12/03/2020




Chest Waders and a looooong rod, you'll be good to go !!!!!!!!


Be safe, everyone................

Generally steelhead runs closely follow silver runs in numbers. The central coast greatly exceeded forecasts for both hatchery and wilds. I’m an optimist.

The boat thing has been discussed here many time and it generally ends with a discussion of the Deschutes with regards to the massive success of rebound of the local wild stocks. I’m a fan. This creates refuge areas dispersed throughout the entire drainage and not only the headend of the water shed. Probably implemented in a drainage by drainage basis. No bait hurts but I’ll get over it. Todd’s sales will skyrocket.

If the management objective is to reduce gear encounters with steelhead, then prohibiting fishing from boats makes sense. I think I've read that something like 70% of steelhead are caught by anglers fishing with guides who fish from boats. So a lot fewer steelhead are going to be hooked under this kind of regulation. Makes it tough for guides though. I wonder how guides will respond? Switch to walk-and-wade guiding, or get a non-resident OR guide license?

Hey Paker, just because fishing from a boat with a guide is the only way you can catch a fish doesn't make your chosen method an all or nothing proposition.

Last fisherman standing on the rock fishing for that very last steelhead, please turn out the lights when you leave.

Note: If it's a fly flinger, they won't actually hook or catch that last steelhead, but will be bitching about how everyone destroyed the wild steelhead as they continue to flog the water, ascot waving in the breeze....

Double Note: This will only apply to the coastal rivers, whatever those may be. As for the rest of you boat owners, feel free to continue to fish out of boat for your depressed runs of wild steelhead.

Carry on.

What rivers will be affected by the boat law?

In managing, there is a number of animals that can be killed/caught. As the number of humans change them increases, that number gets taken faster.

First big sport fishery I was involved in managing was the '80 Lake WA sockeye. It was open for weeks and finally died a natural death as interest waned and fish moved into streams to spawn. Now, because of increased "technology" that same fishery lasts days.

If you want a months-long steelhead fishery then catch per day has got to be low. You can limit the number of anglers or you can limit their success or limit their access to fish. Managers are in a no-win situation because somebody's favorite means of fishing will be affected.

Look at how ell the up-river recs are treated because we worship marine mixed-stock fisheries for salmon. They've seen this for decades.

Does anyone know what exact areas wdfw meant by no fishing from a floating device?

My guess is that it would be for all the coastal streams.

There aren't many of them if you break it down. Quinault, Queets, Hoh, Bogachiel, Calawah, Quillayute, Sol Duc. The other streams are too small to fish from a floating device.

The status quo will not sustain coastal steelhead stocks. It's evident that WDFW cannot effectively manage the resource and the only likely course of action that will elicit change will be through the courts. Let's hope citizens and advocacy groups can collaborate and present a unified voice and legal challenge. It appears to be the only hope.

Climbing gear and inflatable tree houses are the new wave of tapping the last frontier steelheading!!!!!! I don't need no stinking boat....

In the last 5 years why has it gone from wild retention no gear rules to possibly being shutdown is what I don’t get. I understand the no wild retention & gear rules were meant to curb declining numbers but now it’s come to closing it down. Obvioulsy those rules didn’t work as intended.

That's what usually happens when action is taken too late and it's combined with the other thousand cuts.

I believe that after close to 30 years of "recovery management" that most of the listed Chinook and steelhead head stocks in WA are at lower levels than when listed, as are the SRKWs. There are two possibilities. Either we have not done enough in the last 30 years of they animals are headed to extinction despite our efforts.

Seems that "Recovery" has become like lots of kid's sports; we give participation trophies and really don't care about the results.

There's a lotta' meat to chew on in those two short paragraphs C'man. We've spent over a billion state dollars and a lot more federal dollars on habitat improvement since the ESA listings. As if dollars spent somehow translates into species recovery. We pat ourselves on the back for all those habitat improvement and fish passage restorations achieved, which despite the cost, is barely a drop in the bucket in contrast to the magnitude of habitat degradation we did, and amazingly (to me) still do. While at NMFS I had the astonishing (again, to me) conversation with managers who did not perceive any issue with using the number of ESA Section 7 consultations completed as a yardstick to measure progress toward recovery, instead of, as I proposed, the delta change in abundance (increase in numbers of listed fish in listed populations). Ergo, completed consultations = participation trophies in the form of "atta' boys (and girls)" and annual bonuses and awards and even promotions.

I'd like to think it's as simple as having not done enough (we haven't) to reverse declining trends, but my stronger feeling is that we have long since set the stage that governs productivity so that the declines we have and are presently witnessing are mostly beyond our control. I think a long-lived species like the SRKWs really drives that home, at least for me. I think we've made perturbations to the ocean since WWII that are greater than we have the capacity to counter.

I don't completely agree that we don't have the capacity to counter. We don't have the will because, at its root, the problem is way too many people (world-wide), wasteful consumption, and the like. Having said that, we are really close, though, where the decisions will have been set in concrete (at least in human terms) and the resources just go away.

I also think we have the ability to counter. Read the Boldt decision. Old Boldt was most concerned about conservation. And we have failed miserably since then. We have the ability to counter through an advisory process or through the courts, but WDFW doesn't have the will, and especially A.G. Ferguson.

Sorry Jaek. Looks like it's time for you to buy the Oregon license.

Much whining and moaning when no bait/no boat was first instituted.
Fishermen adapted and the fishery improved.
Step-casting heartily encouraged.

At the end of the day, it's the thing to do.

WORD!

Right up there with, "If you don't kill them, they WILL spawn."

So what happens to the disabled fishermen and women who bought boats to fish and cannot stand on the bank and fish????