Sorry, guys, but I only have about two minutes...so I'll have to make it extra brief.

Rich, Oregon is bound by the U.S. v. Oregon case, which is a sister case to U.S. v. Washington (the Boldt decision). Alaska, and B.C., too, for that matter, are not at all.

Grandpa, I generally agree with 90% of what you say regarding the politics of fisheries. Whether you think it won't wash or not, we don't have any legal way to stop the tribes from harvesting their half of the harvestable fish however they want, with a few restrictions that I'll have to save for later.

We do, however, have a political way to change their fisheries. You mentioned the pics of the OP rivers being closed for sporties, while tribal guys were still fishing. If you remember, those pics came from a protest, a protest where the tribes eventually voluntarily stopped fishing. If we were still fishing, too, there would have been no political protest to make.

If we get our own house in order, first, then we can talk smack about somebody else's. As long as we're directly harvesting steelhead, we can't realistically ask another group to stop directly harvesting them.

Believe it or not, outside the angling world steelhead fishermen are viewed exactly the same as Indians...whach 'em and stack 'em. There's only one way to change that perception and get public sentiment on our side, and that's for us to stop whackin' 'em.

More later...

Todd.

Well said Todd.

Exactly.

How about mutual cessation of steelhead harvest? If you really think that the tribes will follow suit if we do something good think again

Folks please keeping in mind that Wild Steelhed Release (WSR) is a management scheme designed to allow access to hatchery fish while holding impacts to wild stocks to just hooking mortality (hopefully a low impact).

Does that mean when there are no or few hatchery fish around (say after March first on those systems planted with early hatchery fish) that there should be no fishing? After all there would be few or no hatchery fish tp be caught.

On fisheries targeting wild stocks (spring CnR seasons etc) the hooking mortality associated with such fishing is just another form of harvest. A fish killed during fishing whether bonked or release is a dead fish and will not spawn. How does one reconcile the position of allowing no wild fish harvest due to the biological need of the population with allowing wild fish impacts during a CnR fishery?

Not sure that I see a biological difference between allowing say 10% harvest on a run above escapement levels and allowing a fishery with a 10% hooking mortality from a CnR fishery on the same run.

Tight lines
Smalma

Smalma,

there is a difference, WSR is not just how we want to allocate our harvest opportunity it is how we want our streams managed.

We want to get away from the harvest mindset of our current management or the rivers.

No more MSH, We want our rivers to support as many fish as they can and still allow recreation. We want that safety nett of excess fish to be in place to ensure healthy runs even with bad ocean conditions, floods, droughts and so on. We want our wild steelhead to be aloud to live up to the legend they are. We want our local depressed communities to be able to reep the benefits of robust wild steelhead runs that can draw people from around the world to enjoy the beauty and excitement these wonderful fish have to offer at their full potential.

We want to change the way things are. WSR is just one of the tools we feel will help start this action.

Rich -
I'm not trying to be combative but rather seeking that folks clarify what it is that is desired.

It is important to remember that WSR has been in the steelhead fishery management tool kit in Washington for 20 years and CnR has been around for 25 years. Until very recently the support for such management (at least as expressed by angler lobbying) has been luke warm at best. For much of that time period the source of such management orginated within WDFW. Since the late 1970s/early 1980s the steelhead angling community has been largely drug kicking and screaming into a fishing world that inlcudes something other than bonking everything caught.

I have to disagree - biologically there is not difference in a fishery that allows a 10% harvest rate and one that has a 10% impact in a CnR fishery - either way 10% of the population died. There is a large social difference, especially in who gets to have the impacts.

Having the population as large as it can be while allow a recreational fishery is not possible. Any fishing mortality will reduce the population by some fraction. The question then becomes is how much of an impact is one comfortable with or as you put it how much of a safety net does one want to provide the population. How large of a safety net do you want?

Remembering that populations naturally vary in abundance over time due to variable survival conditions. Do we manage differently depending those variations (more conservative at low population levels)?

Do any of the other advocates of statewide WSR have any input or thoughts into these issues?

Tight lines
Smalma

Rich

You say; Isn't "harvest" a big part of "recreation" to many sport fishers?

Cowlitzfisherman

Cowlitz,

It is very important to some people. But we have proven it cant happen under the current way we manage our rivers. To many wild fish have been harvested and continue to be harvested, but most not by sport fishers.

The way I see it the only way we can still have long term oportunity and still have a resource is to go total CnR.

I believe our real fight is agianst comercial harvest and as long as we are still harvesting wild steelhead we are going to have a hard time convincing that they are the problem standing in the way.

Too see the big picture you need to look below the serfice to see what total no exceptions CnR would start rolling.

