Meeting Monday night at the Chateau Westport.

The available chinook harvest for sports will not be maximally utilized if we go with a standard salmon opener in July. The dismal coho numbers will be the limiting stock in the ocean sportfishery... when they are gone, it's over. No way in hell the season will last thru Labor Day like the charterboats typically like to see to maximize their summer season.

When the coho are caught, it's over... no matter how much of the chinook guideline is left unharvested. And knowing how things have worked in the past, the unharvested sport chinook could well be re-allocated to the commercial trollers mid-season.

One option on the table is a special early chinook-only sport opener like we saw back in 2002. The season opened around the Memorial weekend with a 2-king daily bag and went for several weeks before the ususal mid-summer salmon opener allowing coho retention.

If this is something you would like to see happen, show up Monday night and make your voice heard!

March 31 Pacific Fishery Management Council public hearing:

* 7:00 p.m., Chateau Westport, 710 Hancock Street, Westport
* Public hearing to receive comments on proposed ocean salmon fishery management options adopted by the council.

As of 10:15 pm.... 131 views. Anyone else gonna be at this meeting?

Another way of asking it: How many people are going be angry and complain if the season closes early and the commies get all the kings?

Tomorrow night is your opportunity to do something about it beforehand, rather than just getting upset when it comes to pass without having made an effort to prevent it.

Based on the response to this thread, it should have been no surprise that I would be the lone private sportfisher represented in a meeting room full of commercial trollers and charterboat captains.

Gloom and doom permeated the room.

The biggest constraint on the ocean fishery is an 8% cap on LCR coho impacts. One troller bemoaned that ESA-listing of LCR coho was rejected because the fish have already been functionally extirpated... his point was why should the ocean be constrained by fish that are already toast?

Trollers are looking at weekly caps of perhaps 40-60 chinook and 25 coho. Lower caps are being touted to discourage Oregon boats from participating. Lots of cries calling for planting more fish to save the industry.

Recreational side definitely wants maximum access to the available chinook... hence two Options on the table for an early May-June chinook-only opener when the harvest models predict almost no interception of coho. The sticking point is whether or not a 1-fish bag in the early opener is a marketable product for the charter fleet. Key PFMC council members ackowledge one is better than none. The charter fleet is worried that they would have a hard time selling a trip with a 1-fish bag. They are torn between that or holding out for Option 3, a June 8 general opener with a 2-fish bag but only one king. Effectively that's still a one-king bag, especially since they will try their darndest to lay off the coho as much as is humanly possible. The perception that it's a 2-fish bag just has a nicer ring to it for the purposes of marketing the trip.

I testified that while two kings would be great, sports aren't gonna turn their nose up at a 1-fish bag if it gets us on the water early to access the stronger chinook run. The coho quota for the general Westport salmon season will be in the range of 4600-8600 coho. That may only last 3-4 weeks TOPS if it fishes anything like last year ( 4962 caught at the end of the third week, 7291 caught at the end of 4 weeks)... GAME OVER with perhaps as few as only 2200-2500 chinook caught!

That would be disastrous since there are 12,000-14,000 available chinook in PFMC Options 1 and 2.

That troller's remarks reminded me of that old thread we had about Stilly chinook just hanging by a thread. Somewhere in all that discussion T-Rip said:



If in fact the wild LCR coho are functionally extinct, I'm wondering what's keeping fish managers from "writing them off" and going on their merry way?

Some viable remaining LCR coho were found in the Sandy and a few small tributaries, and now they are ESA listed. That is all that is keeping the fish managers from writing them off and going on their merry way.

Sorry I couldn't be there. I've been a few states away this week.

Looks like it will be the typical type of season... 2 fish bag, only one chinook, release wild coho.... only they will start it on June 1 until the quota is gone. It should be interesting to see how long it lasts.

The idea behind the earlier opener is that fewer coho are around, hopefully reducing impacts on wild coho while allowing greater opportunity for chinook harvest. I am sure the charters will do their darndest to stay off the coho as much as is humanly possible... especially since they tend to be such dinks early in the summer... and they need to save those impacts for later in order to extend the duration of the season for as long as the quota possibly allows.

So effectively, the early part of the season may well function as a one fish bag on chinook since a good chunk of the participants are gonna want to stay off the coho anyway.

Looking forward to making the most of it, maybe see some of you out in the big blue pond!

The charters have been picking up a fair amount of kings on the bottomfish trips so far.

Have to retract part of that... sorry. The clarification I got this afternoon is as follows:

The June portion is chinook only, one fish bag, release ALL coho.... until June 28 or the 8200 chinook guideline has been harvested whichever comes first.

Then from June 29 forward, 2 fish bag, one chinook, release WILD coho.... until the remainder of the chinook guideline is met or the hatchery coho quota of 20K is caught.

For comparison, the coho quota last year was nearly six times bigger. The actual catch was about 102K coho, with nearly 66K of that coming out of Westport alone.

Anyone care to take a guess how long 20K will last for the ENTIRE Washington coast?