What's the evaluation of the broodstock program on the Quinault? I think those fish are raised in pens on the lake, right? Do the ones not caught come back to the lake and just mill around?

I'm assuming the fear is they mingle with wild spawning fish - both in the lower river and upper forks - but was curious what research has shown on it.

Or maybe an issue is that there hasn't been a ton of research done on it.

That has been done...if I remember correctly, back in the 90s they determined that 40% to 50% of the spawners in the entire Quinault basin were hatchery fish...and that the genetics of the wild fish above the lake had been significanly compromised.

Fish on...

Todd

Gotcha. So theoretically you have a wild stock in which a significant portion of the fish aren't as resilient as they could be - maybe more susceptible to predators, maybe not as good at finding food in the ocean, maybe not as skilled at getting into the upper reaches of the watershed.

So, besides the obvious value of preserving a pure wild strain (take a utilitarian approach for a minute), wouldn't a resource manager want to weigh how many more steelhead a broodstock program puts into the Quinault vs. how many it takes out due to compromising the genes of wild fish and subsequently causing them to die before spawning?

Well,yes...it's literally the only metric that matters, and one that to my knowledge has never once been measured.

The most significant "measure" of how effective they are tend to be anecdotal stories from guides who participate in the broodstock collection and take clients fishing for the clipped ones...and while I value whatever information they can bring to the table, this information is worthless so far as an actual measuring tool.

Fish on...

Todd

The Quinault do not raise steelhead in pens on the lake. Only salmon, (sockeye and kings).

Weird, I just received a note from the Quinault Inn folks asking if I would book a trip with their guide as the river is open to steelheading by NI rec fishing with the tribal guides.

And here we thought all would be closed down...

No More Ice Fishin,

The Quinault raise hatchery steelhead from wild brood, then subsequent generations from those returning offspring. They selectively breed for 3-salt, or larger fish, and the fish culture folks are very proud of their program. The thing is, no quantitative measure of the program's success has been shared with the non-tribal community, if any reports even exist. We know the program returns hatchery fish, as do all the other wild broodstock programs that have been done. But none provide any quantitative conclusions comparing the benefits of those programs to just leaving the wild broodstock to spawn naturally in their respective river systems. I think they produce more fish than the natural spawners would, but that is my opinion and not necessarily a fact.

Returning adults that are not caught do migrate up the river and spawn, as Todd mentions. It likely results in a mix of hatchery origin fish spawning with wild fish. The Quinault Tribe performs the spawning surveys, and by policy, the Tribe decided that hatchery and wild fish are the same, so they've made no attempt to distinguish the difference on the spawning grounds.

Most resource managers would want to know the relative benefits and merits, or lack of, of any fish program they run. However, when you use policy decisions in place of science, you decide not to look so you never have to answer those questions.

Bobrr,

It's been a few years since I toured the Lake Quinault hatchery facility, but they were raising both Chinook and steelhead in the lake net pens. They once raised sockeye, but I think that was long ago discontinued. Sockeye are difficult to raise in a hatchery environment due to IHN disease issues.

20 Gage,

That part of the Quinault under WDFW jurisdiction is closed.

My wife and I have never seen steelhead raised in the pens , we've been fishing this lake for 18 years, have spoken with Skip (don't know last name) who runs the net pen hatchery and some of the tribal workers from time to time. Maybe they tried it before then, I know most of the hatchery steelhead are raised on the river hatchery. They are def. raising sockeye in the pens as their major effort, the sockeye are their most important salmon from a cultural point of view. We sometimes snag and also have them attack spoons not much smaller then they are. The amount of predation by these fish is the reason for larger limits then the state allows, and much lower numbers of fisherfolk keeps numbers high. Hell, we've pulled 10 inch trout out of larger Dollies! while trolling near bait balls, there are large schools of 5 inch sockeye that we spot on sonar. We never see king smolts though. They are not having much success with sockeye from numbers returning. They have shifted releases by towing pens to the outflow of the lake to avoid predation by the Dolly Vardens and cutts which thrive there. We see lots of cutthroat and esp. sockeye in the stomachs of the Dollies and Cutts we catch there. We are not allowed to keep salmon or steelhead (any rainbows over 16 inches) and do not catch any numbers of either rainbow trout or steelhead, I think we've released one steelhead and caught less then 3 or 4 rainbows in all that time. We've caught and released some nice salmon over the years, but only one or two every three years or so. We tend to troll spoons that match the fish we find in the stomachs of what we catch.

Salmo,

So, what part do they control ? Nothing below the lake, or the lake as I understand. Above is the national park, so does that come under WDFW management ?

And, doesn’t Mr. Johnstone run the steelhead hatchery operation at the lake pens ?

Gage, If you look at the QIN website, the sport winter steelhead season (with an indian guide) is from Dec.1 -January 31 with a two fish/day limit. The tribe owns the river below the lake and the lake itself. The park service has jurisdiction inside the park. I am not sure about the portion of the river from the national park down to the entrance to the upper end of the lake.

WDFW sets regs from the mouth at the top
of the lake up to the ONP boundary.
SF

WDFW, I would think, control that part of the river from the upper end of the lake to the park boundary.

It has been a long time since I was around the QIN program ( back to the Manny days ) but it does seem to work. I have noticed that most other programs be it wild or hatchery managed by the state do not work. So how I look at it is simple enough, where in Washington can you go catch Steelhead in reasonable numbers that has a wild run other than the Quinault River? That the program likely has altered the wild run genetics has to be true but it is still there and if you stopped the program in a few generations the fish will sort themselves out to the environmental conditions.