Smalma,

I dont think WDFW ever put CnR in place on wild steelhead anyways soley for increased sport fishing oportunity.

Looking at the big picture I believe it was a way to help ensure the runs could sustain MSH. Some of the harvest had to be taken away as the runs just couldnt sustain what was happening between the massive sport and tribal harvest.

Smalma is correct. There is an old saying in the fisheries management business... a dead fish is a dead fish. Or, stated another way, mortality as a result of fishing is still mortality. It can occur in a directed, indirected, gillnet, seine, C&R, mark selective, or in any other type of fishery you care to think of. ANY fishing effort results in mortality and that mortality must be accounted for if fsiheries are to be managed properly.

Rich -
Your lack of familarity of many of the issues of steelhead management state wide is showing. To my knowledge in just the north puget Sound area catch and release seasons designed to provide anglers increased opportunities at wild winter steelhead was first put into place in 1977 on the North Fork Nooksack. The second opportunity was the Sauk which went into place in 1980. Seasons on the Skagit, Skykomish and North Fork Stillaguamish soon followed.

WSR regulations were first applied again in the North Puget Sound region in 1983 on the North Fork Stillaguamish during the summer to protect the Deer Creek fish - this was prior to having marked fish and a large minimum size limit was used (the limit was 30" based on infomation indicating that 99% of the wild fish were less than 30"). Widespread use of WSR began in 1984 on basically all the Puget Sound rivers.

As you can see CnR and WSR has been around for sometime and each of the those seasons referred to above originated within WDFW. Each recieved very little support for the steelhead anglers and in somecases very vocal dissent from anglers - the "urban legend" of the time was that released fish would not survive.

If you desire is end all gill netting of steelhead you need new federal legislation. I don't think that is likely but I wish the best in that effort. In the interim do you have a concrete suggestion for escapement goals and under what conditions impacts from a recreational fishing would be allowed? From what I have read to date my interpretation of what management would look like under your ideas would be no fishing on wild fish anywhere in the state with the possible exception of a couple of places currently under management that allow wild harvest. My interpretation of what you have stated is no fishing on runs less than carrying capacity.

Tight lines
Smalma

Smalma,

We want change from what we have now.

We are tired of getting screwed and yet watching or wild fish populations being decimated.

I dont have the answers but myself and many other people have watched our wild runs go down the tubes while no drastic measures or real changes have been done to make things right.

I was born and raised in Washington state and 3 generations ahead of me the same. Fishing for wild Steelhead has been part of my like forever, it is a part of my culture and a custom.

Alot of things have been done wrong over the years and many have been without intention. Now we know what is wrong but these same mistakes and decimation continue.

All I see is the groups with controll trying to maintain things the way they have been. All I have seen is them throwing the scraps to the sport fishing community in order to keep them from crying. No real change has ever happened.

It is very easy for us to sit here and bad mouth the way things are being managed and entities that manage. These groups have done nothing for us but push us to the side. For years now we have been speeking out and we are ignored.

Our disenchantment is warranted

Really my lack of knoledge or experience is not the point.

Sport fishers in general dont like what is going on, we have been done wrong over and over and want change. We may disagree on many things amongst ourselves causing us to fight and bicker which has stopped us from joining together.

In general all of us want more wild fish in our rivers and on the spawning beds which would benefit all of the sport fishers interests. We are the largest user group and what we want is what we should get!

Being the largest user group we should be the ones who choose how our resource is managed and make sure we have the people working for us that make decisions that benefit our interests.

As CFM asked, harvest is a part of recreation for many anglers. If wild steelhead populations statewide were generally abundant and meeting ecologically functional escapement goals while also providing some reasonable level of harvest, we wouldn't be having this discussion about WSR. However, the list of rivers with wild steelhead populations deemed healthy enough to support some harvest has continually decreased, and this trend is more likely than not to continue.

The harvest of wild steelhead in Washington State is now insignificant as a component of recreational fishing in our state. Of the numerous steelhead rivers in Washington, we are down to allowing wild steelhead harvest in only 16 - that are deemed to be populations healthy enough to support harvest. Yet, most of those 16 have been underescaped as often as not over the past 20 years. That alone is strong evidence that the wild steelhead harvest policy is ill advised. I think only one river system, the Quilayute, has met or exceeded escapement goals virtually every year. This means that every river basin in the state - but one - is underescaped either every year, or some of the years. I find it difficult to defend this as sound or successful policy.

