the tough thing about opening up rivers licketty split is that is that they don't know what's still coming up after the big push... if anything and they can't tell what's come up already until they're already at the rack...which is too late for the sporties....

how would you suggest they figure run numbers to allow emergency river openings and guarantee egg take and escapement?

Body Surf:

Easy answer..........cut back on the "netting schedule" until the hatcheries have what they need. The whole sport catch for months of fishing doesn't equal 1 or 2 days of gill netting.

I saw gillnet boats coming into 28th Street so loaded, fish everywhere. Boxes were full, salmon laying on the desks. Fish buyers were right there........makes me sick to see that many fish caught, and the price was way down. Just don't figure!!!!!!!!

"Worse day sport fishing, still better than the best day working"

but how do you know where the fish the gill netters had impacted had come from? maybe they were mainly fish headed to the upper chehalis...or fish heading to other systems that had stopped in grays harbor for awhile...and there's no way to tell until redd counts are done and cwts read etc to tell what percent of fish came from where? what about the 90% of the state that doesn't fish but wants to eat salmon? if you cut down commercial fishing why would they want to support sports fisheries when you make their fish cost more?

Run timing of the hatchery coho returning to rivers flowing into Grays Harbor is pretty well known. Years and years of coded wire tag data tells us this. The hatchery coho timing is mostly separated from the wild coho timing (i.e., they are earlier). The intensive net fisheries and sport fisheries are timed to land right on the hatchery timing. Of course the peak entry pattern is not 100% guranteed... it often shifts one or two or three weeks depending on the year. But in most years the intensive fisheries are timed very well to coincide with hatchery coho entry patterns and when it works well, tens of thousands of hatchery coho are harvested.

Despite this, the surplus at most the hatchery coho facilities in the basin is quite large. These facilities have not had any problems meeting their needs for egg takes in many, many years. The hatchery coho suplus could be reduced if timing was more protracted than it currently is. But then the overlap with wild timing would be greater and therefore the impacts to local naturally produced coho would be increased which is contrary to current management policy.

So, you thought fisheries management was easy?

Guess I'm missing something here:

Hatcheries have egg take, so no problem there..........


Then WHY are we the openings for most of the rivers in Grays Harbor County..........10/1 or later??????

There are hatchery silvers, silver jacks, and even ugh king jacks that could be fished on in August and September........they were there this year and have been there for the many years that I've fished the Grays Harbor system.

"The worse day sport fishing, still better than the best day working"

Could very well be a protective measure for wild chinook. If run size projections allow for a small harvest of fall chinook (September run entry) then the intensive fishery for hatchery coho may have to get moved back.... and miss a portion of the return.

These are just speculative answers. I know the fall chinook populations in the Grays Harbor rivers have not been real productive in recent years. Management measures could be aimed at increasing chinook escapements. But those pesky hatchery coho insist on coming home in September as well.

So, you thought fish management was easy?