Smalma ... I don't have the magic answer, but obviously netiher does the WDFW when 90% of the streams have suffered crashes in the last twenty years.

Lots of reasons sure ... but why do we continue to esentially manage the few remaining "healthy" streams in the exact manner that we used in all the other streams that are now in such poor shape?? The track record sucks, I know that isn't what you like to hear, but it's sad, but true fact.

C&R is not the only answer, but it IS the one thing anglers can do TODAY to immediately lessen our impact.

Everything in this state's management policies has focused on harvest opportunities before angling opportunites ... it's time for that to change.

All the formulas, research, and studies don't mean a thing if the fish stocks decline. It's the end result, not how we get there!


IMO, I don't hink we can manage steelhead with the MSY model like we can do salmon ... fankly, I think the life history of the steelhead creates problems. Where does the MSY model take into account the increased fecundicity of repeat spawners and the impact of their removal from the system??

Sure there are areas where C&R regs have not led to increases, but there are plenty of others where they have certainly played a role!

Frankly, it often seems that there appears to be some point in stock makeup / numbers that appear to be a point of no return and the state always seems to allow the stocks to recede below this point before doing something to reduce harvest!

I also believe that too much blame is placed upon oceanic conditions on whole ... if the ocean conditions were such a factor, why aren't the results widespread??

Case in point, recent poor PS returns are blamed on ocean survival, yet the state then reports that the Quillayute system has record returns, yet the Queets just a little further south was facing the lowest returns on record. At the same time, Vancouver Island streams were struggling ... yet Skeena watershed streams saw huge returns. Southern Orgeon streams saw large increases ... where's the widespread effect that you would expect here???

Piont is, there's lots I don't know, you don't know, no one will likely ever know about these fish ... yet we continue to harvest them while we watch stream after stream's populations crash. I'm simply asking that we act conservatively in their management, and the first step there is no harvesting them ... the second being quitting all fishing.

I hope that we only have to take one of those steps to help insure their survival!

As I read through these posts, and Todds "short list" one contributing factor came to mind that wasn't mentioned and would seem to shed light on the declining, and seemingly unrecoverable innercoastal streams: Commercial harvest. I know it's not the only reason for this situation but as long as non-selective fishing methods such as nets are used it's going to be difficult at best to replenish this resource. My .02

TC,

The only commercial harvest that targets steelhead is tribal...though there are immediate and significant concerns with commercial bycatch of steelhead in the lower Columbia springer net fishery.

Their "selective" nets have selectively harvested tens of thousands of wild steelhead, and even with recovery boxes and tangle nets, it is estimated that up to 1600 or so wild steelhead were killed in last spring's fishery.

Many of those fish were upper and middle columbia listed fish.

Irresponsible, to say the least, especially considering the small amount of money at stake for the commercial springer fishery, compared to the money to be made by the recreational fishery.

Fish on...

Todd.

Bob -
Guess will have to agree to disagree on some of these issues. This single minded beating of the same issue is unlikely to solve many of the long term problems facing wild steelhead.

You state:"C&R is not the only answer, but it is the one thing anglers can do TODAY to immediately lessen our impacts." Actually there are several other options -

1) No fishing would have less impact then even a C&R fsihery - if one truly believes the resource is in such dire trouble how can one fish at all?

2) As Todd points out there are number of likely contributing factors - anglers could get involved TODAY - there are bills in Oympia and WAshington DC being discussed today that will effect the resource and your fishing - GET INVOLVED.

3) Gibbons discussed the draft Wild Steelhead Management Plan and stated that it will be out for comments - concern anglers need to become informed (Gibbons gave some a chance), decide what their needs and desires are and GET INVOLVED.

4) WDFW is in a major fishing regulation development cycle and angler ideas and inputs are being sought - GET INVOLVED.

5) Generally WDFW local management staff is available to nearly any interested angler. If someone has an interest in a particular system ask questions, listen to the answer, think about the situation and ask better questions - - if a sincere effort is made to learn one can postion themselves to make informed decisions - GET INVOLVED.

6) Put the fish's needs above your needs - GET INVOLVED FOR THE FISH'S SAKE!

Or of course one can do as most have and stay on the sideline and b!tch and moan about mis-management and by not being part of the solution continue to be part of the problem.


You further state "Everything in this state's management policies has focused on harvest opportunities before angling opportunities..."
Howser's notes from the WSC meeting states that Gibbons said under the draft steelhead management plan the primary priority is to "restored and maintain the diversity and long-term productivity of Washngton steelhead stocks and habitats" later Gibbons is quoted as say "Highest priority is protection and restoration of self-sustaning wild steelhead runs."

