I can hardly wait. The bubble should be crazy this summer! Hopefully, a few will make their way into 8-2 before it closes 4-10. This is from Salmon U:

"With the final month of the season now upon us, look to do a little summer scouting with your springer seeking. What am I talking about? I'm talking about the projected 25,000 chinook heading for the Snohomish system this summer. Some of these adults are undoubtedly sneaking in to the Straits even as we speak and will soon enter the local blackmouth scene. They don't all just appear on June first boys! Nor do the Tulalip bay kings magically arrive on July one. Look for early arrivals of this seasons large chinook runs to spice up the last month of the season."

I hear that Jeff.

Too Bad we have to try and get lucky to catch one fishing them in terminal areas rather than on the river later in the season. You can enjoy these fish every day this summer by going down to one of your favorite local king holes and watching them turn at dusk....but dont bring your pole!

Thanks WDFW.

The tribes of the Puget Sound area wish to thank all of you diligent sportsmen for contributing to the hatchery system and cutting your seasons back to help bolster the Chinook return this year. They would also like to thank you for all the hard work of Long Live The Kings and other organizations working so hard to restore habitat on the Snohomish system. Good job guys. Oh and they would also like your kind understanding when you see them netting while you are shut down and not allowed to harvest the surplus of Chinook on the river system. They really really appreciate it.

Jeff'e'd-
FYI - The fish returning to the Snohomish River (either Wallace hatchery or natural chinook) actually contribute very little to the Tulalip bubble fishery. Sampling has consistently shown that the majority (5 year average of 94%) of the fish caught in the bubble are from the Tulalip.

Sky Guy - As you probably know the natural chinook are an ESA listed species. As a result we are not allowed to target those fish. Access to the hatchery fish is limited by the total fishing impacts on those ESA listed wild fish. Most of those impacts are taken prior to the fish reaching the river. The reality is that until we as a society decide to protect and restore the criticial river habitats this situation isn't likely to change any time soon.

I find it interesting that folks that are more than willing to accept or even demand WSR for steelhead have heart burn with protection of wild salmon even when the status of those fish are much more critical than most Puget Sound steelhead.

Tight lines
S malma

Hey Grandpa: I say bring on Kennewick Man!!!

He has European features and was here 8000 years ago and maybe knew how to fish.

He was just recently released from court prison where he has been held for several years.

He is ready to tell his story!!!!

Here's the chart showing the expected returns for each system.

2004 Puget Sound Summer/Fall Chinook Preseason Forecasts

Smalma....you are on target again. I got roasted a couple of times for pointing out that the WSC has a verrrry narrow agenda. I did not say that was bad but applauded them for figuring out how to work the system to get results they were after. Unfortunately most fishing groups are so narrowly focused that trying to get them all together moving in the same direction is impossible (so far). I see the WSR rule as a blip on the radar screen that caused a tempest in a teapot. All this ballyhooing about WSR on a handful of rivers while the tribes continue to overharvest wild fish with abandon. They have got to be laughing in their teepees at how divided we are and how we can do so little about the real problems while we sling mud at each other over the small things.

You should know by now that this board is 90% steelhead oriented so a lack of "big picture" debate including other species should be no shock to you.

I bet there is a website dedicated to Walleye back in Minnesota where locals took one of the state's biggest lakes and brought the Walleye back from the brink of extinction and were instrumental in creating a very viable sports fishery...The fishing had disappeared on this large popular lake and after a 10-12 year battle the lake was teaming with Walleye again....Then guess what happened?

The local indian tribes claimed fishing rights on the Walleye that they did nothing to restore..(they were the cause of the intial decline in fact) ....and they started gill netting! YES gill netting Walleye....soon Safeway was selling Walleye and not long thereafter the lake was back where it had been 12 years earlier.....almost devoid of fish.

So go ahead and release wild steelhead, work your butts off on habitat restoration. shut down the hatcheries....The laughing you hear in the distance is coming from those teepees. We need to stop maligning each other and look to where the real problem is.

Teepees - That's pretty funny, but I don't think they are living in Teepees any longer Grndpa2.

I know a few white guys on the OP who do though.

I do agree with most of what you said.

Let's hope the Tulalip fishery #'s are good simply due to the great ocean conditions we are hearing so much about.

I'm not a biologist, great fishermen, nor do I donate enough time/money to cool projects that restore critical spawning habitat, but why put a damper on these critical pieces to the puzzle just to work on the changing the way the tribes harvest?

As the old saying goes, 2 wrongs don't ...

The following is the mantra that we need to adopt in order to get the bureaucratic nest builders out of our hair.

All of the salmon and rainbow, hatchery or not are "native". "Wild" fish do not exist! They have interbred with hatchery fish for far too long for there to be any difference.

With those two statements you remove the excuses and redirect the people we pay to provide us with fishing opportunities as the RCWs direct.

Grandpa -
While past over-harvest of salmon played a role in the decline of our salmon stocks that by and large has been and is being addressed. The over fishing was not limited to any one user group. In many cases the tribal catches are less than the non-tribal - the case of Snohomish chinook is a clear example.

Jef D -
I agree and am also hoping that marine survival conditions continue to improve.

