Just so everyone can get the scope of what by-catch really means-This is just one commercial fishery over 10 years(reported),,,over 703,000 Chinook bycatch
It does not count all the other fisheries that have by-catch
Read this-
http://www.adfg.state.ak.us/pubs/afrb/vol9_n1/withv9n1.pdf

Salmo g--

Not pickin' a fight here, because I find your comments well-reasoned, balanced, and educational, but when you noted "The habitat of the Stilly will stabilize and improve over time" I had to chuckle. Been up in them hills lately?

Unfortunately, the state prioritizes resource extraction to the detriment of protecting ESA-listed species.

I applaud any effort to realign such prioritization.

GBL

SE Alaska abundance numbers have been very high the last 5-6 years and recreational fishers have seen an increase from 3 -4 King Salmon a year because of it. Last year was a down year but go figure Puget Sound saw returns of Hatchery Chinook that were some of the highest in 20 years. Alaska can survive a down year or two because the habitat allows for higher survival rates than our frshwater environments do. If there habitat was as bad as are's is I think that they would be seeing the same results that we are down here.

I understand that by-catch during the trawl fishery is a big issue with you but since the feds manage it and the fact that on average the pollock fishery is a 300 million dollar a year fishery I don't see that getting shut down and in the end the feds have chosen to kill more King Salmon instead of the ammount of Steller Sea Lions that were being killed before. I guess the lesser of 2 evals.




Licenses for trollers in Alaska are already Limited Entry so you have to buy an existing license to partake in that fishery.

There is no incentive for Native Americans to sell there treaty rights, why would they want to do that. We can't force them.

I agree it all sucks but like the others have said we need to clean up our messes in our own back yard first and then go from there.

GBL--

I've appreciated your comments on this thread, but feel like you've tried to hijack a discussion of "S. Fk. Stilly chinook" into a rant against commercial catch/bycatch, and have become argumentative and defensive when others have tried to focus the discussion.

On one hand, I feel for you--but on the other, the list of "tribulations" you've offered is in no way specific to the S. Fk. Stilly. Frankly, reading over your posts, it seems you are focused beyond the scope of the thread. Well. nothing wrong with that, per se--but do understand that to a reader interested in recovery efforts on the S. Fk. Stilly your comments rate as nothing more than noise...

...as does this one.

(...and actually, on the other hand, I have five more fingers...yuk yuk)

Fro those that are interested in some numbers/data a visit to the following site -

http://www1.co.snohomish.wa.us/Departmen...ecoveryplan.htm

If you click on appendix C you'll find the escapement data base for both the North and South Fork Chinook stocks.

Some low points -
The South Fork stock has been hovering below 400 spawners a year since the start of the data base - 1974!

It was mentioned that there all ready is a brood stock program with the North Fork population. That program with a release goal of 200,000 smolts has been in effect for 25 years with minimal improvements in wild returns. Again from appendix C you'll see that since that program started roughly 1/3 to 1/2 of the spawners are from that program.

One of the positives of the NF brood stock has been the ability to CWT tag the released fish and get good info on where the catches are occurring. In the last decade the harvest rates on the NF stock has been reduced by roughly 50% to about a 25% level.

The combination of the portion of hatchery spawners on the spawning grounds More than1/3) and the fishing rates (less than 1/3) would indicate that the spawning population (hatchery plus wild) is not or just barely replacing itself. While it may that the hatchery spawners are not as productive as the naturally produced fish most of the available data indicates that both the capacity and productivty of the basin's habitat is so degraded that current North Fork escapements are near carrying capacity.

The latest CWT data that I have seen indicate that the distribution of that catch (25% of the total run) was -
Alaska - 26.7%
B. C. - 46.3%
Wa troll - 0.5%
PS net - 2.8%
Wa sport - 23.8%

By the way those Alaska catches come from SE Alaska not the Berring Sea.

I agree with some of the others that major problem facing the Stillaguamish Chinook is lack of productive habitat. And yes I agree with FishKisser that the excessive sediment problems that drive much of the production limitations will not improve in any large measure given current land management activities and time soon.

