As much as we like to pis and moan about how poorly WDFW manages (?) steelhead they are so far ahead of DFO that they have lapped them a couple of times. Noah had more steelhead on the Ark than some of the formerly great BC streams. Lots of netting still going on.

Take the Skeena. This year's test fishery, which always occurred AFTER the net fisheries by the NI side recorded the fewest number of fish and there were NO fisheries.

Maybe CM and Salmo can comment on this. I am going to talk about winter steelhead on the Chehalis system. The state has closed winter steelhead fishing on this system this winter to protect the native steelhead. I live in the South Sound and used to fish the Puyallup and Nisqually for steelhead back in the day. I think the Puyallup has been close for wild steelhead retention about 40 years ago and the Nisqually since the early 90's. Now, both rivers are comletely closedfor steelhead. The wild steelhead runs have improved a little on some of the years on those rivers but never to the numbers to ever allow fishing again. Even CnR fishing. The wild runs will never come back. Getting back to the Chehalis and tribs, I am thinking that that system is following the same path as the Puy and Nis. No winter steelhead fishing again on that system as long as the state is concerned with recovery of wild steelhead. Thoughts?

I think your correct at least for Dec through Jan simply because there are not many Steelhead to be had plus the Late Coho have been nearly butchered out of existence by the incidental take going after Steelhead.

My thoughts are probably different than Salmos but......

The steelhead are depressed for a variety of reasons. In my mind, one of the largest is the lack of spawning salmon. So long as we keep salmon escapements low the steelhead runs will be low. And by low, I mean 5-10% of what's needed.

There are too few repeat spawners, which may be tied to lack of nutrients.

One thing about steelhead is that the adult return based rather strongly on what age they smolted at. Age-1 smolts return earliest, age-2 later, and age-3 the latest. This is one, and maybe the primary, reason why the hatchery fish returned earlier than the bulk of the wilds. If we want to restore the earlier returning component we need to decrease smolt age, which gets us back to nutrients.

The steelhead are also being hammered by the increases in various predators. Until they and the smolt numbers are better balanced, few smolts will make the ocean.

Ocean productivity is really low, for a variety of reasons. Until the aspects of that which humans can control (hatchery plants, over harvest of steelhead prey, etc) are controlled, we'll get few fish back.

We can recover our anadromous fish, if society wants to. At the same time, robust wild fish populations are likely unable to sustain the kill fisheries many desire.

A few years ago I compared the salmon returns (average annual spawners/mile) for the north OP rivers (Queets, Hoh, and Quileute) with those on North Puget Sound (Snohomish, Stillaguamish, Nooksack) over the 15 years of this century (using the info in WDFW SCORE).

At the time I believe it was generally conceded that the OP rivers had better habitat and more robust steelhead populations. For that period the average salmon spawners/mile on the OP rivers was approximately 100/mile. At the same time the average salmon spawner/mile on north Sound rivers was approximately 1000/mile.

On the North Sound rivers I have long thought that the benefits for spawned salmon carcass is being limited by those carcasses being washed to Puget Sound (feeding crabs?) by the fall/early winter floods rather than being capture and retained in the river by historic complex habitat structures.

Over the last 40 on the north Puget Sound rivers the number of repeat spawners (% of the previous year's escapement returning the next year) has been decreasing. That decline seems to be in at least part correlated with decreasing marine survivals.

For the wild winter steelhead of North Puget Sound their run timing seems to be more strongly related to their spawn timing. Those rivers with later spawn timing tend to have later run timings. That spawn timing is likely driven by the timing of the spring/summer run-off with the spawning timed so peak fry emergence occurs on the declining flows after the peak run-off. In those populations the adults gave the same general return timing regardless of their smolt age.

The two largest factors driving the status of those north Sound steelhead are the lack of functioning river process and the accompanying complex habitats and the significant early marine mortalities within Puget Sound itself. Without addressing these issues the PS steelhead are doomed.

Curt

Just any FYI that the currency for delivery of nutrients is kg of spawner per square metre of stream surface area (generally SLF). In studies of loading effects, the point of inflection between steep increase in positive benefits and a slower increase (the famous "hockey-stick") is about 2 kg per square metre. Do the math. One mile (1.6 km) of 10' (3m) creek would take a bit less than 10k kilograms. At a 2 kilo pink that is 5,000 2 kilo pinks in that mile.

1000 fish in a mile is a lot of fish but way down the list of what's needed. Other research has shown that a stream can accept and process up to 8 kg per square metre over the course of a year so the 2 kilo (or even 1-1.5) can be applied to each species of semelparous spawners.

And, there are places even in WA where these numbers have been approached and exceed. Small creeks, generally. but it has happened naturally.

There's not a lot I can add after reading C'man's and Smalma's posts. Generally, yes, the Chehalis (and OP) steelhead runs are following down the same path as the severely depressed Puyallup and Nisqually populations. I think it isn't for exactly the same reasons however. The OP rivers have the most intact freshwater habitat in the state, so it's fairly logical that those populations are the last to collapse. I think the Chehalis basin is kind of in between the OP and Puget Sound (PS) rivers in terms of freshwater habitat quality. The biggest difference affecting steelhead runs that I can see is that PS river populations have further to travel in estuarine-like waters before reaching the open ocean.

Smolt tagging studies over the last decade illustrate that heavy predation near the river mouths and in PS by marine mammals and some birds is severely limiting the proportion of the steelhead smolt population that makes it to the open ocean. Some of that same kind of predation affects OP and Chehalis steelhead too, but not nearly to as great an extent. We can see in PS populations that the further the distance from the river mouth to the open ocean, the higher the smolt mortality, with the Nisqually River, as the southern-most PS tributary, being the most severely affected.