The state's Wild Salmonid Policy says much the same. The first prior is the fish, the second is to provide recreational opportunity compatible to the first. You can disagree with whether those opportunities are split as you wish but for more than 20 years that opportunity has been a mix of CnR and harvest. If the state was only interested in harvest why in the heck would they continue put themselves through the wring with all these emergency closures?

Part of the problem is that many of us confuse putting the fish first with putting our own fishing needs first.

Many in the State (manger or fisher) have move beyond the position that only dead fish have a value. However that doesn't mean that opportunity can or should no be a mix of harvest and CnR.


Regarding the difference between MSY management for steelhead salmon. Actually in thinking about it the fact that steelhead can spawn more than once may well mean that a some portion (the % of repeat spawners) of a steelhead run could be used for fishing impacts (hooking mortality or bonked) and on the whole every fish would still have the chance to spawn while that isn't the case with salmon. That type of management has resulted in the rebuilding of resident trout, sea-run cutthroat and bull trout populations in the Puget Sound area.

While sitting a North of Falcon meeting last week I noticed that over the last six years before any harvest on the Quillayute system the wild steelhead runs have been larger than the wild chinook every year and the wild coho runs 3 out of the last 6 years. How can anyone who thinks the Quillayute steelhead can not support any harvest be comfortable fishing for salmon in either the river or the ocean?


A point the Gibbons made was in regard to the escapement levels the state developed for our rivers 20 years ago. They were developed as a estimate of what the court manadate MSY level might be. however in the developement of those goals great care was taken to error on the side of the fish. Those escapement levels are all well above levels where the viability of the population would be threatened. Believe that the level where concerns about impacts on genetic diversity would occur is roughly 1/2 of the current escapement goal (seems to be a pretty sizeable cushion to me).

The very management schemes that you and others are so readily to cast stones at is the very same approaches that rebuild steelhead runs in the 1980s. It is the same approaches that created the CnR fisheries on the Skagit and Skykomish who many thought were world class fisheries. What has changed that has moved a succesful approach to an unsuccessful one?

While it would seem that blaming poor or spotty ocean conditions for the much of the recent problems is a cop-out I know of no other explaination. I'm more than willing to listen to any theory. I feel that I'm a reasonably informed thinker and to date have heard no other that explains what is happening. Do you have any better theories that would explain what is occurring?

Bob, I freely admit that my knowledge of steelhead and steelhead issues is limited. However, I have taken that limited knowledge and my own experience and look closely at the State's management of wild steelhead in the Puget Sound region to see if the wild fish needs are being safe guarded. My assessment is that considerable care has been taken to err on the side of the fish's needs. Further much of the problems occurring with local steelhead populations is outside of the control of the manager. That doesn't necessarily mean that fisheries we currently have are what I would choose for myself. But rather current management doesn't jeopardize the use of different options in the future (depedent on maintance of productive habitats).

I better end this now or no one will ever take the time to read any of the above.

Tight lines
Smalma

Bob - I typed this before Smalma's post came up but here it is anyway.

May I point out that restricting angling to C&R only has never been shown to have reversed a declining trend for steelhead. In fact, the truth is that where C&R has been used as a management tool, the fate of the fish has mirrored that of the fish in similar local streams.

It's an allocation issue!

When you advocate for "angling opportunity" at the expense of "harvest opportunity" you are, in reality, asking that all angling be allocated to one interest group at the expense of everyone else.

It might be good management practice to allocate certain areas to special interests such as…

• Flyfishing only areas
• Special gear restrictions
• Catch and Release areas
• Non-fishing areas to protect spawning fish
• Plunking only
• etc.

It does not make good management sense to designate the entire state as flyfishing only, plunking only or catch and release only.

To advocate for one special interest at the expense of all other interest groups is self-serving and single(or simple) minded selfishishness.

Just my opinion - Plunk

Thanks for the reply Smalma ... I agree with you that this somewhat of an endless cycle of discussion, but you bring out one very important point that illustrates the state of management revolving more around harvest ops than anything else:

The wild chinook runs of the Quillayute. For a number of years now, I (as well as a number of other local anglers) have been pounding on Bill Freymund in Montesano about the health of the king stocks. Bill told me several years ago that there was some concern about that stock. I suggested then and have since a reg the daily limit to one and a season limit of five much like we fish under in AK.