Some of the other "healthy" wild steelhead rivers, under the sound scientific policy that permits wild steelhead harvest has resulted in under-escapement on the Hoh, Queets, and Humptulips with shortened seasons and even season-long closures in some cases. I know a thing or two about fishery management, and I can't cobble together a smart defense for that type of management. (The actual biological defense is similar to, if not the same as the concept that justifies taking short-term profits in business at the long-term risk of bankrupting the company.) The outcome of the wild steelhead harvest policy results in more dynamic swings in steelhead populations, along with the ill social effects of disrupting the recreational fishery, and the ill economic effects associated with that same disruption.

And consider the management "success" on the Quillayute system. While the basin escapement goal is achieved, the preponderence of that escapement is observed in the Sol Duc sub-basin, with the Dickey, Calawah, and Bogachiel sub-basins generally under-escaped. WDFW still considers it successful, inasmuch as juvenile fish can redistribute in a river system to exploit various rearing niches and strategies. However, those same WDFW biologists know that juvenile redistribution is anything but perfect, and that many hectares of juvenile rearing habitat go underutilized. So overall steelhead prodtivity is kept below its potential in the most healthy, successful, and poster-child of sound steelhead management. That is the state of wild steelhead management in Washington State.

With respect to harvest being important to recreation for many anglers, myself included, the fact is that wild steelhead simply cannot support the harvest that many of us want. What wild steelhead populations can support is angling opportunity, and that is equally important, indeed, more important for many of us steelheaders. Most - but not all - are satisfied to release any wild steelhead we catch for having had the opportunity to be out fishing, rather that being home because of the rivers' being closed.

None of us denies that CNR induces some incidental mortality, generally estimated to range from 2 to 10%, depending on water temperature and other factors. For Smalma, the significant difference between the CNR fishery and the 10% harvest fishery are these: the CNR fishery is likely to produce mortality well under 10%, not that that matters all that much in the overall scheme of steelhead ecology and productivity. The other is that the CNR fishery produces a vastly greater social benefit in the form of ten times greater recreational benefit measured in angler opportunity (angler hours or days) and angling success, with ten times more steelhead actually being caught, but with no greater, and probably a lesser overall mortality to the population. That increased social benefit brings along an associated increased economic benefit in the form of greater economic activity by recreational anglers.

An advantage of the WSR management strategy is that it provides a buffer to poor wild steelhead runsize estimates. By definition, 50% of the pre-season forecasts over-estimate the run size, and consequently over-estimate the allowable harvestable number, resulting in over-harvest and under-escapement 50% of the time. Whereas, the worst case management scenario with WSR is that the spawning escapement would only be 10% less than if there had been no fishery at all. The same, unfortunately, cannot be said of the management strategies and plans that permit wild steelhead harvest.

The upshot is that WSR, independent of runsize except in extreme cases, would result in an ecological outcome with more stable steelhead populations in terms of productivity, exploiting habitat capacity, and achieving population diversity.

The only downside of WSR is that a small number of anglers will not be able to kill a small number of fish. Looking at the picture of statewide recreational angling, the relative loss is miniscule when contrasted to the benefits.

Please don't bother responding to this post with scare stories about foregone opportunity with treaty tribes. Do a search. That topic has been dealt with here on more than one occasion.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

Thank You!! Salmo

Smalma, Here is another question and something I believe the WDFW does not take into account regarding the mangement of the Q , Hoh and other consider "healthy" coastal wild steelhead stocks- Please read the brief from the testimony provided by Dick and Nate below:

Dick Burge, WSC VP Conservation and Nate Mantua, VP of Science and Education provided the State of Steelhead Resource and Biological Diversity. Dick and Nate provided compelling and sound scientific reasons for protecting of biodiversity and run timing in steelhead waters. They also provided evidence from the first years landing data since the 5 fish limit was instituted that this new limit has not reduced the kill of wild fish. As example, while the Quillayute escapement was declining from 12,500 to 11,200 fish last season, the sport kill increased from 1790 to 1930 wild steelhead. Anecdotal observations suggest sport fishers and guide trips have increased considerably following the closure of the other Washington and Oregon areas and are taking more wild fish. The reduced limit regulation in this case has not effected the reduction of the overall kill rate of wild steelhead and in fact the rate has gone up! Dick and Nate again presented the Commission and WDFW Director a copy of the WSC paper entitled Biological and Economic Effects of Wild Steelhead Release.

Again....Anecdotal observations suggest sport fishers and guide trips have increased considerably following the closure of the other Washington and Oregon areas and are taking more wild fish.

Does the WDFW takes this into account? Since these are considered the only streams "healthy" to allow harvest we are simply putting more anglers and more kill pressure on wild steelhead stocks?

This added pressure is also, in my opinion, bringing down the quality of the angling experience, creating a increased competitive/nonsportsman like atmosphere.

Shouldn't angling pressure also become part of the equation? I also personally don't believe that the punch card data on these streams is terribly reliable, I hear of a lot of " cheating" going on, but I lack a better suggestion for recording the data.

Rich,

From my experience and knoledge I know there is also alot of harvest of wild steelhead going on in Goodman Creek that is both not recorded and poached after the season is closed.

I dont understand why they are not considdering this one for CNR. It gets far more presure than the other ones that are being considdered.

Gentlemen --
First the general crash of wild steelhead populations in much of western Washington/southern BC has had little to do with how those populations were managed. Populations crashed on rivers where harvest was allowed, on rivers closed to fishing, and rivers managed "correctly" (that is strictly WSR with no hatchery fish). The underlining problem appears to be that we have entered a period of very low marine survival and a continue decline in our river's habitats. Clearly conservative management is needed and that is just what is currently being provided in those areas of poor returns - WSR while the hatchery fish are in the river and no spring CnR if the expected run is less than 80% of the escapement goal. There are no magic wands to correct poor survival conditions.

A further Illustration - When WSR was first applied to western Washington streams in the early and mid 1980s populations respond quite positivity. Escapements often double in less than 5 years. Today the recent returns continue to decline rapidly regardless of the management. WSR is not a silver bullet - just a tool to alocate fishing impacts.

Many seem to feel that all steelhead management needs is just WSR for management. Would you allow WSR fishing under all conditions? Would the amount of CnR be influenced by the status of the poplation? Are escapement goals needed?

In determining the status (health) of a wild population what escapement goal would you measure returns against? Rich suggested carrying capacity as a goal - my difficulty with that is no fishing would ever be allowed as any fishing would cause a short fall in reaching the goal. Salmo suggest an "ecological functional escapement goal". How could anyone disagree with such a motherhood and apple goal however Im not sure that I know what that means?

Salmo -
In my 10% example I stated that if both fisheries had the same impact (in this case 10%) there was no biological difference. However as you point out there are potential differences in amount of recreation being produced. I'm suggesting that maybe if your arguments may be on sounder footing if approached from that direction.

WSR is not by itself a buffer for poor run sizes unless there are management action to be taken in the event of forecasted poor runs. In all the talk of WSR I have heard no firm suggests of the management adjustments to be used with WSR. Again what sort of escapement bench mark to be used? What management actions to be taken if the goal is not being met?

Double haul -
Nate's and Dick's input seems to imply that the 2003 escapement (11,200 with a goal of 5,900) on the Quileyette was not good enough. If 190% of the MSY is not enough what would be?

The testimony indicated that there has been a substantial increase in interest in harvesting wild fish on the coast. How can that be if few anglers wish to harvest a fish? Could it be that the great mass of anglers is less than unified in their desires?

They indicated that there is a concern about the decline in the quality of the fishery. Is that the goal -fishing by like minded anglers? If so what is next - limited entery?

Regarding WSC's steelhead paper - shortly after it was released (by the way a nice job) detailed comments were provided via a forum on WSC's web site and the Fly fishing forum. It generated very little interest or comments either from the WSC membership or the public. Does anyone care? Apparently not!

In short I woud like to see something more to a proposal than just never harvest a fish and things will be OK. As with other anadromous salmonids I expect we will see shifts of abundances and when (next year or several decades from now) we enter a period of high steelhead returns -say 5 to 10 times than today's returns why preclude the potential for some harvest if anglers desire?. If the expectation is that most anglers are to buy into your proposals then an increase understanding of WSR, its role in management, when it would be applied and when would there be no fishing, etc. It is my opinion that the resource benefits when anglers become informed and think about these issues.

Less anyone questions where are my proposals I would refer any interested reader to the first post that I ever made on this site were I put forth a detail set of proposed steelhead management guidelines.

Tight lines
Smalma

While it is hard to argue with WSR or even the proposal not to lift C&R species from the water, neither of these proposals seem to have much "real" impact on the longer term health. It would be great to see a deeper understanding of the biological needs and patterns of specific watersheds and look at all "players." I'm not suggesting sportfishers shirk their own responsiblities, but we can do a lot more as a group when looking at habitat destruction (development etc), commercial fishing trends and the other more impactful things affecting fish. While I wish WDFW would do more with certain regs, they do have to understand and work with the bigger picture. Considering how difficult it is to get any of the other trends (development) and parties to commit to any long term plan, I understand why WDFW looks to manage river systems individually and (somewhat) short-term, and why we don't have sweeping legislation to improve things for the fish. It is a complex problem!