Fish the nooch today with a buddy, not expecting to catch much but we did real well.
We bank fished the lower river, between the two of us we hooked six fish but only managed to land two, one about six and the other about twelve, the ones lost were in the ten to low teen range. Is anyone catching any fish in the upper river? Any info would be helpful. I'm curious, how come we can't keep natives on the chehalis system but the indians can? Look up the fish and game site and look at the indians netting schedule and you'll see they are netting the chehalis one day a week. They'll kill more natives fish in one day than the sportman will kill in a month. Believe me I know I'm a commercial fishermen in Alaska and i've been doing it for twenty years. Give the indians more casinos and ban all Gillnets!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Look how the fisheries on the Sacramento have rebounded. GOOD LUCK AND FISH ON!!!!!!!!!!!!! Practice C&R

thats great
Man I have not heard of anyone catching any thing decent out of there all year. My dad floated the upper part and he said one dark one and thats it but its good to see that some one can get some fish out of that river

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work is for people who dont know how to fish

Havent you seen all the no fish reports on the Nooch?

Thats why you cant keep Wild steelhead anymore. wasnt too long ago that it was pretty good just like the Hump and others. Now none of theese rivers are any good. To many selfish fisherman.

I get tired of people blaming just the indians. Yes, currently they are the biggest factor. But it wasnt too long ago when sports fisherman almost made the same impact. Just look back about six years at the WDFW steelhead catch records and you will see.

The sad thing is that even with what we know today the majority of guys out there would bonk everything they cought, if they could. Some do even if they cant.

The question should not be how come I cant keep wild steelhead. It should be why can you still keep them in some places.

After all the takeing weve done its time to give back.

Steelie dave,

Not pokeing at you, just venting.

Rich G. We all need to vent sometime. Your right, we need to release all wild steelhead on all rivers in the state, that includes gillnets also. We need more hatchery steelhead (sportmen can do their catch and kill)(let the indians catch more hatchery fish to offset the money they'll lose on the wild fish)Then have only catch&release on the native fish on all the rivers also. Then we can have (maybe) a decent C&R fishery again in five to ten years. Your right about the sportmen five or six years and beyond, we did kill alot of native fish and that was to bad but know we can do something about it. We can all sit and ***** about the fishing but nothings gonna change unless we do something about it now. Your last two sentences on your reply were pretty cool!!!!!!!!!!! FISH ON!!!

Rich G. We all need to vent sometime. Your right, we need to release all wild steelhead on all rivers in the state, that includes gillnets also. We need more hatchery steelhead (sportmen can do their catch and kill)(let the indians catch more hatchery fish to offset the money they'll lose on the wild fish)Then have only catch&release on the native fish on all the rivers also. Then we can have (maybe) a decent C&R fishery again in five to ten years. Your right about the sportmen five or six years and beyond, we did kill alot of native fish and that was to bad but know we can do something about it. We can all sit and complain but nothings gonna change unless we do something about it now. Your last two sentences on your reply were pretty cool!!!!!!!!!!! FISH ON!!!

If you really want to educate yourselves and understand the reasons for the decline of wild steelhead and salmon I challenge all of you to read Salmon Without Rivers by Jim Lichatowich.

Seems to me with the low returning rate of both hatchery fish and nates. It would only stand to reason that the nets do cause grave damage, But more importantly the streams are only producing a very small amount of fertilization compared to years ago when mass amounts of fish spawned in the rivers, the decaying carcusess are very important for the entire eco-system, Which turns out to be future food for the young steelhead and salmon in the river until they Journey to the Ocean.. We need to start taking all the salmon carcusses form the hatcheries and distribut them to the river system. And then watch and see the return rates start to climb. Stream fertilazation should be major part of any club... Just my thoughts. And I have had my best year on the Nooch this year.. Good Luck and look at it RAIN..

steely i was on the lower river sat too. did you run into the game wordens. they snuck up on us and watched us from the bushes. great to see those guys out there its a long walk in. i would like to see them out ther all the time. i guess about two weeks ago there was a bunch of snagers on the hole we were fishing. did i run into you i was there with my kid 13 and my friend. we where jig fishing.

