Cupo -
How about the Baker complex - Shannon and Baker?

They have effectively eliminate steelhead production from the Baker. In addition flow management from the upper Skagit dams may not be the most favorable to the Skagit steelhead.

BTW -
Is it reallytrue that the Tribes are operating on a cap of 600 dead wild steelhead? As I recall that the pre-season forecast was 5100. Are to expect that the Tribes feel it is acceptable to have a nearly a 12% impact on ESA listed stocked expected to be under-escaped. Hard to make that such actions are conservation base or represent much concern for the wild steelhead resource.

Tight lines
Curt

It appears that a few have finally noticed the elephant in the living room.

"The Indians didn't overfish the Skagit..." hmmmm.....substitute "Skagit" with a number of other rivers....still think it's true?

Of course they overfish the Skagit! It's not rods and reels that are killing the river.....it's nets! Ever notice the difference between when the nets are "in" and when their "out"? Wave the "Treaty Right" flag all you want.....result is the same.....in-river nets are vicious killers of fish, whether targetted or untargetted species....and when they are drifted the fish are picked right off their spawning beds! Indians don't give a crap about "wild" as we term it. They aren't fishing for sport....they're only after the money and hatchery fish bring as much as wild fish.

Wrong is definitely wrong....and Treaty "Right" is one of them. Legalities be damned....the truth is the truth. And on top of that, until the Native take is strickly monitored, I will not believe that we aren't getting screwed.....even by Boldt outlines.

Slab Happy I was referring to the past when I said that they didn't over fish the Skagit. Back when the runs were plentiful Indian fishing was not the the reason for the demise of Skagit river stocks. White commercial over fishing was. That and the two dams on the upper Skagit, Diablo and Gorge which cut off many many miles of habitat on the upper water shed didn't help any.
Please don't think that I, in any way shape of form support in river netting. I don't. I won't even go inside an Indian casino to help support any tribe but many others do. The quickest way to get them to modify their behavior is through their collective wallet.

Actually, I’d say the main reason for the demise of the Skagit stocks is (not surprisingly) the history of land use in the watershed. The beginning of the end probably came when the delta was diked to “reclaim” agricultural lands that grow all those pretty tulips. With that went most of the estuarine rearing habitat for summer and fall chinook. Clearing the massive logjams above Mount Vernon to facilitate river traffic most likely changed the middle river floodplain reaches enough to damage a hell of a lot of amazing coho rearing habitat. Logging throughout the entire watershed changed the sediment budgets of all the tributaries, changes that were felt all the way to the mainstem. There goes all those pool-riffle sequences that spring chinook need to stage and mature in. And steelhead, with their amazing diversity, use every inch of everything at some point in their life history, so they took all those hits, too. And then came the pavement…

This entire discussion feels to me like somebody squabbling over the change in his pocket while somebody quietly slips a $100 bill out of his wallet. The real question is when we as a society are going to decide that the enormous lifestyle changes that fixing these problems would take are worth it. Unfortunately, I’m going to guess never.

But I’d love to see ‘em prove me wrong.

HOW CAN WE FIX IT?????????

I know, but I wanted to see if he knew.



FYI, the three dams on the upper Skagit (Gorge, Diablo, Ross) cut off nearly zero spawning habitat.

Just to clarify a bit, the Skagit sockeye fishery was part of the tribes' original proposal at North of Falcon. At the first joint NOF meeting in March, the co-managers tabled it for later discussion, so that may be why there was the perception it was introduced at the last minute.

You're absolutely right, the fishery does have a bay component with a bycatch ceiling for chinook. Like all fisheries (tribal, non-tribal, etc...), impacts from this fishery were accounted for in the decision-making process. In terms of impacts on Stilly fish, the breakdown of tribal to non-tribal impacts is something along the lines of 27 percent tribal and the rest non-tribal. I can get specific numbers if you want.

It’s been more than 30 years since Swinomish had a sockeye fishery here, and this fishery is the result of many years of enhancement efforts by the tribes and Seattle City Light that have increased the return to Baker Lake.

