I was fishing up in the national park last week, we were about 3 quarters of our way to the take out which is on indian reservation, when i heard a jet sled roaring upstream. When he mcame around the corner I don't know who was more suprised them or us cause he made a quick u turn and got the heck outta there. It was about a 16 ft sled with three indians and a big white fish container. I wonder if he was going to drift net a few holes up there. You know you have miles and miles of river all to yourself LEAVE THE NATIONAL PARK ALONE!!!!!!!!!!
I don't know if this is legal or not but any info would be appreciated on the the rules of tribes and their netting practices and maybe who I should report this to.

I have to go to work now but I will post more on this subject later.

Call the National Park Service and tell them what you saw. They have Rangers out in the field that can give tickets.

Since it was on the reservation at some point I bet you will be told to discuss it with the tribal enforcement officers.....good luck!

Delivering milk to the park rangers

Call tribal enforcement and ask why they would be up there.It might give them something else to do if the fisherman was doing something illegal.

ummm, yeah....that's where the indians run their sleds. It's the national park on the oil city side of the hoh and the reservation on the 'reservation' side.

I don't know what to tell you except to expect them on the river from time to time, especially on their netting days.

A couple of them have taken to running the river on non-netting days trying to sell their fish to out of town fishermen....since people keep buying fish from the guy, expect to see this kind of thing more frequently. They could sell them awfully cheaply and still get more per pound than what they are getting now.....

They are also known to use the sleds to herd the fish into the gill nets

i was rereading this and I'm a bit confused...

...you said you were 'in the NP', but three quarters of the way to the takeout? Doesn't make sense because there are no floats on the river that end in the park, heck no floats that even go through NP water since the cliffside rough takeout is gone.

Where, exactly, were you on the river when you saw the sled?

Sthld420,

I'm just guessing...but from what he's describing, it sounds like a river other than the Hoh...one that starts with a "Q" and ends with a "ueets"...

That would be my guess, at least.

How's things out there on the banks of the Sol Duc? I might just get out there again this fall, if fall doesn't turn into winter before I get a break.

Fish on...

Todd

I was thinking the same thing Todd.

If it was the Queets then there is a very good chance that the sled with a white container was engaged in the annual fall chinook broodstock collection program.

This goes to show why folks should think about things and ask questions before jumping to conclusions.

The Quinaults have been conducting one of the few wild indictaor stock programs under the Pacific Salmon Commission. Approximately 60 pair of Queets fall chinook are captured each year and held until spawned. The goal is to produce 200,000 coded wire tagged smolts. This program has been going on for about 20 years. The data generated from the recovery of coded wire tags is used by managers to determine the migration range of Queets wild fall chinook, their contribution to various fisheries, and after the spawning escapement data is made available, exploitation rates are determined. Data from the Queets is used to make inferences about other coastal WA fall chinook stocks.

All in all, an extremely valuabe and important project. Sleds have been utilized on the Queets, in the Park, for every one of these 20 or more years... strictly for this project. It takes a tote half full of water and charged with O2 for the adults to be transfered to the trucking site... not something a drift biat is well suited for.

Again, a very important project. Imagine that, a tribe being responsible for an international fisheries management research project for the past 20 years. Who'd have thunk it???

Last time I checked you were not allowed to run a motorized craft in any national park waters regardless if your doing a broodstock program or not. Why can't they catch those 60 pairs of chinook in they're lower 6 miles of river. It's why I drive 5 hours round trip, I call that river home I love being there every chance I get. There is not many places left like it.

The broodstock program is allowed to use motorized boats. As you can understand, there are few ways to accomplish this kind of work without motors.

The reason broodstock are not collected from the lower 6 miles is increased pre-spawn mortality. Fish just in from the salt are very sensitive to handling and holding and do not survive the ordeal nearly as well as fish that have been in the fresh for a while.

Cut the program some slack... it may just be one of the more important data gathering efforts for wild fall chinook in the region when considering international fisheries management planning.

Minibear, did the scene you witnessed look like this?



This shot was taken from Hartzel Bar last November and there was also a truck with a big white container in the back.

God help me or them if I ever put inthere and see that!!!!!!!

PacNW, your little logic about higher mortality rate in lower stretches of river might be true So the piece of water they were going to "net/"fish" is not even a mile from the takeout! Sorry BRO but I don't think that extra mile is giong to make any difference, DO YOU?

Do they net the upper section of the Q to get fish for the broodstock program? I saw a net stuck in a log jam on that drift a couple years ago.

I do not know where, exactly, they fish for broodstock in the Queets... except the lower 6 miles are not it.

The fish need to be in the river for several days and that usually means several miles, upstream. Taking fish just out of the salt can result in broodstock pre-spawning mortality of 50% and that is not a good use of fish.

Taken further upstream, a well designed chinook broodstock capture, transport and holding system (which the Quinaults have) can result in pre-spawning mortality of less than 5%. The sleds with water and 02 in them are critical to the low mortality rate.

I know they fish the Olympus View drift and I know they fish up at Streaters Crossing. So, it is easy to assume that there are good places to catch broodstock up and downstream from those two spots... depending on flow conditions.

The photo above at Hartzel Bar is at least 6 miles up the Queets. I have a hard time buying into the mortality rational when their method of harvest is a gillnet. Have you ever gilled a strugling fish with mono while landing it? Paint the river red, baby, that fish is dead. I am not so nieve as to belive they are capturing fish in a gillnet with the intent of minimizing mortality.

My thoughts exactly SOL on the duc. you are worried about a high "pre spawn mortality rate", but i am sure gillnetting them is the best solution "decrease" the chance of mortality!
HMMMMMMMMM! Sorry bud but I ain't buyin into your theory!!!!

Welcome to the board stam, it's about time.

Well, as the old saying goes, everyone is entitled to their opinion. Fortunatley, there are fisheries professionals in charge of the Queets Chinook broodstock program. Speaking as a fisheries professional, I happen to value their opinion more than, say, the "person on the street" if you know what I mean. You cannot argue with success or accurate data and this program has both.

Not every gillnet is fished like you, apparently, think it is. And despite what you may think, the use of gillnets is a common broodstock capture technique, for all kinds of different species in all sorts of rivers around the State... Queets Chinook is no exception. Also in contradiction to your opinion, the pre-spawning mortality rate is extremely low for these wonderful fish. Again, you can argue with me... but you cannot argue with success and quality data.

The term gillnet is used to describe the location that the fish is usually entagled... the gills. But not every gillnet is designed to entagle fish around the gills. The gillnet mesh size used in broodstock capture programs is usually smaller than that used for catching fish commercially. Broodstock gillnets are also "hung" differently with more web per length of net than normal. All of this is designed to entangle fish around the snout and/or fins (as opposed to the gills) and the fish will sometimes roll itself up in the web but not actually be "hung up." Because the broodstock crews are right on top of the fish when they hit the net, and becasue they cut the meshes holding the fish immediately, the captured fish is usually out of the net in less than one minute, in a tube (calms them right down) and placed in oxygen enriched water for the ride to the transport truck.

I know these facts do not support the typical rhetoric on this site... but that is precisely why I bother to transfer this type of knowledge.

Not everything is as it seems. People think they see something "bad" and they perpetuate the myth. I suggest we ask questions first... before we rant about what we think we saw.

But, as I have stated above, this is just my opinion. But I have supported my opinion and offered an explanantion of what the sleds and the gillnets are likey doing in the Queets, in the Park. They are collecting fish that are used to produce prodgeny that are tagged which generates a tremendously valuable type of data needed to better management our local wild Chinook stocks.

Have a good day.