That Guy, no we didn't run into each other.
But I talked to some people who say the game warden was on the prowl,that's good because us guys who fish by the rules have nothing to worry about and the ones who don't watch out. That Guy did you catch anything? Where my buddy and I were fishing the bite didn't happen til about 9:30. I also caught one fish on a bobber, That was the first time in about 5 years. We spotted a couple of fish and could't get to them with drift gear. So I guess a bobber comes in handy. After the one fish on the bobber no more were caught on the bobber so I switched back to drift gear and preceded to hook three more only landing one.
I hope none of my friends on the cowlitz read this and find out I used a bobber because I'll never hear the end of it. Rivers are dropping and hopefully the steelhead will fall too. FISH ON !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nice day hooking steelhead Dave. And those were indeed steelhead, not your imagination as some 'Nooch guys want people to think. While I agree wholeheartedly with C&R only on nates, and getting rid of all gillnets, I still become amused at how these fishing BB's are being used in manipulative ways. Some of the posts after your good fishing day post were for "damage control" to thwart the competition from showing up. The smarter guys will know this. If you know how to catch steelhead there are enough there to catch.

Even if every nate caught by a sports fisherman for the last 20 years were released, we would be in the same situation we're in now. Sportsman are responsible for less than 1% of the decline of our native runs. It's the gillnets in the rivers and the gill nets in the salt water that is the problem. Get the gill nets out and every sportsman could keep their limit of natives (should they choose to) and the size of the run would continue to grow. Implementing full C&R will have no impact at all. A small percentage of released fish still die, that is a fact, a much larger percentage of released natives get caught in gill nets. I think many of the people that do keep natives do so because they think they might as well keep it because if it's released some indian will end up selling it for 15 cents a pound. It's hard to avoid that mentality. I've fished the Hoh several times and have seen gill nets strung completely accross the mouth of some creeks and streams that run into the Hoh. How is a released native supposed to get past that to spawn? Again it goes back to rights. As long as Indians have the right to retain natives, so should everyone else. It should be up to the individual to make the right choice.

[This message has been edited by WA fisher (edited 03-20-2001).]

WA fisher,

If you're keeping natives, you're PART of the problem. It's really as simple as that. You have no control over the tribes. You have complete control over yourself. Even given the fact that our native steelhead runs are in decline, some guys can't seem to let them go. That's why the C&R rules are put into place.

Any steelhead you kill has NO chance of spawning. Every steelhead you release has SOME chance of spawning. Are you saying that the world, and the fish, are better off if you just kill it now so it's sure not to wind up in a net? Think about what you're saying.

Once again, YOU HAVE NO CONTROL OVER THE TRIBES. It's already been to the Supreme Court, there's nowhere else to appeal it. Your fishing seasons will be long gone before the tribes are EVER required to pull their nets. For that reason alone, you should be releasing EVERY native steelhead, to better ensure your ability to fish. Otherwise you're just one contributing factor in the decline of the runs. Why not be a factor in their recovery, rather than a factor in their demise?

Using your logic, I'll draw an analogy:
Private Smith lands on the beach at Normandy. He dodges machinge-gun fire, mortar rounds, land-mines, and a bevy of German troops all gunning for him. Due to Pvt. Smith's strength, speed, and sheer luck he somehow breaks through the lines and reaches the French countryside. As he wanders past a farm-house, the French farmer (whose country has been invaded by the Germans) pokes his rifle out the window and shoots Pvt. Smith dead.

Why?

Because the farmer knows there are many German troops ahead of Private Smith, and he'll be better off dead now.

Now, does that make any sense? Is the farmer better off? Is Pvt. Smith better off?

Maybe this example isn't perfect, because the farmer probably wasn't interested in eating Pvt. Smith, but it's still close. Sure, the farmer only killed one soldier, and the Germans killed thousands, but that doesn't help our unfortunate Private.

It's not that hard to let them go. I just like fishing better than the fish itself. Now, it's time to go after the consumers of these netted native steelhead. Ending the supply hasn't seemed to work, it's time to cut the demand.

Fish on..........

I'm not trying to promote C&K. I'm just saying that it's completely bogus to even imply sport fishing has contributed to the decline of the runs. I also stand by my belief that it's wrong to harass people who do decide to keep a nate on a river where it's legal to do so because that run isn't close to being endangered. I've repeatedly said I've never kept a native but have no qualms with those who do. It's their right. I just want to see blame going in the right direction. It's not sportsmen, it's not habitat, it's gillnets whether they be tribal (in rivers) or commercial (in salt water). You might as well say sport fishing is responsible of for the near total decline of the bottom fish population in Puget Sound. Are you saying that because a ling cod is endangered in some areas, and I catch one in an area where they're not endangered, I should let it go? That just doesn't make sense.

Hey, I thought this post was about fishing the Nooch, not keeping nates???? I musta missed something.

