"How do egg gutted fish laying in the bottom of the river get counted toward the quota??"


shhhh!!
you wern't supposed to notice

EXACTLY!!!

(for those who have viewed the pictures)

Have you ever gutted a thousand salmon...............on weed?

Like I said...the young tribal members are out fishing for eggs so they can scare up enough dough for more WEED!!!....Can't drink Jack Daniels back at the rez but WEED is ok. Mom and dad are back home spending their casino money they get every month while junior and his friends are keeping their fishing tradition alive ON WEED>

What's to criticize?>>>>

I don't want to be too judgemental here so if anyone has a case they can site that is verifiable where notifying tribal enforcement has actually resulted in any kind of punishment for what we are talking about here I am all ears.

Someone in the know challenged what I said about the Skoks getting three million dollars...I really did not say that but may have implied it. Actually the $3 million includes $850,000 for the Skoks to nudge them to do the right thing with the Chum carcasses . The rest of the money I think will go to studying the oxygen depletion problem in Hood Canal. My point was that the tribes should not brag about their cultural heritage if it takes a big sack of money to get them to do the right thing. Something they should have been doing all along if they gave a rip about anything other than money in their pockets.

By the way . why are we spending so much to raise all these chums anyway?

Um, actually, it does not cost much to raise chum salmon at a salmon hatchery... probably the least expensive species to produce from a typical fish culture facility.

"Um, actually, it does not cost much to raise chum salmon at a salmon hatchery... probably the least expensive species to produce from a typical fish culture facility."

least is kinda vague to me
how much exactly is U.S. dollars per fish returned would be my question followed with who exactly harvests how many of those fish and what exactly was the cost per harvested fish per person paying for those fish

uhmm
are they like $2 each? or $200
etc. etc.....

Well I'm glad we are getting our moneys worth...looks like those young bucks appreciate what we are allowing them to do too.

Just wondering after reading this post, How many of the probably thousands of fish that are stripped of eggs and thrown back into the water By all of the various Tribes in the State are added to the native quota?
My guess is probably none.
Hmmmm Wonder what the real so called 50% allocation is? My guess? 75% Indian 15% commercial nets 10% Sports fishermen.
By the way The Sporties pay the most for the fish. Sound fair?
Ramprat

By the way I am not Talking about just chum Salmon here!
Ramprat

Take PNW's sage advise and contact the tribes..They are upstanding and honest and will be glad to fill you in on their catch records which , as PNW swears, are reported with the same accuracy as the non tribal commercials. They have nothing to hide.....well..except their pot.

Pacific I,m not really sure what you mean by this. Does this mean that the rearing pens are cheaper for Chums than say Chinook for example or maybe the Employees get paid less per hour Because they are raising just Chums.
Survivability rate?
Please explain to me why Chums are cheaper to rear than say Steelhead, Chinook, or Coho.
Thanx Ramprat

Ramprat - Chum migrate to the Salt almost immediately upon hatching as do Pinks. That's probably what they meant.

i clicked on the link and saw no photos

Ramprat,

While hatchery costs do vary, one of the last good figures I heard for WDFW hatcheries was about $6 per pound of fish raised. Chum salmon are often reared to 400 fish per pound, if not smaller, while steelhead are raised to 6/lb., chinook 90/lb., coho 15/lb. The smolt to adult survival rate varies, usually according to size of smolts at release, and by species. One half of one percent to recruitment would be very good for chum, about the same or a little higher for chinook, about 7% for coho, altho higher in HC as I recall, and 2-3% for steelhead. So you can see that WDFW can raise a lot of chums for not so much money.

The real question is, why bother raising hatchery chum in HC at all? Natural production of chum is good. The commercial value of chum is low, and as we are seeing, the value is primarily in the roe. Why should public funds be expended to subsidize a roe fishery? Might the public interest be better served by just letting those low value chums run up their rivers and spawn and fertilize aquatic ecosystems, benefitting other species, including ones with greater social value?

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

Thanks Salmo I agree! Why Raise so many chums just so the Indians can strip the eggs and dump the carcasses using our tax dollars.
Ramprat

Don't blame this one all on the tribes . There were some huge Alaska seiners swarming all over the Chums in HC a couple of weeks ago. They make their money in Alaska and fish here for gas money.

The link takes you to page 2. Go to the bottom of the page and hit the back page button. You will find the photos.

Steve