Latest year the Stillaguamish Chinook was the stock that limited the Puget Sound fisheries. The situation is likely to be a chronic issue and the status of the Sitllaguamish stocks will likely limit recreational fishing opportunities in Puget Sound for years.

Tight lines
Curt

Many very good points made on this thread. We are so Lucky to have dedicated and knowledgeable fisheries experts here and to have knowledgeable and passionate anglers like GBL.

If we assume Curt is right and the problems with the Stilly will be a major limiting factor in sport chinook fisheries for years to come I have this question:

What can CCA or any other advocacy group to alleviate this problem?

It seems to me "fixing" the Stilly problem might give CCA the biggest bang for their buck in this regions: That and getting the G.D. nets out of the Columbia, and getting enough water down the Columbia and Snake and . . .

When a single stock in a very mixed stock fishery context is the one that is really limiting all the other fisheries, there are only two choices...ignore that stock, and write it off, or recover that stock, and then reap the benefits of it.

State and Federal law don't allow for choice number one, so we're stuck with choice number two. To gain a meaningful increase in any fishery limited by Stilly stock Chinook, Stilly stock Chinook numbers must be meaningfully increased.

Ending all the commercial fisheries that catch any of those fish will add only a handful of fish to the equation, and with the severely degraded habitat in the Stilly basin, it wouldn't matter anyway...the productivity of that basin has been so damaged that it probably can't even support spawning and rearing of a modest increase of fish.

That being the case, we're in a holding pattern on those fish...at best, they will remain exactly at replacement levels, and will continue to limit all the other fisheries...sport, commercial, and tribal...that catch any of them in Washington waters.

Unless the habitat is improved, that's how it will be until they are finally deemed functionally extinct (i.e., "written off"), and then the rest of the fisheries can go on their merry way...assuming another stock hasn't stepped into the spotlight as the next "about to go extinct PS Chinook run" and limit the fisheries.

If any group wants to have a positive effect on increasing PS sportfisheries by increasing Stilly Chinook numbers, then that group will have to play a positive role in increasing functional spawning and rearing habitat in the Stillaguamish Basin.

Period.

That starts by successfully opposing current and future threats to existing functional habitat, and while that is being handled get to work supporting a basin-wide project to stabilize the slopes that were almost completely destroyed by poor logging practices in the past, and fix the dozens of culverts that carry spawning tribs under Highway 530, and other roads.

From what I understand (Curt and Steve?), the Stillaguamish River has historically had a lot of its productivity wrapped up in beaver ponds in the lower river...those ponds are gone now, along with their productivity. Re-establishment of off-channel rearing habitat like beaver ponds would go a long way towards getting some rearing habitat back in shape there.

There's this other group out there that could help...they're called "beavers"...but while what they do is good for fish, it also floods peoples' backyards and driveways...people tend to not like that.

Removing miles of dikes out of the lower Stilly below I-5 would help, too...fully diked rivers like the Stilly, the Puyallup, they really have a hard time supporting rearing habitat.

Harping on harvest won't do any good on the Stilly...even if it were all stopped and a couple hundred more fish returned, they would have a hard time finding room to spawn, and their young would have an even harder time finding somewhere to grow up to smolt size successfully...and then they'd have no room to spawn when they returned in a few years.

Fish on...

Todd

I believe Smalma's summary of the 25 year NF experience clearly shows that the relative numbers in my hypothetical River Zip scenario over multiple generations actually do pan out in real life.

1) We start with a conservation hatchery of similar magnitude: I assumed 50 hens producing 3500 eggs apiece yielding 175K eggs, but a hatcheryman I know says it's probably closer to 4000-4500 per chinook hen... or roughly 200-225K eggs.

2) We end up with a naturally-spawning population consisting of between 1/3 and 1/2 hatchery-born spawners.

3) We end up with disappointingly marginal gains at best within the population of wild-born spawners.

4) And we still end up approaching a miserable steady state over several generations based ENTIRELY on the carrying capacity of the habitat.

The only difference is now the depressed wild run is forced to co-exist within that limited carrying capacity with a superimposed hatchery component.