Hey Dan, that was one helluva reply. I give it a double thumbs up. Very creative, but I'd prefer Private Ryan, leads to that whole movie deal. But, it was a great analogy. You actually hit the head on the nail. You never know, maybe the French had a ration on meat so he wanted some fresh off the boat american steaks???? But nonetheless, great post!!!!!!!!!!

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you haven't lived til you've rowed a cataraft. Friends don't let friends run Outcasts.

Ill tell ya whats bogus!

Anybody who says that sport fishing does or has not played a role in the decline of wild salmon and steeelhead is full of it and dosent know his facts.

If you want proof just look at the graph on the WDFW site that shows the 20 year harvest both sport and native american. Or you can look at the catch records before 97 that gives both Sport and Native American harverst for each river system.

We were right up there with the netts. We may not play as big of a role now but we did then.

The WDFW's numbers are far from accurate. According to them, the sportsman caught over 60,000 sockey in Lake Washington last year in the 2 week season. In order for that number to be accurate, there would have had to be twice as many boats fishing as there were and they would all have to catch their limit every single day. This was far, far from the truth. Not only were their numbers screwed for the amount of boats that were fishing, but very few people were actually limiting. Boats with 4 people in them would catch 3 fish. A limit? Not even close. The state tries to be so politically correct that they won't tell the truth. One gillnet will kill more steelhead in one day than 100 sportsman. What the state does is assume everyone is catching and keeping their limit. Anybody who says that sportfishing has played a role in the decline of wild salmon and steelhead is full of it and doesn't know his facts. How can one person who is allowed to keep 2 fish (assuming he even hooks, let alone lands 2 fish) can have as much impact as a gillnet that catches many, many times that amound.

How many more sportfishers are there than gillnets? You just can't think in terms on you alone. Until we stop thinking "me first" the problem will never be solved. And that is truly sad.

There are a lot more sportsmen than gillnets, however, gillnets do kill many times more fish than sportsmen. You have to figure that even on a good day, sportsmen are still more likely to get skunked than catch a steelhead. A single gillnet will kill more steelhead than every sportsmen on a river combined, and that's assuming that every sportsman kills every fish they catch. To give you an example, I was on the Frasier River last fall salmon fishing, the day was slow and no one was catching anything (there were about 30 people on the same bar) some Indians ran over in a boat, dropped one guy off on the bank and drug a sein net right where we were trying to fish. They pulled the net in, and on the first pull, caught 40 fish. We just left at that point, but that single net, caught more fish than our entire group did in 3 days fishing. Go figure, eh?

Every fish to have made it Past the gilnets is your Fishing Future... They are considered escapement, Left alone or caught and released they will Spawn and Contribute to your fishing and the commerical and tribal gilneting for years to come... If we get so caught up in what the next door neighbor is doing and not doing our part for the future then there will be none. We can't totally focus on what the nets are doing, but what we can do to the fish that have made it through. Please release our future

Well said, Yarf.

In the here and now, we can only control our own actions. That's not to say we can't also try to get the nets out of the water, but we can certainly control our own actions. What every other group is doing to these native fish is of no consequence to our own actions. Why whack a nate because "everybody else is doing it"? We don't need the "if everyone jumped off a bridge...." explanation, do we?

Our fishing future depends on preserving these runs. That's done by working to enhance the environment, provide food items for smolts, reducing demand for native steelhead, and releasing any natives you may be fortunate enough to catch. The tribal netting is irrelevant to the need for US to release native fish.

The "healthy" native runs are only healthy NOW. Keep killing them and they won't be healthy for long. You wanna be part of the problem because the WDFW (not know for good decision-making in the past) says it's OK? Go ahead. But don't expect me to chime in on bagging on the tribes for netting, while some of us are killing wild steelhead, too. Hello, pot. Meet the kettle.

Enough rambling now, I have some gear maintenance to do..........

Fish on...........

I think Yarf'em hit on a very important point. If nutrients are introduced into the streams perhaps the carring capacity for juveniles would be increased. If this happens the escapemant could be raised and over time the dead fish would replace the need for planting dead fish? I heard that a capsule has been developed already for increasing nutrients instream. One capsule is equal to one fish but of course it's pricey.

Hey Dan,
don't be too sure the farmer didn't intend to eat Pvt. Smith. He was French after all.

