how long was it open above 101 before it got shut down? Seems like people were fishing Morrison Park in August?

the Chehalis opened above 101 bridge on MAY 1! so it was open for months before it closed.

f4b

So, being open for months means what? OPPORTUNITY only. The run was depleted before it got there. That is why the river closed. Do you think the in-river recs caught so many that they had to close it down? What color is the sky in world you live in?

Soap Box: If there were real time reporting of some kind, these posts would not be necessary. We would have a lot more information to go on.

Hey guys we have a Springer season. Inland also has summer fisheries also but have little impact into the fall numbers. This thing where bay fishers and inriver toss the hand grenade back and forth is childish f4b. That last year inriver had some impact but not much above tidewater in fact it was mostly South Monte. The GHMP has allowable impacts for both so it ends up that staff really screwed up last year just anyway you cut it. The fact is as the numbers crashed it was the NT Nets that were the final nail in the coffin not the bay. Staff screwed the pooch and just ran for cover when it hit the fan and in fact violated the GHMP in the process. Not their best moment to be sure.

Harvest (at any cost) Management should have taken notice that the Chehalis Basin's coho were missing.
Even the charter boats out of Westport were running South to find some catchable numbers.

This is the point that really frustrates me. They knew by July the fish weren't coming in anything close to the numbers forecast, yet they took absolutely zero corrective action before it was way too late. Makes it pretty clear what drives Region 6 fish management, and it also points out that the Co-Managers don't give a flying $hit about conservation. There really is no sense in sugar coating that.

Here's your Grays Harbor fishing forecast for the forseeable future:

If the runs exceed expectations, everyone will catch lots of fish. Otherwise, the gillnets will be the only ones to catch fish. (All forecasts assume salmon have not yet been driven to extinction.)

Any bets on when we'll see a proposal to lower the coho e-goals?

Right after they finish screwing Chum over which is underway. One could say the goal is to develop a more accurate methodology but history says nope as it usually results in a new MSY escapement goal. Remember Chinook being lowered last year.

From the GHMP draft of 2015 review.

Implemented project to evaluate Grays Harbor Chum escapement methodology.
Project shared with QIN

There should be an independent technical review of the spawner/recruit data and resulting escapement goals. No competent independent statistician would support the manner in which they beat the data into submission to get the answer they want.

Even an indépendant review would be worthless unless one first defined what the exact goal is supposed to be.

In one AK system, the coho are managed at a 60% harvest rate that has shown itself to be rather sustainable. But, the annual run will vary based on pink escapement. At no pinks, the run is about 16-1700; at 2 kilos of pinks per square metre the run in 8-10,000 or more. What should the MSY goal be? If, as is the case here in WA where all escapement levels are 5-10% of pre-fish the [Bleeeeep!] out the run levels, you would set the MSY goal in the AK stream at about 700. On the other hand, if you wanted to maximize the coho harvest (but significantly reduce pink) you could set it at 2-3,000 plus a boatload of pinks.

Same here. We are dealing with systems that are way under seeded, in habitat that could be improved, with oceans that are also being heavily harvested for the forage fish. So, before we can really set any escapement goal we have to look at how we want to manage the whole ecosystem-and then follow through.

If we insist, for example, in further lowering the chum escapement in WB and GH then we can follow that up with lowering coho.

When it comes to e-goals, MSY is king. The problem with the MSY mantra is that no matter how $hitty the runs get, there's ALWAYS a theoretic mathematical "sustainable" MSY spawner escapement.

How does it play out in real life? History suggests that less begets less.

Does anyone really think we're gonna harvest our way to recovery for any of these depleted runs?

This came from Barbara at R-6 and is the newly appointed & reappointed Willapa Advisers.


