March 5 Grays Harbor Fisheries Discussion:

6:00 pm - 8:00 pm, Montesano City Hall, 112 N. Main Street, Montesano
Public discussion of 2008 Grays Harbor salmon forecasts and fishing opportunities.

I'll be there to ask them why what was discussed at last year's meeting didn't get inacted, and why all of the GH river regs were so totally messed up.

I'm sure I'll see the regular cast of characters local celebrities there. I would suggest a bit of unruliness at this meeting. Fly, you coming?

Should be fun!

I plan on going...

3 hrs behind schedule in the O.R.and counting. Hope I'm not late for the meeting.

Its just surgery.

+1

Wished I had known earlier,I would have made it down.Good luck,
STRIKE ZONE

Synopsis:

Conservation comes first... it was re-iterated by all of the WDFW big-wigs tonight.

Chehalis chinook are forecast below escapement by 801 kings. Basinwide (Hump + Chehalis) non-treaty harvestable is only 335 kings. This falls in Tier One... no chinook-directed fishery in the bay or Chehalis basin. They hinted that they could make an exception for the Hump, but don't count on 750 non-treaty kings feeding much of a retention fishery. My prediction... kiss the Hump king season goodbye... the fish will probably be spent as impacts to maximize opprtunity on the available hatchery coho.

A small surplus of Chehalis coho (8945) and a MAJOR shortfall of Hump coho (2713 short of 6894 escapement goal) puts the entire basin at a nontreaty share of 3116... a Tier Two coho run. No coho-directed commercial fishery as per the Tier plan... keep your fingers crossed on this one. My prediction (if no comm fishery) .... count on a Sept 16 bay opener with two wild coho limit, Chehalis river/tribs open Oct 1 with two wild coho limit.... limited hatchery coho fishery (as in a few weeks max) on the Hump to keep wild coho impact at less than 10%.... I'm figuring single hook barbless no bait.

Chum forecast is only 47% of the 21K escapement goal. No chum-directed fishery on either the comm or sport side. Keep overall impacts at 10% or less.

This is shaping up to be the perfect storm to seriously constrain the net fisheries in Grays Harbor. On the treaty side, there are no harvestable wild coho or chum in the Hump, and only 750 wild chinook in the Hump. I would envision the QIN deploying large mesh net to maximally harvest their treaty share of wild chinook.... this would help to maximally pass the wild coho thru the fishery. Not sure how they are going to procesute a gillnet fishery to maximally harvest their treaty share of Hump hatchery coho... it would take VERY few days using small coho mesh to hit their share of the 10% impact on wild coho.

On the non-treaty side, it is MUCH worse. With the preseason run-size forecasts on the table for 2008, the Tier Plan stipulates no directed chinook, no directed chum, and no directed wild coho gillnetting. The responsible choice is obviously NO NON-TREATY GILLNETTING in the Chehalis sub-basin, but I seriously doubt our harvest-oriented managers will leave them hanging out to dry. WDFW may throw them a bone and give them just enough time to get a day or two of small mesh net time to target hatchery coho until they hit a target impact on chinook or wild coho... whichever is less. Another possible bone they could throw the comm guys is a one day 2-C opener (Hump stock) to use up some of the nontreaty share of the 750 chinook... just might be a good trade-off to keep non-treaty nets out of the Chehalis.

Treaty gillnetting in the Chehails should be limted as theer is only a small surplus of available coho.... no directed chum, no directed chinook. We look for them to get only enough days to hit their share of the incidental impact on chinook or chum. Heard a verbal commitment from the deputy director that WDFW will be lobbying the QIN to keep chinook/chum impacts in check.... hopefully this will finally be the year that the co-managers will pay more than lip-service to conservation.

While it was not discussed tonight, you can ber someone will be lobbying for the Morrison Park fishery to open Sept 16... single hook, barbless no bait... to minimize any impact on aling chinook returns.

Just one man's opinion.... Lord knows I've been totally WRONG on this stuff in the past so take it for what it's worth.

BTW great turnout by interested sportfishers tonight.