Corkyking -
I have to disagree - there is ample evidence that there are substatnial populations of wild salmon, trout, and steelhead. In most cases hatchery and wild fish are very different animals. While I suppose that we could just ignore habitat needs, wild fish needs and just go about the task of catching as many fish as possible I for one have no interest in going there. The end result will be continued deterioration of our rivers until we are fishing artifical rivers for artifical fish - not the legacy that I wish for my grand kids.

Tight lines
S malma

Any word when the tribes will finally clip ALL hatchery fish? Right now in the strait the clipped rule is a big windfall to the tribes.

Thanks for the clarification Smalma on the Tulalip Bubble. What I can't figure out is why the WDF doesn't allow a selective fishery in all of 8-2 for kings... That would suit my fishing interests far greater than additional harvest on the rivers....

Jeff-

WDFW wont allow this type of fishery because the exploitation rate on Skykomish kings is predicted to be about 4.9-5.7% too high this year. The Stillaguamish Chinook are within an accpetable ER which helps, but the Skykomish and Snoqualmie stocks are stopping the show.

Becasue we haven't had a "Dip In" fishery conducted by the DFW in 8.2 that I am aware of, I dont't think there would be too high of a comfort level in allowing a fishery for Chinook here because they dont know what other stocks are in the area.

I have learned alot this week about how far Chinook can stray from what you would think are their probable migratory routes.

For example, a Dip In test was conducted in 2003 in Willipa bay. They caught 228 fish, and after testing it was determined that 75% of the fish were Willipa stock, 15% Columbia, and 10% other, which I assume were Chinook from either Grays or the Oregon rivers.

Due to these factors I don't think WDFW can open up that type of fishery.

Would be nice though, I caught quite a few in late August, September in and around the Bait box fishing Coho.

smalma: "there is ample evidence that there are substatnial populations of wild salmon"

If you have a link to the research that says; "here is a wild fish and this is how it differs from a hatchery fish" would you please direct me to it?

I am willing to be convinced. Several folk have sent me hither and thither through the federal register and various court cases and it's always turned out the same. No-one says that this is a "wild" fish.

What they do say is that hatchery and "wild" fish are known to frequent the same rivers at the same time for spawning and, in fact, do interbreed. Some court cases have determined that there is no difference.

Do you know what the heck Noaa is talking about here?:
"Recently the scientific name for the biological species that includes both steelhead and rainbow trout was changed from Salmo gairdneri to O. mykiss. This change reflects the premise that all trouts from western North America share a common lineage with Pacific salmon." From Fed. Reg

And what about these?
"“We conclude that even though naturally spawning hatchery steelhead may experience poor reproductive success, they and their juvenile progeny may be abundant enough to occupy substantial portions of spawning and rearing habitat to the detriment of wild fish populations.”
“However, it was apparent from both models that hatchery summer steelhead contributed at relatively high levels to natural production of smolts in both years.”
Again from the study provided:
“In the 2 years of our study, summer steelhead adults, mostly hatchery fish, made up 60% to 82% of the natural spawners in the river.”

It seems to me that there is just a bit of zealotry in trying to make a "wild" fish out of a fish. The "wild" fish is the Holy Grail that makes it impossible to have a proper fisheries program.

corkyking,

Your quotes from the studies regarding the abundance of smolts produced by hatchery fish spawning in the wild are accurate.

However, you're missing the rest of the story, which is while they produce an abundance of smolts, they produced statistically NO adult fish. All those smolts head out to sea and do not return.**

The problem with that is that all of those smolts compete with wild smolts for space and food, with no corresponding benefit of wild fish, i.e., besides reducing the native adults by impacting their juveniles, they return none of their own.

Also, the hatchery and wild fish crossbreeding in the wild has similar results. They mate, produce lots of smolts, and have a very low adult return rate, not quite zero like the hatchery/hatchery crosses. This is why there is very little hatchery introgression into the wild runs, the hatchery genes don't survive very long out of the hatchery environment.

In the recent court case in Oregon, the judge did not say that hatchery and wild coho are the same...what he said was that NMFS did not properly distinguish between the two in the ESA listing that listed the coastal Coho.


Check the Chilcote studies on the Kalama...do a search on this BB for a thread called "Broodstock Programs" from a few weeks ago, it has citations to all of the studies that deal with this topic.

**There are a couple notable exceptions where hatchery fish have established "wild" runs...the Green and S.Fk. Skykomish rivers have them.

Fish on...

Todd

Corkyking:

I am with you on your view of things. Here is the definition of "wild" from Webster's:

1 a : living in a state of nature and not ordinarily tame or domesticated b (1) : growing or produced without human aid or care

So it seems to me your definition of wild matches Webster's.

That's "Dr. Webster, PhD", as I'm sure he got his doctorate in fisheries at UW, to follow up his Masters in Marine Biology at Scripps.

barnettm, you're continuous clinging to that belief flies in the face of every single credible study ever done. This isn't a matter of opinion or feelings, it's a matter of fact. And the fact is your opinion is diametrically opposed to every scientific study.

Fish on...

Todd

Damn it Todd! How the hell are we supposed to have a prolonged b!tch session and spout our opinions as gospel truth when you keep presenting facts!!!