"Fishing suffered from depleted runs. From 1976 to 1988, the Coho salmon catch dropped from 1.38 million to 74,000."


I ran into this excerpt from a historical account of Grays Harbor (Chehalis) County. Really puts things into perspective when present-day managers talk about "banner" runs by modern-day standards. I mean every one is oohing and ahhing over (bemoaning?) the bumper crop of 72,000 silvers the gillnetters took out of Willapa this year.

Funny how we all tend to look at salmon abundance in terms of such a small timescape.... ie the past 10-20 yrs.... and consider that "historical" abundance.

Don't get me wrong here.... I fully appreciate the opportunities presented by 2009's bumper crop of coho, but man oh man, what would it have been like to fish the salmon superhighway that WAS the Chehalis back in the day?

source

found the results from a derby in the 1950's. I believe the largest was a 65lb king and the smallest was around 25lb. Nowadays 25lbs is considered a derby winner around here. Not to get off topic, but when was the last time someone caught a skate in the sound.

While not all streams/rivers in the "Harbor District" (WRIAs 22,23,24) received plants on an annual basis, from 1952 to 1973, the total salmon plants (for all species, but predominately Chinook and coho) by the WA Dept of Fisheries were:

Fry
17,653,498

Fingerlings
87,412,536

Yearlings
45,905,585

Total plant
150,971,619

Total pounds
2,519,023

The following drainages were stocked one or more times:

Grays Harbor
Duck Lake 1972 4,980 Masu (Cherry salmon)
Campbell Slough
Humptulips River
Damon Creek
Big Creek
Stevens Creek
Donkey Creek
O'Brien Creek
Chenois Creek
Hoquiam River
E F Hoquiam River
M F Hoquiam River
Chehalis River
Wishkah River
Wynoochee River
Aberdeen Lake
Unknown
Satsop River
W F Satsop River
Canyon River
E F Satsop River
M F Satsop River
Satsop Springs
Bingham Creek
Phillips Creek
Cloquallum Creek
Wildcat Creek
Delezenne Creek (sp?)
Johns River
Andrews Creek
Porter Creek
Rock Creek
Black River
Waddell Creek
Skookumchuck River
Newaukum River
N F Newaukum River
S F Newaukum River
S F Chehalis River
Stillman Creek
Elk Creek
Seven Creek
Eight Creek
Swem Creek
Stowe Creek
Smith Creek
Thrash Creek
W F Chehalis River
E F Chehalis River
Sherman Creek
North River
Smith Creek
Clearwater Creek
Elkhorn Creek
Davis Creek
Little North River
Fall River
Willapa River
Johnson Slough
S F Willapa River
Rue Creek
Wilson Creek
Mill Creek
Stringer Creek
Trap Creek
Falls Creek
Fork Creeks
Half Moon Creek
Fern Creek
Niawtakum
Palix River
M Palix River
Canyon Creek
N Nemah River
Williams Creek
Cruiser Creek
S Nemah River
Mid Nemah River
Naselle River
S F Naselle River
Beam Creek
O'Connor Creek
Salmon Creek
N F Nasellle River
Alder Creek
Bear River

Total releases, across the state, in the same time frame (1952-1973) were:

Fry
283,385,283

Fingerling
154,994,857

Yearlings
404,282,085

Total Fish
842,662,225

Total Pounds
27,978,285

From 1976 to 1986, the WDF releases (statewide) totaled:

2,487,877,169 fish

An average of about 207,000,000 per year. This total doesn't include schools, cooperatives, tribal, or federal hatchery releases.

In 1987, all of the hatcheries in the state (state, tribal, federal, cooperative, schools) released a total (all species) of:

337,742,414

With the current discussions about the viability of hatchery fish, one has to wonder how far back do we need to go to determine whether a run is truly "wild" or does it have an appreciable amount of hatchery genetics and the subsequent off-spring are "natural origin returns". Maybe some of the fishing, in the good old days, was due to hatchery releases....

"Digger trips" (The Seattle Times, September 19, 1993) for razor clams plummeted from 749,000 in 1967 to 32,000 in 1993.

Not many remember or even know that until the "over passes" were built....all the traffic went thur Montensano....that 1 stop light would cause traffic to be backuped for "miles".

That whole artcle from Doc's "source", should be mandatory reading.

Thanks Doc......

Yup sixty's and seventy's were the peak of hatchery production, huge commercial fleets targeting them, every thing from sport boats with hand cranks to commercial trollers. Land use laws were lax or non-exsitent, so habitat was just bulldozed under, didn't need it, we had the hatcheries. ESA listings followed in the eighty's along with the Boldt decision, and its been a quagmire ever since.

As one who constantly tries to get folks to look back at the past, as far back as possible, there are some basic things to remember. Even if the habitat stayed the same and did not degrade, the simple fact of the Boldt Decision and Hoh v. Baldridge changed harvest patterns without changing run size.

Pre-Boldt, WDF emphasized harvest in the ocean. Boldt essentailly transferred half that catch to the Tribes in the rivers and Bays. So, a fishery that took a million fish could be reduced to half a million on the same runsize (more or less).

I believe, too, that in the 60s and 70s the Canadians were not targeting US stocks to the extent they did later. Whether it was the troll fleet commercially or the sport fleet (including US anglers going up there) these were all fish taken out of WA coastal fishery.

I agree, the hatcherys were built to supply huge ocean fisheries. With inriver just cleaning up excess, coastal wild stocks were wiped out in the hatchery mix along with the damage from dikes, logging, cow pastures etc.. Not sure when the westcoast Vancouver Island troll fishery peaked.

CM when did CWT's come into being? It was when the Canadians started recovering the tags that they figured out how to target US stocks AND DID.

SBD your off beam about 2/3'rds. Hatcheries were built to make up for ( mitigate ) lost natural production from human activity and provide for additional harvest. The ocean harvest is a fishery well after hatcheries came into being and took off like crazy with the growth in ocean sport fishing.

Through the history of harvest most was terminal based but not necessarily net. Traps and fish wheels dominated for many years. It is in my life time that the mixed stock ocean sport & commercial fisheries really developed and frankly they have had the most detrimental impact of any harvest method utilized in the PNW. It is the word mixed stock that is the key.

Carcassman,

Best I recall, Canadian interceptions really took off beginning in the late 60s, early 70s, coinciding with greatly reduced returns to Puget Sound and WA coast, but not as bad as PS.

Rivrguy,

CWT came into wide use about 1972. Frank Haw's buddy up on Shaw Is. invented the machine to make the tags and inject them in smolts.

Sg

Amen brother, Amen.

We go thru the most convoluted, unreliable, expensive-as-hell forecast and management strategies to accommodate "outside" mixed stock fisheries.

We would do ourselves and the fish a HUGE favor by transitioning back to terminal fisheries where the principal local stakeholders harvest their own fish. Each terminal fishery region lives and dies by its own harvest and conservation strategies... they reap exactly what they sow at the local level.

They would also be much more invested in conservation measures if they knew that the benefits would NOT be squandered to fish boxes in Canada and Alaska.

Local ownership and accountability of the resource based on stream of origin. It's the only way these problems will go away.

Now if we could just get past the roadblocks erected by the global scale industrial commercial interests that dominate Pacific salmon fisheries.

our biggest mistake.

Well said. Further, if you fish on maturing fish you get the largest fish, you use less fuel to chase them.

Most importantly, if (for example) essentially all of the harvest of Grays Harbor salmonids occurred inside the harbor, I'll bet that even the politicians would have an interest in good land-use decisions because their voters were directly affected by their decisions. You couldn't blame the Alaskans, Canadians, or the other boogiemen because the returns would be strongly controlled by what haqppened in the Harbor.

Never will happen because the local politicians (city, county, state, tribal) won't want to be put into the position where they are directly accountable and responsible for the results of their decisions.

We would do ourselves and the fish a HUGE favor by transitioning back to terminal fisheries where the principal local stakeholders harvest their own fish.

Doc, sounds good to me, but then you would have stay "inside", along with the charters. Or possibly all boats could be converted to jet drives, so we could fish the appropriate river of origin.

I suspect there may be an issue or two to resolve with the sports fishery if such regulations were to come about.....not that it isn't a grand idea.....the devil's in the details.

As a starting point, we should at least shoot for "terminal" management by basin of origin as defined by estuarine geoography.... ie Tillamook Bay, Columbia River, Willapa, Grays Harbor, etc.

Exact stream of origin might be a bit of a stretch, but within each basin, the local managers would be better able to rearrange the harvest effort and conservation directives to better meet individual tributary escapement goals.... IF they were so blessed to start with a full complement of fish returning to their basin, rather than scraps. Not saying they still couldn't f-it-up, but at least they start with a fighting chance, and they would have NO ONE to blame but themselves.