Yet, here we are several years later and despite closures of other rivers to the south (the Hump being the primary one) that have forced increased pressure elsewhere ... we've seen no reduction in the bag limit on these fish. In addition, the state has "allowed" the Quillayutes to keep a 5 day a week fishery on these fish with no pressure to cut back. On top of all of this, there remains a coastal fishery as well ...

With 30,000 or so hatchery silvers returning to the Sol Duc, it seems that appeasing the meat anglers could be easily taken care of by an increased bag limit on the hatchery silvers and either cut way back or C/R completely the kings. But NO ...

Another example of fishing them out before we take action ... when will it end??

Looks like I'll have to have more proposals in the works for the next round of meetings ...

Smalma, I certainly don't have answers, only speculation.

I don't think genetics is the only or even the main mechanism where by hatchery fish damage wild fish. It looks like there is severely depressed survival for all smolts shortly after they hit the marine enviroment. In both cases, the Keogh (east side of Vancouver Island), and the Puget Sound stream you mention, there is not a release of hatchery fish in the particular stream, but there is a slug of hatchery smolts from nearby streams that will be mixed with the wild smolts as soon as they enter saltwater. It seems the regional depression of survival- both hatchery and wild smolts- is occurring in inside contained areas that are heavily loaded with hatchery fish. There is a good chance that in this artificial situation density dependent mechanisms caused by the hatchery loading are reponsible for the unexplained terrible returns. Mechanisms could be competition for food, attraction of predators that eat both hatchery and wild fish, behavior effects of hatchery fish on wild fish or disease amplification to name a few.

The Keough example you mention; isn't this the river that has been "fixed" by habitat improvement projects, large scale stream fertilization, and now a new hatchery program that is need to keep the run from going extinct. It seems this was a nice river that has been over-fixed to the point it is totally fouled up. I don't think you can make any inference of what is occurring based on this stream given all the different factors that might be responsible.

And along the same lines Plunker ... you are asking other anglers of all angling method types (whether it be bait, fly, whatever) to forgo even the opportunity to fish at all because "your" group wishes to harvest one specific type of fish.

"Your" harvest opportunity will continue to exist with the presence of hatchery fish in nearly all systems, yet when the wild runs are so depleted that they cannot handle even incidential mortality ... then "All" lose out because no one can fish at all because of the harvest attitude of the minority.

That's selfishness!

Bob said:

"Yet, here we are several years later and despite closures of other rivers to the south (the Hump being the primary one) that have forced increased pressure elsewhere ... we've seen no reduction in the bag limit on these fish. In addition, the state has "allowed" the Quillayutes to keep a 5 day a week fishery on these fish with no pressure to cut back. On top of all of this, there remains a coastal fishery as well ..."

*Increased pressure elsewhere*, another key component in fisheries management in the larger and longer picture.

Smalma said:
"- GET INVOLVED."!


Good Fishing Darin

Bob -
I find it interesting that you would propose a day limit of 1 and yearly limit of 5 on chinook stock that you have a concern about.

Your positon seems to be that such limits on a healthy stock (Quillaute steelhead) is too excessive but it is appropriate for what you consider an underescaped chinook stock.

If you really wish to influence salmon seasons whether on the river or in the ocean you need to get involved (there is those words again) in the North of Falcon salmon season setting process. That is the format in which salmon season are set. Pounding on Freymond after his hands have been tied by the outcome of the North of Falcon process is not the way to be effective. I would not be surprised that you fellow guides and other are lobbying for some other than what you proposed.

Tight lines
Smalma

Tight lines
Smalma

Fair Hooker -
The density dependent interactions with smolt would seem to be a plausible explaination.

However the number of steelhead smolts planted in the region has been relatively constant for the last 20 years or so. In the last 5 years there have been reductions in both hatchery and yearling coho and chinook planted in the North Puget Sound area. For example on the Snohmish the number of hatchery coho has been reduced from 300,000 to 150,000 per year and the number of yearling chinook from 530,000 t0 250,000. Why would those interactions manifest itself now?

In addition survival of summer steelhead, both hatchery and wild have remained constant or even improved in the same time period. The summer and winter steelhead smolts leave the rivers at the same time (peak out migration in early to mid-May). They likely separate at some point on the high seas as they return at different times.

Tight lines
Smalma

Personally, if we made the fall king fishery C&R Smalma, that'd be fine by me! I haven't kept one myself in a couple of years now and the more I see it drop, the less likely I am to keep one and the more I work on the guests to let them go (just discussed this with one of our fall guests that fishes three days every years and their group will no longer retain them).

