From the Everett Herald this morning, comes news via the Wayne Kruse column that the WDFW has stated there are 3 times as many natives in the Hoh/Calawah/Bogy/Sol Duc as needed to sustain the runs. I wonder how the WDFW made that determination as the last I heard those rivers were not teeming with fish. Anyway, apparently that was their reasoning in increasing the limits.

Its funny how after you go to school and get college edacated ,you know more then mother nature does, maybe even GOD.How did the fish ever survive this long without the help of the WDFW.!!!!!!

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Bob Dawson

I wouldn't trust anything our game department says! I have never fished anywhere that had too many natives! There's no such thing.

Yea, I'll tell you when I'm hooking three time's too many fish.

Sure wish I new what their motivation for stating these figures and opening it up for more killing of natives. