take a look at the emgency regulation page on the WDFW website and scroll back to january febuary march. you will find many rivers that are closed due to low escapment and some that are extended because they exceeded escapement. It appears that those shutdown limits are in place.

I'm pretty sure we already have that. Case in point: the Snohomish system. 4 years ago it was predicted that escapement would be much lower than the goal so the C&R fishery was closed.

Same with the Skagit system the first year.

I'm way ahead of ya 4salt :p

I read those as hatchery regs. I am talking wild fish naturally spawning and removing 100% of the hatcheries. The commercials,tribes and the hatcheries all have to go in order for a recovery of wild stocks to take placce. I used to golf with the head of the BPAs fish enhancement program back in the 80's and 90's. A freind of my dads. He had a 100 million budget a year to increase fish numbers on BPA effected system back then. They knew this back in the early 1980's

...in my best Dick Dastardly voice... "Drats! Foiled again!"

Forgot to eat my Wheaties this morning!

There are alot of things we don't understand or thought of with wild steelhead. Like this thought:
So the Quilliute system has more fish coming back than man's escapement numbers says the river needs ( why was nature so stupid to let more fish than needed come back) so we try to kill the "extra fish". In reality steelhead have a wandering factor somewhere around 15 to 20%,So maybe if a river system is over escaped (can that be?) the wandering fish help seed other rivers. So if you fish the steelhead down to rock bottom they don't seed other systems very effectively.

Bruce,

I'm not suggesting that you should have known about this particular regulation and spoken out against it.

Your argument all along was that CnR fisheries kill fish, and you're going after them big time the last several days.

CnR fisheries have existed for the last 20 years, not just the last five days.

Your problem with the new regulation isn't really with the new regulation, it's with CnR fisheries that kill fish, unless I'm reading you wrong. CnR mortality seems to be the rack you're hanging your hat on in railing against this regulation.

My question is this: What have you been doing to express your distaste with CnR fishery mortality over the last 20 years that CnR fisheries have existed?

Why haven't you organized a group to lobby against CnR fisheries in the past?

Why are you now making the argument that CnR fisheries kill fish, when that problem has existed for 20 years?

It seems a bit disingenuous that you'd start doing it now, when the problem is an old one that you seem to have known about for a long time. This regulation doesn't make the problem you're having any better or any worse, but now you're arguing about your problem.

Whether you intend it or not, when you attack a regulation prohibiting the direct harvest of wild fish, citing a problem that existed long before the regulation that is not affected either way by the regulation, it looks like you are fighting to keep harvesting wild fish.

I don't know what your intent is, I don't have any reason to not believe you when you say you don't harvest native fish...I'm sure you don't.

What exactly is your problem with the new regulation, and how is it a different problem than the one you had two weeks ago, or two years ago, or ten years ago?

Fish on...

Todd

By Wayne Kruse
Outdoor Writer

The state Fish and Wildlife Commission's decision earlier this week to impose a two-year, statewide moratorium on the retention of wild-stock steelhead seems to have raised as many questions as it answered.

Beginning April 1, it will be against the law to keep a steelhead with an intact adipose fin anywhere in Washington. The ban runs for the next two years. The commission, a citizen oversight group appointed by the governor, also adopted specific rules for releasing, without boating, such fish.

Commissioner R.P. Van Gytenbeek of Seattle initiated the discussion about the release of wild steelhead by calling for a permanent ban on retention. That didn't fly with the rest of the commission, nor did a motion for a six-year moratorium. The two-year ban passed on a 5-3 vote.

"In this case, I think a half a loaf is better than no loaf at all," Van Gytenbeek said. "A lot of people in this state are concerned about the decline of our wild steelhead stocks and I think a moratorium gets us started down the right path."

Commission chairman Will Roehl of Bellingham did not share that view, noting that the Fish and Wildlife Department is working on a comprehensive steelhead management plan tailored to specific rivers and specific stocks.

"I can't support banning retention of wild steelhead on rivers where runs are healthy and returns are strong," Roehl said. "I don't think this broad-brush action is warranted."

Because wild-steelhead release has been in effect for years on the vast majority of state rivers, the new regulation won't have a widespread impact.

"There are only about a dozen rivers where a limited retention fishery for wild steelhead still exists," said state spokesman Craig Bartlett in Olympia, "and all those are on the Olympic Peninsula, except for the Green."

The most popular of those rivers include the Quillayute, Bogachiel, Sol Duc, Calawah, and Hoh, all near Forks, where a limit of one wild fish per day - with a maximum of five per year - has been in effect.

Bob Gooding, owner of Olympic Sporting Goods in Forks, said he can live with the situation either way.

"Personally, I haven't kept a wild steelhead for 10 years," he said. "On the other hand, I haven't heard any hard science behind the decision to close it. Will the commercials (tribal fishermen netting under treaty rights) go along? How does the state plan to enforce it? With one agent to cover deer, elk and fish in 2,200 square miles here?"

Said Bartlett: "As of (Tuesday), our people weren't entirely sure what the tribes would do, or what the law would say about the commercial aspect of the regulation change."

Everett resident, avid angler and president of the Everett Steelhead and Salmon Club Jim Brauch, said the impact locally won't be much.

"We've released wild steelhead on our local rivers for a long time, so it won't make any difference here," he said. "And I never kill a wild steelhead. But I wouldn't want to say to the guy next to me that he must release a fish that may be the biggest one he's landed in his life, or maybe the only one he's hooked that year, or is perhaps his son or daughter's first-ever steelhead."

Brauch said the blanket approach was a mistake, and that the state should be allowed to manage on a river-by-river basis.

"I don't think anyone has proven the catch-and-keep fishery on the Peninsula is having a negative impact on the strength of the wild runs," he said.

Major groups lobbying for the moratorium included the Federation of Fly Fishers, Trout Unlimited and the Wild Steelhead Coalition, Bartlett said.

"As for the science behind it," he said, "commissioner Russ Cahill (in Olympia) told me it was pretty much a matter of whose biologists you believed. Our (state) people told him that even on a down cycle in the natural flux of things, we're easily meeting our wild steelhead spawning escapement goals on those (Peninsula) rivers. Biologists for the proponent groups, on the other hand, told him the runs are declining, period. With no clear consensus, he said he was forced to vote conservatively for the resource."

Bartlett said that in two years the agency's new steelhead management plan should be finished, and that the divisive issue undoubtedly will be revisited.

Aunty call me a lair all you want. The fact remains. You just can't stand the idea that it is true.

I've really taken offense to your accusation Aunty.

Show me!

http://www.gamefishin.com/wa/slide_show.htm

I won't even bother responding to your last post Aunty...

Last winter on the Skagit the predicted run size was 20% under the goal yet a C&R fishery was conducted.

I read that article Bruce and to me it makes sense to have a moritorium.

Bruce, still waiting on these...

Thanks...

Todd

My problem is with the "Blanket Ban". I don't like it and I'm getting ready to go get me some wild smelt so you guys have fun while I'm gone, beside I wouldn't want to continue being unprofessional.

If your issue is with the blanket ban, then why are you calling CnR fishers killers, over and over, and over, again? What does that have to do with a blanket ban?

What would it take to convince you that a "blanket ban" is Ok?

Don't forget, first off, that we already have a blanket ban...the current regulations call for WSR statewide, year round. The few that remain open are exceptions to that blanket ban.

All the new reg did is remove the exceptions to the blanket ban.

I'll post some more scientific type graphs as soon as I can get my hands on electronic copies so you can see the undeniable trend in steelhead populations.

Have fun smelting...oughta be nice out in the sun today, it's supposed to be around 60 degrees and no clouds. I'm a bit jealous...

Fish on...

Todd

The science that the WSC used in it's presentation came from WDFW. We used their own data, the data shows a longterm downward trend in wild steelhead numbers. My guess is that CNR will only be allowed on stocks that are deemed healthy. :p

Wow! Some discussion. Quite frankly i like to be kissed when i am bent over and Sr^&)*. IF letting the natives go was so overwelmingly productive, then why are there not more of them here in the Puget Sound area rivers.Mark my words, we will not be able to bonk a native again in our lifetime, and that is a shame........... Not because bonking a native is the ultimate goal, but at least one has the CHOICE, to take that first caught fish, trophy, or what have you.Also, now the tribes will see this as an opportunity to raise their allocation limits.We give and they shall gain.

Careful Aunty, your real side is starting to show.

If you are going to insinuate that we're a bunch of "wild fish killers" over at Gamefishin, then I suggest you put up some facts. That was a pretty sh!tty thing to say.

Kurt,

When Aunty put this " " in her post, it means she is kidding.

Besides, I hear she's quite a pro at harvesting all those wild shrimp that the fish have to eat when they're out in the saltchuck...

Fish on...

Todd

"I guess Todd never looked at Bruces slide shows on his board.

Note all the pics that have the tail section cropped out? Why would anybody do that...... unless...... OMG!

Murderers!"

Nope - Not a in sight! I know what means, Todd.