You can see the entire list of agreed-to fisheries at http://wdfw.wa.gov/fish/tribal/2008-09agreement.pdf

If you have questions, feel free to call WDFW, or the individual tribes. Each tribe has a hotline with up-to-date information about their fisheries: 360-466-4112 (Swinomish and Sauk-Suiattle); 360-854-7095 (Upper Skagit).

~~~~~~~
Kari Neumeyer
North Sound Information Officer
Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission
360-424-8226
kneumeyer@nwifc.org
www.nwifc.org

Okiedude, I'm glad you asked.

Here's my personal list:

1. Tear down the dikes. I think research has fairly conclusively shown that lost tidal channel habitat in the estuary is the major constraining factor on overall chinook production. But that will obviously cost a hell of a lot of farmland. Are you ready to be the guy that tells Fir Island farmers they're gonna get wet? Me neither. But it seems to me we have enough potatoes and not enough chinook. The same goes for upriver dikes. People will have to accept that floodplain living is a bad idea, and let that river go where it wants to.

2. Build a time machine and go back to convince folks that an unlogged watershed will benefit their great-grandchildren. I believe that lots of subtle changes from all that logging have destroyed a lot of the river's inherent productivity. Without a time machine, there's not much we can do now except stop the ongoing logging and wait 500 years or so.

3. Reverse commercial and residential sprawl, and build compact communities in their place (out of the floodplain).

See where this is going? It will take a dramatic change to make much of a difference. Most likely, we'll just continue on about the same path while wild salmon slowly become a museum piece. But I hope not.

Kari,

Thank you for your post. I will check with the Tribes regarding what kind of fishery is going on. It's weird to say they're fishing sockeye when the sockeye won't begin arriving for another five weeks. And while chinook impacts may have been accounted for at NOF, as you know, NOF ignores steelhead, and the stated steelhead impacts in this thread, if correct, are high for a population that returned at a level less than its escapment goal.

FYI, the sockeye return to the Baker River, where Puget Sound Energy (PSE) has two hydropower dams, not to be confused with Seattle City Light's (SCL) three dams on the upper Skagit River. The Tribes and agencies have worked with PSE, not SCL, to restore the Baker sockeye run.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

Kari Thank you for adding to this post, Finally a responce to this post that has a meaning to the fishery, Hopefully now maybe more of the posts will be based about the facts of this fishery and not who or why the fishery is decimated to near extiction... Now hopefully a NOF represenitvie will explain there side of it and the Sportsman will be informed...

Fine......let's have the "sockeye" count. How many sockeye have been caught and recorded as of May 15, 2008? Is this a sockeye fishery or is it something else? What's the bycatch total (fish other than sockeye)?

I'm going to make a guess that approximately "zero" sockeye have been caught, as it's at least a month shy of when any will show up, and that the "incidental" springers that are being harvested are not really incidental at all...and, as usual, the steelhead take it in the ass.

Fish on...

Todd

BTW -
At NOF the upper Skagit finally admitted that the May season was not a sockeye season; rather a spring Chinook one.

The "second" season in late June will with a doubt catch sockeye along with decent numbers of wild summer Chinook - both runs were forecasted to return in that 20-25,000 range.

Tight lines
Curt

Well, at least we've got one element of the bullschit removed...was there any discussion whatsoever about hammering downstream ESA listed wild steelhead that are from a depressed stock that was closed to sportfishing due to low numbers?

They're not even edible.

Fish on...

Todd

Crabs will eat them Todd.

Todd worse yet my connection at the cannery says that the Steelhead he has seen are in prime shape and fairly fresh. My concern here is that we will start to see the same results like the Coho run where they start to wipe out the few early run and Late run fish. Seems like just a few years ago you could catch a Coho in the Skagit system in just about every month the river was open.

And if there wasn't going to be Skagit bay Sockey tribal fishery we would of had enough chinook escapement to have a Stilly river Coho season again this year. A few netters ruin one of the only easily accessable bank fishing fisheries in the North end for hundreds of sporties.

I don't know about that one. From what I have seen on any res in the west it must be a rule or something that your yard HAS to look like crap.

Total fishery count as of today:

Chinook 128 no details if Wild or Hatchery
Sockeye 0
Steelhead 3 Wild

Chinook bringing $9.90 lbs in the whole

Is that today's catch?