For the amount of time, talent, and treasure invested in the "conservation" hatchery, that's a pretty $hitty return.

Is that really the best use of limited salmon recovery dollars?

25 years of immediate past history is staring us right in the face with a very valuable lesson. You think anybody's paying attention?

Dave -
Great question -
First this is not just about Chinook sprot fishing in Puget Sound but rather salmon fishing in Puget Sound in general. The impacts from all the various fisheries are included in determination of the sum of the total impacts. This pass season a major item of discussion at NOF was whether to use a portion of the incidental Stilly Chinook impacts to support a 6 week in-river fishery for pinks and early coho or for a month of blackmouth in MAs 8-1 & 8-2.

I think it should be apparent to most that the commonly talked about as being CCA priorities (commerical fishing, gill nets, tribal fishing, etc) in the various fishing discussion forms while provide little benefits in this case.

I would think a good short term strategy for local groups would be sit down and honestly assess their interests and priorities. Is it important that some of our local stock productivity is used to support fishing? Once that has been some what defined take the time to research the issues and move from this reliance of good sounding rhetortic that we have been hearing and move to the point of making informed decisions on solid information.

I have to agree with Todd the long term solution for populations like the Stillaguamish Chinook is in habitat restoration and protection. Without that focus we will be doomed to seeing decreasing numbers of fish and the following reduced opportunities.

If advocate groups decide to take on that sort of the effort they will need to mend some of the fences with their natural allies in that effort. If the recreational fishers are to have any hope of success in this effort they will need to stand shoulder to shoulder with the area's Tribal and commerical fishing interests. We all will better off dividing a large pie than continuing to bicker about who gets what of a constantly decreasing pie.

To date I have not seen any interest in that sort of united effort; in fact quite the opposite.

While folks are researching the issues and forming opinions what they as individuals can do is make decisions of where they fish. A quick review of where the impacts on Stillaguamish is habitat would indicate that anyone who fishings Chinnok in SE Alaska or BC or promotes those fisheries are part of the problem.

Tight lines
Curt

FNP-
You asked - "You think anybody's paying attention?"

The answer of course is yes. However it is equally true that the priority of most decision makers has been surviving ESA listings rather than recovering the fish. Or if you will political science has been trumping biological science.

Progams such as these brood stocks are often little more than the easy way to give the appearance of "doing something". Yes there are cases where "rescue " programs are needed but there are more common cases where the current approach needs to be re-thought.

I would suggest that a more effective way to aid the fish would be some sort of "pulsed" enhancement effort. Using the NF Stillaguamish as an example what I would envision would be that the enhancement level would step in to aid the population when natural escapements fell to a certain level - let's say a 1,000 fish. At that point wild brood fish would be take, smolt raised and released for one generation (4 or 5 years). At which point the program would be suspended for a generation or long to see how the population responds and to allow natural selection processes to work against the mal-adapted hatchery fish. of course the risk of such an approach is that in many cases that limit factors are habitat based on not fisheries driven and the ultimate fix has to be in the habitat arena.

Tight lines
Curt

While many often contend that there is no one actually addressing the issues that face our fish and fisheries, they are flat out wrong. There are many groups and individuals working on the issues that most affect our Puget Sound fisheries, those issues mainly being centered on hatchery/wild interactions and habitat.

Those two factors affect our PS fisheries more than all other factors combined, dwarfing the effects of any harvest, anywhere.

The problem is that most folks don't like to hear the truth...they like to hear that it is all the commercial or tribal fishers faults...it tweaks their emotional responses, and that's what drives people to sign up for an organization.

Show them the truth, and they fight it tooth and nail...as I said, they aren't actually interested in the truth.

While appealling to the emotions of the potential membership, and encouraging them to send in their membership fees, even if harvest were almost completely curtailed there would be little benefit to the fish, and little or no sportfishing opportunity.

As one leader said to me when I asked him about this, "A win is a win, right?"...wrong. How can it be a win when there is no benefit to the fish, and the result is the end of sportfishing in much of Puget Sound?

