, including strategies and employee needs to get this work accomplished without an area biologist. For example, I have asked Rick Ereth to work on setting up a boat for the Grays Harbor on board observing during the month of July and I am planning a meeting with Rick and Curt to discuss how we can most efficiently accomplish the commercial sampling this year. I do not know what work (other than the four tasks listed above) you will be doing, but hopefully we can find something you will agree to do when I return from vacation on July 7th. I also want to be very clear that your decision to refuse my direction fits under “refusing to perform assigned tasks or actions” that was discussed with you in your Expectation Memo on February 9, 2011. This memo further states that you are expected to “… complete assigned work from your chain of command, ” and, “Please be aware that failure to meet these expectations can result in disciplinary action, including suspension, demotion, and termination.”
Finally, please be aware that your refusal to follow direction from your chain of command will be discussed in your annual and interim reviews on July 12th.

Respectfully, Charmane

Team player, eh?

NOT!

J F C ! ! !

Someone needs to be $h!t-canned for ineptness and NON-performance.

Just sayin.

She needs to be fired for insubordination. Another turd in the punch bowl.

Region 6 would be better without her.........Taxpayers of the State deserve better........IMO