The way we do it now makes it damn near impossible to consistently achieve, and history affirms that.

River guy I started trolling when I was 17 in 1976, I speak from experience.

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Mitchell Act Program
The Mitchell Act was enacted in 1938 to provide for conservation of anadromous (salmon and steelhead) fishery resources of the Columbia River. The program has evolved into three primary components:

Operation of 17 fish hatcheries (from a high of 25 hatcheries and major rearing ponds) with the release of between 50 and 60 million juvenile anadromous fish in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.
Construction, operation and maintenance of more than 700 fish screens at irrigation diversions to protect juvenile salmon and steelhead in Oregon, Washington and Idaho.
Ongoing operations and maintenance of 90 fishways enhancing adult fish passage to nearly 2,000 miles of stream habitat in all three states.
Historically, production from the program has provided fish for tribal treaty fisheries in the Columbia River, and for ocean and in-river recreational and commercial fisheries. Renegotiation of the Columbia River Fish Management Plan per U.S. v. Oregon includes this program. More recently, hatchery programs funded through the Mitchell Act are conserving genetic resources for the purposes of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and reintroducing salmon into parts of their former range.

With application of the ESA throughout the Columbia River Basin, substantial changes have been, and will continue to be required of the Mitchell Act Program. Overall hatchery production has been reduced from more than 100 million to less than 60 million fish. An environmental impact statement (EIS) is being prepared to evaluate the effects of the funding and operation of Mitchell Act hatcheries. Hatchery reprogramming efforts are under way to preserve genetic resources and revitalize restricted fishing opportunities by creating selective fisheries for marked hatchery fish, and terminal fisheries on hatchery-only fish.












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Mitchell Act Funding didn't start intill !938 and it probaly took another 10 or 15 years for the hatcheries to get built and start full 4-5 year production cycles. Thats when the Ocean troll fishery really took off, sixty's and seventy's were the heyday, damage was done by the eighty's to the coastal stocks and the rest is history. Now we have protected pinnipeds and reduced hatchery output and bulldozed habitat, wonder what there going to eat next.

From Bushbear's figures....

52 - 73 = 842,662,225 fish total released (21 year span)

76 - 86 = 2,487,877,169 fish total released (10 year span)

(no data 74 and 75?)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it appears that less than 1/4 of the fish/year release occurred in the first bracket.

My personal recollection (which is far from infallible) is that many commercial fisherman were in business from the early '60s until the mid 70's.

Boldt was when? 1976?

Buy out of commercial licenses occured when?

What is interesting to me, is that the commercial fleet fell apart when supposedly the hatchery production was at it's peak.
It would be nice to see the catch records for those years, along with their distribution.

Am I missing something? (other than a few too many brain cells from way too much fun in the 60's )

collected sufficient sample sizes (n > 100) for weekly estimates of stock composition in
seven weeks (Figure 3). The number of samples collected per weekly opener ranged from 0 –
1173 and sampling efforts were highly dependent on weather conditions. Sample sizes were
sometimes limited by low catch rates. Weekly stock proportions from IA and MSA averaged
over all weeks were similar: Central Valley fall and spring contributed the greatest percent (MSA
weekly average 61.01 %; range 43.91% - 71.49%, Table 4). The Klamath ranged from 3.82% to
11.32% (weeks of 9 July 2006 and 17 September 2006, respectively) with an average over all
weeks of 6.47%. The Rogue River spiked at 19.13% during October, up from 1.70% in the first
week of August (average 7.26%). Stocks from the California Coast reporting region averaged
2.20% (range 0.67% - 5.38%), and the Northern California/Southern Oregon Coast contributed
an estimated average of 2.25% (range 0.60% - 5.75%). Weekly trends for the Klamath,
California Coast, and Northern California/Southern Oregon stocks were largely comparable
(Figure 7). One of Project CROOS’s objectives was to test our ability to provide genetic stock
estimates for management and protection of fish from the Klamath basin. Of all treatments of
data considered, the conservative dataset estimated the greatest contribution from the Klamath
basin on a weekly basis (Figure 7) but the method that would be most useful for management
remains to be determined.
Global p


Here's a sample of some genetic testing done off the mid to southern oregon coast...What a constantly moving mess, try and manage for escapements in each drainage.

United States v. Washington, 384 F.Supp. 312 (W.D. Wash. 1974) better known as the "Boldt Decision", was a controversial 1974 court case which affirmed the right of most of the tribes in the U.S. state of Washington to continue to harvest salmon