The fact is, habitat work is not sexy enough to get people involved, and hatchery/wild interactions are so poorly understood by the average angler that even attempting to explain it is most often completely futile...they tend to practice a particularly insidious form of ignorance...it's like they put their fingers in their ears and just keep yelling "Commercial nets, tribal nets!!" at the top of their voices so that they don't have to hear anything that doesn't align with their pre-determined emotional reactions.

Frankly, it's the reason why there are so few people actually doing the heavy lifting for our Puget Sound fisheries...they have to do it because they really care about the fish and the fisheries, because they sure don't grab the headlines like the guys yelling about nets.

There are certainly places where harvest is an issue...there are many places where it is as big an issue, if not a bigger issue, than is habitat or water quality/quantity.

Puget Sound is not one of those places.

Fish on...

Todd

GBL,

Yes, I do get the picture.

"Bad spawning beds" - that's habitat, like I've been saying.

"Preditors in the river like Mergansers" - that's part of the natural ecosystem that I don't think is out of balance, except too few salmon for the predators.

"Open sea" - ocean survival varies from year to year, and it's not on the list of things we can manage.

"Peditors like seals, whales, other fish" - again part of a healthy natural ecosystem. There are exceptions like the Ballard Locks and LCR sea lions that are out of balance, but there's no indication that is an issue for Stilly chinook.

"Lack of feed during their growth cycle" - assuming ocean rearing conditions, those vary naturally, and healthy salmon populations survive both the good times and the bad times. And - it's not on the list of things we can manage.

"Polution" - equals habitat; just what I've been saying. Some urban and rural, but ag pollution I think is the main culprit on the Stilly.

"Gill nets (both Indian and non-indian)" - if you'll check the catch data provided by Smalma, you'll see that gillnet interceptions of Stilly chinook are inconsequential as I previously stated.

"Trawlers" - refer again to catch statistics and you'll note that trawl bycatch of Stilly chinook is inconsequential.

"Purse Seins" - referring to the same catch statistics, please note that PS net catch is inconsequential. The sport fishery catches very many more. Would you like to close all recreational fishing as I suggested would be necessary to meaningfully reduce harvests?

"El Nino" - a naturally recurring ocean condition that healthy stocks survive again and again, and kind of a "red herring" in this discussion.

"Foreign fleets" - well ya' got me there, but I already said Canada is a prime harvester of Stilly chinook, and WDFW has zero clout over their fishing. Shall the US declare war on Canada until they stop fishing the ocean?

"Interception on their way home, you get the picture" - that would be Alaska and BC, already discussed, altho I admit I thought the Alaska interception was less. However, AK acts like a foreign country when it comes to dealing with interceptions of WA salmon. Should we declare war on AK until it stops fishing the ocean also?
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Habitat in SE AK is not all perfect. Some is pristine, and some is trashed just like we do here in the PNW with forest practices. Salmon returns in AK have traditionally cycled with ocean conditions. Typically when marine survival is low for AK salmon, it is high for WA and OR salmon, and vice versa. Therefore there is no way I would or have or will say that AK should have record runs every year. You're making that up. Knock it off and read this entire thread. There is a wealth of information, and you could learn a lot if you are open minded.
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Fishkisser,

I didn't say how much time. It will stabilize if we let it and or if we take measures that facilitate it. Of course, society may choose to just keep on screwing it up. In that case, I'm wrong, but I choose to remain somewhat optimistic. It's the only chance we have to leave functional ecological options to a future generation.

Smalma,

As usual, thanks for joining the discussion. It looks like maybe the whole Stilly chinook conservation/rescue mission should be re-evaluated and re-designed. And maybe those fish really are already out of time. I'm not ready to pull the plug though.

Dave,

As Todd pointed out, we can try to improve the Stilly chinook stock status to reduce the impact on PS fishing. However, by definition, there is always a limiting stock, whichever is the weakest. The only way to avoid that is to have no weak stocks. Unfortunately, I don't expect that to ever happen. Maybe some day some stocks will recover and be healthy and not limit PS fishing, and the remainder will have gone extinct so that they don't limit fishing either. Not fun to think about, but it's certainly on the list of probably future alternatives.