Well said Dan. Right on! - Steve

It seems like we're all forgetting that much of this issue has to do with principle. I'll explain: for the moment, the tribes are going to net because it's their right. The first step toward amending that is taking care of our end of the deal. Bottom line is that the tribes kill fish but so do sportsmen. As long as we are killing fish yet criticizing the tribes for doing the same thing, we're being hypocritical. When statewide catch-and-release of all nates goes into effect, we'll be in a position to criticize the tribes. It's really as simple as that. I don't believe any wild steelhead should die, and the commercial slaughter appauls me. But we can't begin fixing the problem there. We start by releasing all the natives WE catch. It's amazing how simple it really is.

A native steelhead is a fish. Just like any other. It's not a holy grail. If they're not endangered in a river, there is no reason to impose full C&R. Why not impose full C&R on ling cod? They're endangered in some areas. How about halibut and sturgeon? Once a fish is endangered, sure, go C&R, but until then, there's no reason to force people who food fish or trophy fish, to let them go.

Also, people who say sportsmen are as guilty as tribes are either full of it, or stupid. Let's say that there were no nets. Now, let's say that every sportsman kills 2 nates every time they fish (which we know will never happen). Even under those circumstances, the runs would flourish. With the amount of fish that would be returning, the sportsman could not keep enough (legally) to harm the runs at all. Now, get rid of the sportsmen, and put the nets back in. The runs would decline. Why is that? Because nets kill far more fish than sportsmen. If it was full C&R, that would mean the tribes could catch more. The treaties give them 50% of harvestable fish. Let's say that 100 harvestable fish enter a system. They would be able to harvest 50 of them and sportsmane the remaining 50. Now, sportsman have never caught their 50% (it's not a right for us) so we'll say we caught 30 fish. The remaining 20 can now go and spawn with the rest of the fish. Go full time C&R, and the tribes will now be able to target all 100 fish. With nets, they will probably be able to catch them all, if not, there will be much fewer that will make it to spawn. I hope my analogy makes sense as I'm in a hurry and don't have time to explain.

[This message has been edited by WA fisher (edited 03-26-2001).]

fisher,

OK, I'm only going to say this once more, because any more than that would be a waste of the earth's oxygen.

The tribes' right to fish has been guaranteed by the treaties. This has been appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. You aren't going to stop them from fishing using any legal maneuvering. Cutting the demand, and therefore, the price of this fish is one alternative method that MIGHT work.

If you kill wild fish and then bag on the tribes for killing fish, you are a hypocrite. If you release wild fish, and bag on the tribes, then at least you are justified in your opinion.

Face it, you're a meat-fisherman. If it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck......... That's fine with me, but I think your support for such a position will be sparse on this BB.

How can you call me a meat fisher when I've never kept a nate? I just think people that choose to should be able to, therefore, I'm against mandatory C&R.

So let me get this straight, you see no difference from a sportsman keeping a fish to feed his/her family and tribal fisherman who kill everything that swims in their net, sell it for under $1 a pound or put the rest to waste? I see a big difference. I would have far less problems with the tribes if I knew they were fishing to feed their tribe/family like they did traditionally. But 2 hundred years ago, they did not sell their catch to the Pike Place Market for $.80 a pound. They did not catch thousands of salmon, strip the eggs out of the hens and leave them to rot on the beach so they could sell the eggs to the Japanese. I see a huge difference between this behavior and a sportsman who wants to keep a fish for the BBQ. And since you said nothing contradicting my last argument, I'm assuming you didn't even read it. Anyone who says that sportsman are to blame for the decline of steelhead runs doesn't know their facts. I suppose we are also to blame for the decline of true cod in Puget Sound? Those bottom draggers had nothing to do with the situation did they?

Ok people, sharpen your pencils.
Lets say 500 fish return to a river.The tribes are entitled to half. So, divide 500 by 2. Subtract another modest 25 fish killed from whatever. Now, take the surviving percentage that are females that will deposit eggs & the number of eggs per hen that survive silt, sun, pollution, lack of nutrients & the flood years. Subtract the smolt that don't survive the trip to the ocean because of pollution, poor habitat & predators. Do the same process 25 times to represent the last quarter century.
Anyone from the WDFW reading this is more than welcome jump right in there with facts showing that this is anything but a downward spiral.

In fairness to the Tribes, I must point out that they have been short changed, to say the least, by the government. They've been lied too & stolen from. I don't believe the government has ever honored a treaty that has not remained in their own best interest.
Most of us would want to hold on to what precious little was left us under similar circumstance. But, that's another story. (sorry, almost went off )
However, they would probably make more money guiding tourists on rivers with healthy runs.