Willapa Bay Salmon Advisory Group 2016-2017



Name City Interest Affiliations Experience
Marlisa Dugan Roy FW Sport Past WB Advisor
Lance Gray Chinook Commercial WB Gillnetters Assc. Past WB Advisor
Andy Mitby Grayland Commercial WB Gillnetters Assc. Past WB Advisor
Jack Hollingsworth Aberdeen Commercial WB Gillnetters Assc. Past WB Advisor
Norman Reinhardt Port Orchard Sport Kitsap Poggie Club Past WB Advisor
Francis Estalilla Aberdeen Sport Past WB Advisor
Tim Hamilton Mcleary Conservation Twin Harbors Advocacy Past WB Advisor
Paul Philpot Raymond Economic Pacific County EDC Past WB Advisor
Jack Berryman Bay Center Sport Wild Steelhead Coalition New Advisor
Tom Petersen Tokeland Commercial WB Gillnetters Assc. New Advisor
Steve Boerner Cosmopolis Sport New Advisor
Greg McMillan Long Beach Commercial WB Gillnetters Assc. New Advisor

What seems to fly-by folks is that MSY escapement is on the order of (say) 20% of what it was pre-Euro-American fisheries commenced. Now, if you harvest one resource down that far, it may work. But if you remember from the ecology the transfer of energy from one level to the next is like 10%. Now, we harvest the lower levels of the food chain (crabs, shrimp, clams, herring sardines, anchovies) down and then are surprised when the system supports fewer predators (salmon).

Then, to muck it up more, we try to "restore" the salmon predators like whales, seals, and birds.

Simply put, if you want a lot of salmon you will have to have enough food to seed them and the appropriate number of predators to eat them. You can't manage a single species by ignoring all the others. Well, actually you can because that is what we are doing so successfully.

All well and good. But you dont reduce escapement on an obviously over depleted stock using bogus data and math just because you cant meet escapement. The data they are using are crap. Let a few more back like Oregon did, and see if the runs increase as Oregons chinook did. Take your foot off the gas pedal, co-managers.

Well, in the 70's WDF published a report on how well PS salmon management was going. One example was Chinook. At that time they had the twin problems on some streams of hatchery surplus and not meeting wild escapement. The solution, which they bragged about, was to lower lower the wild goal and fish harder. The result was that they could hit the lower goal and reduce the surpluses.

They just keep on keeping on.

Now for something totally different. If any of you guys are out and about the river below South Monte slow down and look for the gulls. Every year we have rather large schools of bait fish move up and hang out in tide water. Well this year is something else. Above and below Higgins Island we have hundreds of gulls feeding on the bait fish and this has been going on for three days. We always have this but the sheer number of the gulls is amazing and it is one dive one fish. They have gorged themselves to the point they are resting on the the old log dump pilings then back at it. If I had my old throw net I would take a shot at getting what species the bait fish are but one thing about it this is the largest push I have seen in years.

Maybe smelt?

Some video would be cool to see.

Not maybe smelt.......but real smelt........Is it legal to dip???? Might have to put the net back on my long handle "smelt dippers", if it is.........

Grays Harbor is a big time anchovy nursery. Never heard of anchovies moving up a river, but I never asked.... probably smelt, though....

See any sturgeon swirling about in the area? I bet that's a neat sight....

You know I am clueless as to what they are. The Anchovies are my bet but conversation says smelt also moved in so your guess. Now a inboard is out puttering around and looking at the river ( could be state or tribal or not ) but they are a little late. The schools move back and forth with the tide so we have a pause until slack as it seems they really show when the tide turns to outgoing then you really get to see it.

Missed the Sturgeon thing. Nope no see but you just about have to be on the river to see them. They will be around though as any time you have birds and bait fish they are waiting for a meal !

I have seen sky-carp gorging on smelt in the lower Cedar River. That is what they are probably after in the Chehalis. Different species, probably eulachon, but same idea for the gulls; lots to eat.

Obviously have to open a fishery as there must be a significant surplus if the gulls are congregating to feed. IF sturgeon were open................