Sorry to sound bitter, but a lot of people got involved last year, and about 90% of them favored C&R on wild steelhead and the state still said no ...

I'm being realistic in what we might achieve / receive with the 1/5 reg ... if we can't get C&R for a gamefish, how will we for a foodfish??

Bob -
Your personal position on chinook is more or less what I expected. Please note that position is exactly the position that many anglers are advocating for with steelhead..

It is interesting that you need to lobby your clients to release chinook.

Actually steelhead management is wild steelhead release state wild with no directed harvest unless the stock in question is considered to be healthy. That is a much more conservative position than with any salmon. In addition the bar for the determination of the status of a steelhead stock is set higher than for salmon. Our anadromous game fish are among the most conservatively managed fish in the state.

The result of the above is that those folks willing to practice CnR with steelhead generally get more and longer access to wild steelhead.

My position is that allowable fishing impacts on particular stock should be determined by the status of that stock and the biological productive of that stock. That should be applied across species -whether resident cutthroat, wild steelhead, chinook or pink salmon. Fishing impacts should all sources of mortality related to fishing.

That position should reflect the needs of the fish not my own desires. My wants would put in play in the decsisions on how those fishing impacts would be distributed among various angler interest. How I would personally distribute those impacts would likely cause heart burn for the majority of those on this site however that doesn't negate the validity of the approach. I still encourage each of you to become informed and to lobby for your wishes on how those fishing impacts are distributed.

Tight lines
Smalma

Well, I didn't quite get all my thoughts in before I ran out the door this morning to meet my fellas (rivers are kinda pukey so we're gonna do it in April instead), so now that I'm home, I'll add a little more here

Yes, some of the folks I have to lobby. Many of the local folks that I fish are fairly knowledgable and have kicked back the kings on their own. The group I mentioned are some fellas that come from Tennessee every year and don't know a lot about salmon and steelhead, but they're learning and came to the decision on their own and asked if I thought it would be beneficial and okay to do so.

Salmon and steelhead are viewed in very different lights, as I mentioned, one to most as a gamefish, the other to most as a foodfish.

To get a little different perspective on the issue here Smalma, visit: http://www.sf.adfg.state.ak.us/statewide/EarlyRunKings/ERKhome.htm to see some of the comments regarding possible no kill on kings in an area where C&R for all steelhead and nearly all rainbows is in place.

I also wanted to point out that should king retention be closed here, that I would support it. However, I would ask again, "Where was the middle ground?" Where was a reduction in limits over the years, where was a (new concept here) a C&R fishery for kings??

Once again, it looks like a situation of we going from kill 'em all to no fishing at all ...

That short list would be very good topics for discussion with your Representatives in Olympia before and after the "RALLY"

Rally info:
http://www.sharkland.net/usow/

if you do not know who your Reps are please investigate this link.

http://dfind.leg.wa.gov/dfinder.cfm

Mornin', everyone.

Well, I'm enjoying the interplay on this thread...seems to be less complaining and more explaining than usual.

Since, both here and in threads over the last year and a half, we've discussed all the possible different biological backups for different management schemes, I'll skip those for now.

What I do want to discuss is the perception that it's all an allocation issue. To make it clear, what we're talking about here is that if there are 150 "surplus" fish, we either have a directed harvest fishery to catch and kill 150, or we have a CnR fishery to catch and kill 150 via incidental mortality.

Accepting that as a starting point, which I don't necessarily do, but will for the sake of argument, there are tremendous differences between the two "ways to kill 'em". This was the crux of the comments that I sent to WDFW on behalf of the Wild Steelhead Coalition regarding the options for this spring on the Chehalis system.

1. Angler Opportunity. Rather than look at this as "CnR guys get to fish, and harvest guys get screwed", let's look at it in a much more "big picture" way.

There will be more angler days on the system if the system is open longer. The system will be open longer if harvest is allocated to incidental mortality rather than to directed mortality. This will happen no matter what numbers the managers use for hooking/handling mortality, unless they use 100%. Even if you use a fairly conservative estimate of 10%, allowing for the ignorance or unwillingness of some anglers to use proper techniques, this is automatically ten times as much opportunity to encounter (hook and handle) a fish.

Again, assuming it is purely an allocation issue, ten times as many encounter opportunities exist.

2. Revenue. Not only does that put ten times the potential angler days on the river, it also puts ten times the potential revenue available to local communities out there.

