I've been checking the WDFW North of Falcon site for the past couple weeks:

pre-season chinook forcasts

The only major system without a published forecast is Grays Harbor. The first NOF meeting is March 17 (only two days away), and yet no data is available. What gives? Anyone out there aware of any pre-season numbers? Spawnout? Dan S? Local?

fishNphysician-

The data I have details:
-2156 wild Chehalis Springs
-828 hatchery and 15,377 wild for a total of 16,205 at Chehalis falls
-1,171 hatchery and 2,990 wild for a total of 4,161 at Humptulips falls.

Subregion total is 20,366

Willipa Bay Falls 14,735 hatchery and 4,096 wild for a total of 18,831

I hear the king fishery in GH is back on the table this year, probably with a one-fish limit.

ones better than none......... but i will believe it when i see it...

In regards to possible king retention this year, it sure would be nice. As one who regularly fishes GH and the Chehalis, I find it damn ironic that in years the sporties get closed out of king retention there sure seems to be an "abundance" of them accidentally caught by us. Last year was a shining example. I understand the science of run prediction is a guess at best but it's hard to swallow a closure in the name of "low predicted returns" when there are many incidentally caught and other groups DO get to fish them.

On the flip side, everything is a trade-off. I will take a pair of big hooknose silvers anyday over a bronze-colored king. And if it means getting the nets in and out earlier to target kings and leave the silvers alone.......I could live with that.

Of course, we can rant about the fact there shouldn't be any nets period......but that's not the reality. Ideally, it would be nice to have the opportunity to keep a hog king if the chance presents itself.

I agree with Eric. The WDFW forecasts for the GH tribs have been an utter disappointment. The years where chinook have been closed for retention, you couldn't keep the chinook off your line (last year for instance.)

I'm not saying that it's easy to forecast a run size, but on the GH tribs, their numbers seem to be WAY off.

I heard this afternoon that a 1 fish limit was agreed upon today in Vancouver. Done deal.

Thanks Sky-Guy.... that's great news!

Will the one fish limit apply to the Hump?

SA

wonder what tribs we will be able to keep that one king??? And did they come to an agrement with the tribe on this????

Everyone needs to remember that the fishing seasons and quotas are part of one big pie....you can't just look at one small fishery anymore and decide that there are enough fish to allow a fishery on those stocks. All of these fish come back from the ocean and in the ocean the fish are considered "mixed stocks" so the big boys who are meeting now in the "North of Falcon Process" look at the big picture and allocate harvest like a big chess board. Then when all the chessmen are in place and the board looks workable along come the tribes to sometimes scramble all the pieces again. The GH fishery is one of my personal favorites for many reasons and I hate to see the season shut down only to see massive netting. I guess that is the story all across our fisheries management today. The returning fish to the Chehalis system predicted should allow a season this year . We will see in the next couple of weeks how the chips are moved around the board.

Tomorrow in Lynnwood there is an all day meeting starting at 9am that I am sorry I cannot attend due to that darn paying job but I will certainly be getting plenty of emails in the next couple of days concerning the outcome and outlook for the 2004. I am crossing my fingers that sports anglers will get an opportunity to fish GH.

As most of you know I guide on those rivers and it is sometimes difficult to explain to the clients why we are catching so many kings yet we cannot keep them. I am all for a one fish a day 5 per season limit on these big kings. It sure beats the alternitive. Seems to work in Oregon Okay.
Peace
Superfly

I was at the South Bend NOF meeting last week. A total farce, the commercial bashed the WDFW like you can not believe, & then they want favoritism. That is beyond anybody's mentality.

Anyway they (the Willapa netters) bashed the dept so bad that of the 2 hr meeting, we only had 15 min on Grays Harbor, & never rally got around to mention the Chinook retemtion for 2004. After the meeting, I talked to Tim Flint & specifically asked what was going to happen there as far as he knew. He said that there would be a Chinook fishery, but that it would probably only be for 1 fish.

If the return can support it, I too would be in favor of a one-king limit in the bay, Humptulips, mainstem Chehalis, and tribs like Satsop and Wynoochee.

A one-king limit did NOT happen last year due to WDFW citing a problem with wild upper Chehalis kings failing to meet e-goals 2 or 3 years running. That begs a few questions:

Anybody know if they officially made e-goal for 2003?

How do they differentiate the wild kings from hatchery when so few of the fish are marked?

When do we get basin-wide marking of kings so that selective fisheries can occur on harvestable numbers of hatchery fish, especially in years when wild returns are "poor"?

Sure would make for a more stable and predictable fishery every year knowing that we could at least target hatchery fish. Aren't they produced for harvest?

Salmo g or S malma:

Can either of you extract and post some info from the WDFW database on GH/Chehalis king returns for lets say the past 5 or 6 years? It would be interesting to see forecasted vs actual returns side-by-side and then correlate that to the fishery that they eventually prosecuted.

You mean Kings like these?


The pictures don't really do these fish justice.
G

In 2000 thru 2002 The water was low in Sept and Oct. The tribes and commercials netted tide water. I know of a 72 hour commercial season just on the beginning of a weather (rain) front. The last 24 hrs of that season all the buyers were full of kings. The wdfw had to go to 28th street ramp and they unloaded three gill net boats. They had the ramp blocked. Can you say no excapement . Those years we caught only a few.

Maybe instead of *****ing some of you should have been at the north of falcon meeting yesterday.The gillnetters proposed a 7 day a week in river fishery in the chehalis,plus doubling the grays harbour fishing.The hump probably will have a 15 plus day season starting oct. 15th forthe sporties.

It's official.

2004 seasons

We get a one king limit in the bay this year. Anyone know if we will get to keep any in the Chehalis or its tribs?