So the Nation has developed a management that allows harvest with out destroying the wild run. I doubt any solution I have seen in this thread comes close to matching its success. To the purest again, your 4 million people and 200 years late.

The Quinault started there brood stock program by catching Steelhead alive in a gill net strung from shore out on Lake Quinault. I'm not sure when they started the program but back in 2014 I was fortunate to hang out for an afternoon and witness how it worked. My nephew was friends with one of the members. During daylight hours the net would be strung out from shore and an employed tribal watchman would keep an I on the floats of the net from the 2nd story window from the holding facility building. Floats bob, rush down to boat and race out. Boat had 55g drum with water. Pull and untangle fish. If 15# or bigger, dump in barrel. If smaller release back into the lake. Then race back to shore and dump in a bag and run it up to the holding tank and dump in. Crude but effective. Like I said they only kept big fish to breed. The holding tank had 15-20 in it at that time. Many of the fish from that breeding returned big. Many pushn 20# and over. The return numbers were really good up until around 2017-18. Then numbers dropped significantly on par with what is going on everywhere now. Hence the fishing restrictions implemented the last few years. Don't know there operations now but one things for sure. Big fish breed big fish!

I recall that WDG tried something similar with Summers. Down at Skamania they spawned the 3-salt summers exclusively, intending to produce a bigger returning fish. It worked well, since saltwater age has a strong genetic component. Problem was that the returns were insufficient to replace the brood; the extra year in the ocean had too much mortality. The same will happen in Quinault; in years of low enough survival, there won't be enough making it back.

Unless you are paying to play in the hatchery creek, the Quinault fishery has taken a schit just like the rest. I can regale you with stories of how it used to be, just like all the rest above, but they would just be the same stories...used to be great, now it's not.

Fish on...

Todd

Todd please regale us, we need some great steelhead catching stories to cheer us up on this depressing pre-river-scouring raining day. Oh wait, maybe you’re not old enuff yet to really regale. One needs to be really old to regale tales of the olden daze ya know.

Not sure how old is old enough...but I caught my first steelhead in the Sammamish River in 1977...plenty of stories from there as a kid, but alas, no steelhead there any more.

Upper Quinault was not often much of a numbers game...three or four a day was a good day, but the percentage of 20+ fish in the mix was the best anywhere...the last few years that I fished it consistently the percentage of big fish hadn't changed, but catching more than a fish a day was a struggle, and there were a lot of blank days.

As per the National Park Service when they closed the area of the upper Quinault to match the WDFW closure dates...

"The 2021-22 forecast for wild steelhead in the Quinault River system is expected to be 1,756 wild steelhead, which would be among the lowest return on record. These regulation changes are being implemented in cooperation with Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife."

That's the entire Quinault system, less than 1800 wild fish.

Fish on...

Todd

Back when I was starting out, the WDG managers thought that 1 pair of steelhead per mile of stream was "enough". Maybe a few more per mile in a river. I worked on a small creek with a 7 mile anadromous zone. 14 steelhead was "adequate"?? And this was late 70s. That 1800 in the Quinault sounds like catastrophic overescapoment. Must have been. Look what higher escapements gave us.

CM has it exactly right. Just a year to two before Todd was catching his first steelhead the three legs of Washington steelhead was a fish was a fish (hatchery and wild fish were the same), sport fishing was incapable of overfishing steelhead and escapement needs were only a redd/mile. Just 5 short years after Todd had caught that first steelhead a cadre of young fisheries biologist (nearly all coming to the agency in the 1970s) had changed that management paradigm in significant was: The first hatchery/wild steelhead studies were under way (Kalama River), basic wild steelhead studies underway on Snow Creek (the creek CM referred to); basic steelhead inventories under way in key basins, large scale creel surveys to sample the recreational steelhead catch, estimate angler effort, etc. were under way, mark selective fishing (folks remember those dread "fin cards") was being implemented, hatchery spawning protocols were being altered to reduce potential hatchery/wild interactions, spawning escapement goals being established, basin wide spawning surveys were under way to measure the escapement and management was adjusted to assure that meeting those spawning objectives were being met with wild steelhead spawners all the while generally meeting the newly federal mandated catch sharing.

Many of that cadre of young biologist were certifiable steelhead nuts, most not afraid to work long hours (60-hour weeks not uncommon) many willing to donate their weekends (and fishing) to assure those tasks dedicated by the above changes were being full filled. All this was accomplished with little public support including the steelheaders themselves. Remember many hotly contested public meetings discussing such things like mark selective fishing, escapement goals, etc. that would be heavily attended with few "friendly faces" in the crowd. I remember well (and probably still have some of the well-earned scars obtained at these meetings) discussing the implementation of those previously mentioned fin cards on the Snohomish system that was attended by more than 300 folks where I could have easily counted the idea supporters on my two hands.

Of that cadre of young biologists that are still with us are now all retired drawing their "rocking chair" money now. Without a doubt there were many mistakes made; they after all were inventing a new paradigm but there can be no denying their passion and the positive steelhead responses to those changes. Clearly my bias shows but my opinion is they collective advanced the science of steelhead management and significantly improved the status of the resource. Further it remains my opinion is we the society not those biologists that failed the resource. Collective society as a whole has been unable or perhaps incapable to protect the needed fresh and marine waters ecosystems essential to support the 1980s steelhead abundance levels. It was and remains the responsibility of society not those biologists to provide that habitat protection.

End of the rant; not sorry about it.

Curt