3. Enforcement. Let's face it...due to budget restraints, our enforcement division can't be everywhere at once. The maxim "closed waters are poacher's waters" has some application here. Poachers are going to poach whatever the rules are. At least with more law abiding folks on an open river, there are more caring eyes on the river.

4. Education. As more folks fish in CnR fisheries, more folks will discover the benefits of doing it. There's only one way to change a person's mind from "opportunity to me means to harvest fish" to "opportunity means to catch fish", and that's to get people used to doing it. If the only game in town is a CnR fishery, people who would normally not fish one will, just so that they can fish.

That's probably enough for now to make my point. It seems somewhat counterproductive to argue about the different biological reasons for different management tools, sometimes, since it's not particularly well known exactly what is going on out there in the river, much less in the ocean.

This puts different management tools on a level playing field, and removes the conjecture over biology. I feel that the above conclusions are pretty tough to argue with.

All other things being equal , CnR seasons put more hours on the river, more money in the community, more eyes in the woods, and more factors for fishers to consider when they consider what "opportunity" means to them.

Seems almost like a no-brainer to me.

Fish on...

Todd.

Quote from Bob:
"And along the same lines Plunker... you are asking other anglers of all angling method types (whether it be bait, fly, whatever) to forgo even the opportunity to fish at all because "your" group wishes to harvest one specific type of fish."

Good spin Bob,

Now, those who eat a few fish from healthy stocks are really selfishly asking that no one, themselves included, be allowed to fish.

Shall we believe that eating a few fish will deplete a healthy stock to the point where the incidental mortality (killing) of these fish by C&R anglers can no longer be handled even though the spawning escapement goals are being exceeded?

I fail to understand how an excessive number of fish spawning can deplete a stock?

Also - It has been pointed out on this bulletin board in the past that several questions on the preference survey indicate that the "majority" of anglers still prefer to keep and eat some numbers of wild steelhead from healthy stocks.

Perhaps we are both so incorrigibly set in our attitudes that we will have to just agree to continue in our disagreement.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

Todd - Are you saying that less anglers (if they fish C&R only) provide more "eyes in the woods" than a greater number of anglers of all types? Might you be practicing a bit of stereotyping here?

I think your argument might be condensed by simply stating that by allocating the resource to the minority user group who would only C&R them, we could spend a lot more time killing an equal number and get more dollars out of it.

I like the more bang for the buck argument. It's probably the only argument for mandatory statewide C&R that makes sense.

Plunk,

What I'm saying is that IF a river is left open longer, there are less days in the year where the only ones on the river are poachers.

The longer it takes to "harvest" our share, the longer the river is open.

I don't accept the "minority" tag for CnR fishers, either...I know you don't fish in the CnR season, but I'm sure you take a little drive and see the amount of boats on the water up on the Skagit and Sauk in March/April...it's a lot more than are there in December and January.

Where have you been for the last few months? Didn't realize how much I missed your insights until you came back!

Fish on...

Todd.

Todd,

I agree with many of your points there especially the one:

"What I'm saying is that IF a river is left open longer, there are less days in the year where the only ones on the river are poachers."
-and your other argument that Plunker agreed with "bang-for-the-buck!"
And:
"The longer it takes to "harvest" our share, the longer the river is open." -key element being longer season

-I don't know if any of you are skiers on here, but I'll tell you what, if I had to make a decision of whether to have 50 good powder days instead of 10 excellent ones(like a trip to the Bugaboos in B.C.), I can tell you first hand any smart skier -or any hardcore/serious skier would elect the prior of 50 days -more days on the boards is what's important. Another case in point might be, would you rather have a one week vacation to Mazatlan or some exotic location perhaps Rio or maybe Alaska or 50 days off work during the course of the year to fish your regional waters? Most years I'd elect for #2 and go with more days off of work and fish at home -even if it's just average fishing. But now that I think about it, in our state's fishery "kunundrums" it might make more sense to get out of town now!? :p But if we had phenominal success at our work place, well then maybe the boss would give you both exotic vacation and 50 days...(-longer season and keeping fish, no?)
Who on this board would rather be working than fishing?.... Well, you must be a fishing guide then.....

Plunker:

"I fail to understand how an excessive number of fish spawning can deplete a stock?"

If you may allow me here, maybe would should reverse those words a little, how can an excessive number boost a stock wether it be depleted OR not? Just food for thought there ol' guy! (By the way, go check out that gamefishn' site again.....he,he)

All good points fellas I'm enjoying reading this thread. I'm learing more.

Auntie M: very funny
Darin
"I think I'll go down to the store now and buy a can of tuna, no on second though a can of "tofu". :p