Unbeknowst to the majorities of many sportfisherman is the fact that the foriegn trawlers that sit outside the so called 200 mile line of of international waters have come inside the line during the night and taken in hundreds of thousands of our native Spring Chinook....#1 reason why the runs are so damn low this Spring! It makes me mad as hell that this contiues to happen.
Then in turn their Foriegn freighters are waiting outside the 200 mile line to quickly CAN the salmon and export their illegal takings to markets around the world.
Alot of thoughts and ideas in how to curtail this illegal and damaging activity but nothing seems to ever work....I'm pissed but feel a lil better in getting this off my chest!

Wow, never even knew anything about that... Where did you get the info or insight? Probably should have the F-15's cruising a little further off the shore line...
Keith

MacSteely,

Do you honestly think that is really the case?
My understanding is that chinook migrate closer to shore than the other salmon species. These trawlers would have to be coming in as close as a couple of miles. I highly doubt that the Coast Guard would be oblivious to this occurring. If this were really the case, did it just start this year? How would you explain the excellent returns we had lasr year? It is an interesting theory, but I will remain skeptical until presented with positive evidence to that fact.

stlhdr1

This would make for a heck of a work out in a drift boat.

Hey, don't we have a lot of fast attack subs just itchin' for something to do since the Cold War came to an end?

Just an idea.

There are certainly documented cases every year of foreign fishing boats targeting all sorts of fish off our coast. The ocean is a big place so it is impossible to judge exactly how big the problem is, but we know it happens. A report I read indicated the most violations are found in the central Pacific islands or at least thats where we catch them. Not for salmon though. The most salmon violations are found in Alaska where it is much easier to find salmon.

The difficulty I have in your theory is that I doubt that these boats would have as much sucess targeting Spring Chinook bound for Washington rivers. Those particular fish make up such a small percentage of the salmon present in the ocean at any one time that I would think it would be difficult to isolate them, unless these boats have learned to track this particular run of fish, also unlikely.

4Salt,
When chinook enter the ocean they go in all directions, depending on the strain and where they're from.. We might not see the impact on our fish but AK or OR or CA might... That's including fall fish too of course. Most chinook go out across the pacific and make a loop north around the base of SE AK and back down to here and each loop makes for about a years travel, at least that's what a Fisheries teacher taught me in college...
Keith

i was watching some channel, but it had the washington fish and game on it and they had said, that the fish coming out of the columbia, go up to alaska and circle back, and thats what the whole commotion about canadians versus the american commercial fisherman were fighting about, they were complaining about the canadians catching columbian river chinook on there return to there rivrs..jus my input, but no doubt about the foreign fisherman, like the russian mob makes tons of cash fishing illegally. **berkley boy**

Mac, I don't know where you got your information about this but it is some what correct. I am not sure this is why there is a decline in the springer population but it could be a small percentage. You have to realize that there are US and Foreign flagged vessels vishing in the EEZ legally and Illegally today. What you are talking about is the "Magnuson Act", which says:

The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act is the governing authority for all fishery management activities that occur in federal waters within the United States 200 nautical mile limit, or Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

Originally passed and signed into law in 1976, the Magnuson Act, as it was then called, established the U.S. 200 nautical mile limit and by implication legitimized a 200 nautical mile EEZ for all other maritime nations. It also created a system for the monitoring and management of the fish stocks in these waters and set in motion a process that eventually "Americanized" the fisheries, allowing American vessels and companies to take over harvesting and processing from the fleets of other nations.

The National Marine Fisheries Service - a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the U.S. Department of Commerce - became the lead agency for managing the new fishery. To provide a forum for state, industry and public participation, the Magnuson Act set up a system of regional fishery management councils. For the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska, the management body is the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC).

Following a lengthy public process, the NPFMC writes fishery management plans for the fishery under its jurisdiction and sets the levels of total allowable catch in the fishery. The management plans are either approved or rejected for cause by the Secretary of Commerce. Once approved, NMFS carries them out and the U.S. Coast Guard provides enforcement.

The Magnuson Act requires the U.S. Congress to periodically review or "reauthorize" the Magnuson Act to keep it current and to address new or persisting fishery management and conservation problems.

Initially advocates for the community development quota program tried to have Congress install the program in the 1989 reauthorization of the Magnuson Act. Though they were unsuccessful, some in Congress encouraged them to try to implement a program through the NPFMC process. The NPFMC did so and adopted the Western Alaska Community Development Quota Program in 1991 as an addition to a fishery management plan.

Program advocates and participants, however, still wanted CDQs explicitly authorized in the Magnuson Act. As then-NPFMC member Clem Tillion said in 1995 testimony before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Fisheries and Oceans, "Adding community language to the act will simply remove any concern a lawyer in (Washington) D.C. may have over our ability to do what we're already doing."

When Congress reauthorized the Act in September 1996, they renamed it the Magnuson-Stevens Act and it included several CDQ-related provisions.

Divers-
Very informative info. but speaks very little about the inforcement of illegal takings. If the Coast Guard is the sole enforcement of making sure all maritime countries abide by the rulings then we are either neglecting our duties or just to thin to cover such a vast area-$$ costs? I think the later is the situation we have inherited.
Question....do the Maritime countries help fund the Coast Guard or is this the sole $$ responsibility of the U.S.?
Bottom line is we have a major problem when you compare the runs of the past to this years run- something is way out of whack!!!

Stlhdr1,

Obviously chinook migrate throughout the north Pacific during the saltwater phase of their life cycle, so I guess it would be safe to assume that your college courses did indeed pay off. I was referring specifically to Columbia river spring chinook on the final leg of their spawning journey. It is my understanding that they, as well as the fall chinook, follow the coastline to the mouth of the Columbia river. In order for the trawlers to target these particular fish, they would have to fish much closer than the 200 mile limit. Like Mike Gilchrist pointed out above, what are the odds that this trawler fleet knows the EXACT migration route, and is able to specifically target Columba river springers without the Coast Guard being aware of these activities. I have no doubt that salmon are targeted in illegal high seas trawl fisheries. I was adressing the theory that they were able to significantly impact this years springer return.

4Salt,
It is a large ocean so who really knows the fish that they are catching.. But I don't see how they could make a large impact on one strain of fish our spring chinook.
Keith

There isn't enough known about the open ocean migration of specific stocks of salmon to accurately predict where they are going to be and precisely when to target them.

So do foriegn fleets target salmon that originate in the U.S. and Canada? They certainly do outside the 200 mile limit (international waters) and they probably wander into the 200 mile limit occasionally to grab whatever salmon they can get their nets around. However, it's highly unlikely or even impossible to target, say Columbia River spring Chinook salmon in the open ocean. That's not to say foreign fleets don't catch them. They probably do. But since scientists aren't even sure where they go with any precision, I wouldn't expect any commericals guys to either. But it does raise the question of why is the springer run so small on the Columbia when all the pre-season signals pointed towards a strong run?

As an ex factory trawler I will have to say that is a bunch of nonsense!I will not dispute that the foriegn fishing interest do sneak into our water for ground fish and such but not for salmon.In seven years of dragging up in Ak I saw probably twenty salmon that did not out run the net.There is no way for a dragger to target salmon out in the open ocean.Mopst factory trawlers are doing good to drag at 6-7 knots,salmon swim alot faster than that when needed.The little catcher boats that would be used to feed a floating factory drag even slower than that.

I guess you can come right back home with the blame as to why the fish are having problems.