Right with ya, Drifter. Had some back and forth emails with Region 6 regarding basically what you just said, until the conversation died off with me not having a response. The word I got from a member of Region 6 staff, and I won’t name drop although many of you can correctly guess who this was, was that this was something they were “looking at.” While this may be lip service, I’m inclined to believe this person.

The big holdup was what to do about tribal netting opportunity. Although, if there’s no rec and no tribal fishery for winter run steelhead as there was last year on the Chehalis, we’re both losing out.

Makes me wonder if treaty netters would even attempt a summer run schedule, assuming greater numbers?

Im all in for hatchery summer runs, throw in spring chinook too.

Yep, just stay happy for table scraps.

I wonder when they’ll update their 20+ year old “science” now that updated, better funded and more in-depth studies with multiple universities, state and federal agencies have found that the more hatchery fish you have, the better chance you have of not hooking a wild fish. Or that mortality isn’t anywhere near 10%. That’s not what the special interest groups want, so probably never.

I love summer runs as much as the next guy, but I’m not really a rob Paul to give to Peter kind of guy. There is no reason the state can’t fund robust hatchery plants on most of these river for both summer and winter steelhead. If they switch to summer run priority for hatchery fish (which would fly in the face of the ocean condition argument), will it be 1.6-1.8 million fish on the coast? That’s the steelhead smolt plant numbers. Those fish go back to the same ocean, according to WDFW staff, the same area and depths.

My question is…with a very impressive run of summer steelhead back to the grays harbor hatchery summer fisheries…why not expect the same for the winter returns? They lived in the same ocean and face the same conditions in the river as smolts…they have similar sports pressure (when you consider that the hatchery rivers in question on plant 65,000ish fish and less anglers total fish for them but the angler to fish is pretty close to the same).

I’d venture to say the food source is stronger on the satsop…why no summer runs there? Why the Wynoochee? I’ve never had anyone explain to me why a damned up river with from I’ve seen…far less favorable smolt condition, habitat and food…got priority.

My point is…just getting rid of winter run hatchery fish and replacing them with summer fish will likely face the same uphill battle with special interest groups, ocean conditions and the tribe won’t miss an opportunity for 50/50. 30 years from now they’ll change back to winter run…and around and around we go.

I think they just flung some random darts at the coast and whatever river it hit got summer runs. In grays harbor, they hit the humptulips and Wynoochee. The satsop is probably the best option for summers, no dams, better habitat, great access from the bank and boat. Its flip flopped…the summer fishery would be better on the satsop by far.

Oh well. I’m glad I got to get in on the steelhead fishing for what, in the grand scheme of things was a short time. I’ll be able to show my kids and certainly my grandkids someday of some really cool fish. Then I’ll take them out and catch triploids and bass.

The idea of discontinuing winter run plants in favor of planting more summer runs was discussed on here a while back. I talked to Larry Phillips (before he left WDFW) about planting just summers and he said they weren't ready to do that yet because ocean conditions might improve and the wild steelies would return in larger numbers before too many years. Good luck. I also suggested to him about starting a hatchery run of summer steelies on the Satsop and he didn't seem to be too interested in that. It sounded at the time (from Phillips ) that they were just going to keep planting winter steelhead in the rivers even though we can't harvest them. The last two years WDFW was planting excess winter steelies from Lake Aberdeen and Skookumchuck in some of the lakes in Grays Harbor to harvest them. That was a bust as they were not good biters and ended up dying in the lakes. So I am thinking that will be discontinued. But Phillips is now gone so who knows what will happen now.

The whole planting surplus winter runs in lakes thing is the poorest excuse for an "opportunity" ever. Those fish suspend in one spot, looking absolutely miserable, and they certainly aren't interested in biting. Not sure whose idea that was, but I don't think it came from anyone who ever tried to catch a winter steelhead in a lake.

If we're not going to be able to fish for them, we should stop producing hatchery winter runs altogether. There are much cheaper ways to make pet food.

I think tribal netting plays a large, if counterintuitive part in the decision thus far to keep planting winters. Without hatchery winter steelhead, the QIN can't very well have a "winter steelhead fishery" in December and January, when the same nets can also catch the far more valuable late coho. Not trying to bash anyone; I just think it might be the reality of the situation....

Having on more than one occasion tried to work my way through the morass of the WDFW organizational chart as well as the WDFW decision making chart (meaning they are not necessarily one and the same) I wonder exactly how much involvement any Regional Director has on decisions being made in his or her region.

10/24/2022



Fish committee, some Commission members and some WDFW higher ups have LOTS of authority. Hard to find list of members, probably don't want to have to answer all the emails.

Been my experience that Region Directors don't have much say so in any policy decisions.