FNP,

Well this thread is causing me to re-think what to do. We might be out of viable options. I agree with Smalma about the policy support of programs that give the appearance of doing something, even if that something is not substantial. I do think that some type of conservation hatchery intervention is necessary as long as trashed habitat is limiting recovery. I recognize that entails a risk. But I'd rather take that risk than pull the plug and eliminate options for my kid's generation to try to bring about recovery.

Todd,

Thanks also for helping out here too. You articulate the policy issues well.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

OK Curt I took a peek at Appendix C

Click here for Appendix C, folks

YIKES! Not pretty.

The NF hatchery program did not start seeing a full complement adult age classes returning until about 1989-1990. They had ONE good production year of hatchery recruits which brought back about 353 fish in 1991. Must have been pretty encouraging to see that, but reality quickly set in when the bottom dropped out on the initial gains the following year. Overall production even with the aide of the hatchery (natural plus hatchery) seems to be just slightly above replacement since 1993. On average, hatchery-born spawners made up about 36.4% of the run beyond 1991. And that is with a recruit ratio from hatchery production of nearly 3.5! I estimated that by dividing the 11-yr average hatchery return of 347 (between 1992 and 2002) by the 100 fish required for broodstock each year = 3.47.

Pretty amazing how well the real life NF experience tracks with the hypothetical River Zip scenario I painted.

Like we talked about on the phone the other day, Doc...a "conservation hatchery" has got to be looked at as a life support system to keep the stock from going extinct while the habitat is fixed...pretending that they will recover a stock while the actual problems the stock is facing are ignored takes extra deep sand for managers to stick their heads in.

Fish on...

Todd

I think that we can all definitley agree on that one Todd.

This has been another interesting discussion, is it habitat, harvest, or bad management, and is it worth the money to solve the problem. I think that it has been demonstrated that habitat is the limiting factor. What has been left out of the discussion is that the limiting area may not be freshwater and it is not ocean survival. The fact that both wild and hatchery escapements are low indicates that even though spawning habitats are trashed the major habitat problems are the estuary and nearshore areas in Skagit Bay and Saratoga Passage. In the discussion of the document that Smalma referenced it is indicated that juvenile chinook use these areas year around. Because of dikes, conversion of land to agriculture use, and urban development, the estuary of the Stillaguamish has been silted heavily and productivity greatly reduced. That may be the area where salmon recovery money should go first.

The issue of bycatch may be important but recreational fishermen can't complain too loudly. In the same document I mentioned above there is a graph of chinook escapement from 1974 to 2003 in the Stillaguamish system. What I find interesting is the pronounced even/odd year variation with odd years having significantly lower escapements than the even years over the last ten years of data. I speculate that this is related to the greatly increased popularity of the pink fishery in area 8. In the few times I fished for pinks in area 8 I saw several chinook hooked and released without consideration of good release techniques. The Pacific Salmon Commission estimated coastwide bycatch mortality of chinook in 2006 for commercial troll and recreational fisheries was 45,000 fish. None of these moralities are in the CWT data because the fish are not retained. I don't know if these numbers included Puget Sound recreational fisheries. I do know that there is an impact and relative to the number of fisherman I suspect that the winter blackmouth fishery is the worst in terms of bycatch. If recreational fishermen raise the issue of chinook bycatch I think the blackmouth fishery would be the first fishery to be closed.

It's my fault, Aunty. I'm starting to live with that fact now.

I think I saw this episode on the Sopranos.

Don Loomis: "Parker. You NEED our protection."

Parker: "I don't need YOUR protection. No. I'm not paying!"

Don Loomis: "Aunty, break his knee caps! We know he's not carrying and he's not prepared."

<WHACK!>

Parker: "Ouch! Allright. I give up. I need to be protected. Here's your membership dues."

Don Loomis: "Let's go boys. We have Todd to visit next."

Good scenario there Parker, welcome aboard. Kudos to Aunty M.

Easy there old man. I've yet to see Don Loomis personally show up at my door.

If and when that happens, I'll hand over my $25.