The recent devastation to OP and Chehalis basin steelhead runs appears related to declining productivity in near-shore ocean waters - like the poor upwelling event that was documented just a few years ago - and more open ocean declines like the large "warm patch" in the central north Pacific (which happens to be the area most of our steelhead populations migrate to), and the potential impact of over-grazing of the north Pacific by massive numbers of Alaskan and Japanese hatchery chum and pink salmon releases, which also migrate to and forage in that central north Pacific zone. The apparent declining productivity there sure seems like it could be a final chapter in a doomsday scenario for PNW steelhead.

The saving grace for PNW steelhead, as opposed to the salmon, is that they can be both resident and anadromous from the same parents. So, if we can maintain strong populations of "rainbow" in the streams then when conditions for anadromy improve, they will take advantage of them. Has happened on the central/southern CA coast when drought kept the fish resident for decades if not longer. Salmon (except sockeye/kokanee) will be gone.

It is interesting that while most of the rivers in WA are closed for winter steelhead the rivers in Oregon remain open. I have it from reliable sources in Oregon that fishing had been quite good and is expected to be better this next month. Their fish seem to survive in the ocean quite well. So, do their fish inhabit the same part of the ocean as our WA steelhead or are we here in WA just more concerned with saving the wild steelhead? CM? Salmo? Smalma?

It is also quite interesting ,that here in WA, the Quinault (restricted) , Queets and Chehalis system are closed for winters but yet the Forks streams are open and said to be making escapement. Don't the steelhead from all those systems inhabit the same parts of the ocean? I can think of a few reasons but I would like to hear yours. Thanks.

There are some basic differences that may play into it. The OR fish don't have the Salish Sea, they go straight to the ocean similar to ort north coast stocks. In conversations with their bios, at least some of the streams are naturally productive due to the base rock, which makes them less dependent on salmon to deliver nutrients. I am not sure if OR had the massive Chambers Creek style management with the really high harvest rates and genetic influences. I don't think that OR has the intensive net fisheries on all the steelhead systems. Lastly, further conversations with bios down there indicates that repeat spawners are more abundant in OR than WA.

One might also want to look at the amount of effort, the amount of development and size of communities, and such.

First, I don't know all that much about OR rivers and fish stocks. Steelhead from the OR north coast rivers have roughly the same ocean migration path as WA coastal (and PS) rivers. Southern OR steelhead have a migration path that is more similar to the norther CA river systems. That difference in ocean migration coincides with the occurrence of "half-pounder" steelhead.

Second, has winter steelhead fishing been quite good across the board, or more narrowly, among your reliable sources? Sample size and type can account for a lot of variation. As for fishing ". . . expected to be better next month." is little more than conjecture, I hope you realize. It's not the same as a solid fact.

There is a lot of variation in WA rivers too, and it doesn't always vary in the same direction, either. Only two Forks area river systems are open, and we won't know until after the end of the season whether that is a good decision. In PS, the Snoqualmie, and to a lesser extent the Sky, are experiencing better than expected fishing on hatchery winter runs. Meanwhile, the Nooksack is closed and not expected to meet brood escapement needs, even though the Nooksack smots have a straighter shot to the open ocean than do the Snohomish basin smolts. Sometimes variation is not easy to explain.

Thanks CM and Salmo for your thoughts. Some of your thoughts were the same as mine. I am thinking that predation (marine mammals etc.) might be worse on some river systems than others. On the Chehalis system this might be true. The smolts from the tribs (Satsop, Wynooche. Skookunchuck etc.) have to migrate through the Chehalis and Grays harbor to get to the ocean. I know there is quite a large seal and sea lion problem in that system that the smolts (and the adult fish in the fall and winter) have to navigate. I don't know how those predator numbers compare to the other systems however. I would think that there is more tribal netting (for adults of course) in WA than OR. Just some thoughts.

Remember that netting, of any flavor (I or NI) does not have to be directed at steelhead to hammer steelhead. A Spring Chinook fishery has the potential (and has) hammered kelts. These fish aren't sold, so there is little record, but they don't repeat spawn. Chum fisheries, even "normal timed" will run into some steelhead. With marine net fisheries at least formerly running into late November there is the chance to hit steelies.

Based on my years in harvest management, I think we would be amazed if every single fish that was killed was counted. And I mean every fish caught by everybody. And accurately reported as to when and where. Too many times talking to netters, sporties, Enforcement, and so I was made aware of uncounted fish. Management is only as good as the numbers used. Models are only as good as the input.

I remember talking to an alaska commercial netter. He claimed that a big salmon run up there could spell doom for area steelhead, as they would take quite a few in the nets.
With so many expanded fisheries, it does not take long for a few fish here and there to cause some real trouble. One year I was talking to a tribal friend who was working on a boat that was taking whiting off the coast. I asked about by catch and he stated it was quite low. They were taking a 3 or 4 chinook a night, out of several metric tons of fish. The problem I saw, was that they were one of 3 or 4 four boats that were going to fish for over a month. (The Makah's alone were taking up to 25000 metric tons a year). That would mean their by catch, though small, could be up to 3 - 4 hundred fish. The entire sports fishery for area four was 350 fish.
Imagine how how many steelhead could be taking in herring fisheries, shrimp, all the draggers, purse seiners and others mining the ocean. Just a few per season per boat would probably doom many of our seasons. As one of them and they would say, it was tiny, less than 1/1000th of a percent of their catch. Keep pounding away and in the end, nothing is left. *** just for an added note, it looks like up to a high of 450,000 metric tons of whiting a year have been taken lately. Imagine if they took just one by-catch fish per ton.

That argument about minuscule bycatch is what has, I have heard, hammered the Yukon Chinook. I forget which fishery it is, by the Chinook bycatch is something like 00.01%; way too small to close the fishery. Unfortunately, that minuscule number is most of the run.