Agreed. Seems the regional directors are just there to manage the offices, deliver bad news, and take abuse at public meetings on behalf of the real deciders. Kind of a crappy job, really... but hey, they put their hats in the ring, so....

Hey, do you have a copy/link to the Idaho study you were referencing?

Thanks,

Idaho steelhead study

10/25/2022



Might be valid for Idaho BUT, the Bolt decision we have gill netting and Wild and hatchery steelhead being sold for "dollars". IMO, until the tribes buy into the importance of Wild/native steelhead, fully protected there is NO HOPE for a return to the numbers before the Bolt rulings.

Anyone see actual numbers of "tribal caught Native/Wild and hatchery steelhead caught???? Yea, total numbers but not a breakdown, that I've ever seen......grrrrrrrr

Thanks for the link, I did see that IDFG page but no link to a report or publication. Maybe it's still in prep for publication or grey lit? Just trying to find the source info, if anyone has seen it?

Thanks,

You do know about US v OR, correct? https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/west-coas...states-v-oregon

There is treaty tribal fishing in the Columbia that would impact the fish in this study as well, at least on their migration up to the Snake.

I would say the biggest difference between the fish in the study and the coastal fish is that Snake River steelhead are all summer-run fish and they have been in freshwater for a variable but certainly longer period that any of the coastal winters when they encounter fishing gear - freshwater hardened in other words. May make a difference in mortality?

I should say that that should not have any impact on the reduced encounter rate of wild fish, when fisheries targeting hatchery fish are present.

I seriously doubt that the tribes will fully embrace a wild steelhead recovery program. As is seen in GH with Chinook the tribal view is a fish is a fish is a fish. Attitude has been expressed elsewhere.

Even if they did not sell fish their worldview is that fish are there as a food source. Not a plaything. Unless and until that worldview changes steelhead don't have a chance. And I suspect, as development advances the tribes will push for more hatcheries as their measure of success is dead fish in the boat.

I submitted comments yesterday to the draft coastal steelhead management plan. They might not have much impact, but it was cathartic at least. My comments are here if anyone is interested or can answer questions:

I’d like to start by thanking you for taking a science-based approach to planning for coastal steelhead seasons and working to ensure escapement goals are met, as well as taking steps to improve the transparency and communication with the public during planning. Please continue working with our co-managers to prioritize the health of our steelhead and temporarily halt harvest of wild steelhead when escapement goals are not on track to be met. This is far preferred to the refusal of the BC/Canadian government to protect steelhead runs for political reasons. Their approach has resulted in once-massive runs being on the brink of extinction, and of course complete sport-fishing closures which may never be lifted. It’s much better to make unpopular decisions now so we can have good steelhead runs in the future.

I do have several questions and concerns to raise with your draft of the plan, primarily on section 12.2 which lays out your process for escapement-based pre-season planning.

First, step two of the process says, “The portion of total allowable mortality for wild steelhead allotted to the recreational fishery is then determined by subtracting indirect impacts (i.e., poaching, and other fisheries, including fall coho and spring Chinook) from the total allowable mortality”. Are you including tribal in-river netting target steelhead in the “indirect impacts” number? Or should the first sentence say “The portion of total allowable mortality for wild steelhead allotted to the recreational and tribal fisheries is…” If you’re including tribal steelhead fisheries in the indirect portion, indirect is a misleading term, since there’s nothing which more directly impacts wild steelhead adult spawning numbers. I’d recommend you label it as “other impacts” instead. Regardless of how you label it, how are the allowable impacts being split between tribal and recreational users? I recommend it be split 50/50, per the Boldt decision. But I assume tribal fisheries will use foregone opportunity and harvest greater than 50% on systems with strong run predictions, rather than allowing returns to exceed minimum escapement.

Next, in step 7, what is included in “emergency fisheries regulations”? Are bait bans and single barbless hooks part of that, or are those considered normal, baseline regulations? I assume the no fishing out of boats and early closures (prior to the normal 31 March or 15 April dates) are considered an “emergency fisheries regulations”. The way this plan is written says that emergency regulations like these will only be implemented if the projected impacts from recreational fishing are enough to result in an under-escapement. I don’t think this was the case last year or will be this year on the Quillayute system, so I’m confused why the boat ban was still implemented last year and is being discussed this year.

Even though I usually hike in ONP for steelhead and am personally benefitted by guides and other anglers catching fewer steelhead downstream, I’m firmly against any ban of fishing from boats on any system the co-managers are harvesting steelhead. It doesn’t pass the common sense test that tribal fishers can legally kill hundreds or thousands of steelhead in gillnets, but sport fishers aren’t allowed to catch and release any steelhead out of a boat using a single barbless hook. Recent studies have shown steelhead catch and release mortality is significantly less than 10%, and the boat ban is not necessary and unfairly benefits certain user groups like fly fishers while punishing conventional fishers and those with disabilities or too old to wade and fish. Please use other alternatives to limit impact when necessary, and don’t give fishermen another reason for in-fighting with each other and being upset with WDFW by unfairly catering to special interest groups.