Those who did NOT make it should set aside some time for a presentation by the spawning survey crew on the mechanism for determining escapements in the basin. FYI, all are welcome to attend this VERY important presentation.

I think there were 5 gillnetters and the rest were sports fishermen.

Doc your saying (limited hatchery coho fishery (as in a few weeks max) on the Hump???) they forcast 22,536 comming back and they only need 2,120 for escapment goal.. you'd think that they will have a full season for hatchery coho..even split in half we still have over 11,000.. guess im not getting what your saying??

Glad there was a good turnout, as I was unable to attend.

Looks like the retuning chinook' mortality will limit our opportunity. My guess is the bay will only be open for one hatchery and one wild coho to discourage effort in the area. It's a bitter-sweet road to follow.

Was there any discussion about how commercial impacts had been used elsewhere???

Limited discussion on that issue.

There were 480 fish budgeted to be caught last year. The Tribe caught about 1800 and non treaty commercials had about 400 counted towards mortality. This is before the sportsman catch.

Must be the new math they're teaching in school..

You are assuming that harvesting all those hatchery fish is a "clean" fishery.

Not so.... wild chinook, wild coho, and chum will be killed in the process, even if they can't be kept.

The limiting stock in this case is the wild coho which are forecast 2713 fish below the goal of 6894.... that's about 40 % short of escapement! The management objective when the PSF is below EG is to craft fisheries that limit impacts to 10% or less. That means only 418 dead wild coho between all users!

In a perfect world half of those impacts would be allocated to the QIN and half to us. But we all know the world ain't perfect.

Andy is pretty close with 480 fish... as I cited a kill rate of about 16 fish a day last night.

Actually it was 501 fish budgeted for 31 days of kill in the bay.... that's only 16.16 fish per day. We have been assured that the harvest model will be adjusted to reflect a much more efficient kill rate in the sport fleet.

I believe it would be instructive for interested folks to review this thread from last year:

click here

Andy,
I did not attend because we get all of our work Done in our commitee and Francis was there to tow the line. I also had a Basketball game to coach.
I am glad for the large turnout and with a majority of the people pressing for conservation sure helps us press the flesh on the committee.

You can pretty much count on no chinook basin wide and limited coho fisheries basin wide like the Doc explained, time for the state to step up and make some drastic changes or this is what our future will look like.

Peace
Fly

i didnt think there was alot of people there..most were sportfishers but ive seen more in past yrs..

so what your saying Doc is that they will close the hump in mid season?????

sorry i couldn't make it. low numbers might finally get peoples heads out of there ases

Look, brother, the future is coming on.. You percieve, with your mind, a perfect world. Both sides will be allowed to harvest, because that's the olny way the folks at DFW appear to be able to get worked up.

I'd not expect to be able to fish much beyond the net take on the Hump side. My uncle from Kansas wants to come out for the time frame. I said to wait and see before securing the airline tickets.

DFW talking about conservation under this Director. Well, I've got a head full of doubt...

Hans

No, not at all. Besides when have you seen our harvest managers ever shut a season down early in the name of conservation... so far, none on my watch. It's full steam ahead with HARVEST HARVEST HARVEST as per the preseason projections, regardless of how the season actually unfolds as it is taking place.

What I am saying is that an attempt will be made to expend every last surplus wild chinook ( there are 750 of them on the nontreaty side) as well as the nontreaty share (whatever that is) of the targeted 10% max impact on the puny run of wild coho... in order to come up with how many days of fishing (usually in two week chunks) WDFW will decree to harvest the projected surplus of hatchery coho.

Remember, this is WDFW. No matter how crappy the run-size, there has always been a seat at the table for HARVEST! This year should be no different... except that the harvest opportunities will be much more limited. The kill seasons that they set at NOF will no doubt be much shorter than what we have seen recently.

Nobody wants a mid-season surprise that cuts the season short. Better to pre-plan it as a short season to begin with. Besides, the QIN is pretty firm on its stance that there be no in-season adjustment to the annual harvest plan put forward by the co-managers.

ok i get what your saying now Doc... takes me awhile to figure things out with all the drugs they got me on..lol