Step nine says “If multiple emergency actions enable fisheries impacts to remain within allowable limits, those options are presented to the public at Coastal Steelhead Townhall Meetings to gauge public preference.” This is a good start to collecting inputs, but it is insufficient and could be biased for a number of reasons. You might run out of time for everyone to state their opinion at the town hall, some people might not be comfortable speaking in that forum or might not be available, a vocal minority may show up in force and give you a skewed representation of what the general fishing population wants, and non-fishers could also attend and provide inputs on fisheries decisions. I suggest you do a poll or voting system and only allow license holders to take it, or at least have somewhere to submit written comments.

On a final note, will there ever be any studies or other action done to validate and adjust escapement goals for each system? You are being relatively agile with adjusting your pre-season and in-season plans based on the latest data, but it seems like escapement goals are fixed for all time. The current escapement goals for steelhead, as well as salmon, on coastal rivers are far lower than historic run sizes, even though rivers like the Queets and Hoh are largely protected and have excellent habitat. The assumptions made for river smolt carrying capacity when the escapements were set have not been adequately validated. The policy of maximum sustainable yield is a failure and continues to result in declining runs. It guarantees continued scarcity of runs by allowing co-managers to over-harvest. Managing to such low numbers is risky from a conservation standpoint, because there’s really no buffer or margin remaining in the event of over-harvest due to over-prediction of return sizes. In addition, SARs have declined since escapement numbers were set, so escapement should at a bare minimum be increased to offset for that. Failure to do that will result in continued downward trends in run size, unless SARs somehow improve back to where they were. Also, without working to increase the overall productivity of river systems by allowing many more salmon and steelhead to return, spawn and die in rivers, you will continually be one down cycle in the ocean away from being in dire conservation status. MSY doesn’t work. Even if court decisions currently force you to manage using MSY, we have far more science now than was available at the time of the decision, and as fisheries managers you should make a recommendation to re-visit that and try some better options to manage our irreplaceable anadromous runs. At least try it on one system and see what happens. If you can run a pathfinder program and it results in a healthier river and larger return numbers, and eventually more opportunities for tribal and sport harvest, other tribes will get on board.

There is an additional issue with how O. mykiss are managed in freshwater. When the escapement goals were developed there was the assumption that the very vast majority of juvenile mykiss in the anadromous zone were steelhead. Since then, we know that resident and anadromous are the same fish and that the decision to smolt has a huge ecosystem (temperature, flow, productivity) components. So, as FW conditions change in favor of residents we can have streams full of mykiss juveniles and not have very many anadromous adults.

There is lots of research and monitoring (do we even have revert juvenile standing stock data?) necessary to properly manage mykiss.

Makes me wonder if their decision to become anadromous is based more on avoiding bad river conditions (extremely hot and dry summers, lack of food,) or more on genuinely taking the “high risk, high reward” opportunity that the ocean provides.

While I don't have the ability read fish minds, I do think that the decision to migrate is a response to low flows, high temperatures, low productivity. In at least some situations, when flows are increased, streams cooled, and productivity bumped up mykiss stays home.

That is why the observation in western WA that setting decent fall flows for spawning benefits salmon but not steelhead because the water used to increase the flows is generally cooler and we still starve streams for nutrients.

These fish with a brain the size of a pea aren't really making a decision to be resident or anadromous. Their body decides for them. According to some recent research, the age, size, and body lipid values they achieve affects their behavior to remain in the river or to migrate. It is the behavioral "choice" that is acted upon by the environment. Environmental conditions influence subsequent reproductive success. What we were used to seeing were environmental conditions that favored anadromy, meaning that the mykiss that adopted a migratory life history ended up experiencing higher reproductive success than their resident counterparts.

We have seen in some rivers, most particularly the Cedar (Lk WA), where the anadromous life history has resulted in very poor SAR and therefore, very low reproductive success. During the same time period, resident, and particularly adfluvial, rainbow trout have experienced higher reproductive success. So for the past 20 years resident rainbow trout have been the dominant mykiss type present in the Cedar River.

This also has significant implications for hatchery management. If steelhead juveniles are fed too much in the hatchery, they become resident rainbow trout upon release. They lose the instinct to migrate to the ocean, so they never leave the watershed (i.e., fat, dumb, and happy).

And, if we’re also raising and releasing fall Chinook (sub-yearings) in the same watershed (which is not unusual), those hatchery resident rainbow trout will consume large numbers of those Chinook subs. So hatchery managers need to raise and release their steelhead production to ensure they become steelhead, not resident rainbow trout. It’s an issue of size-at-release, and release timing.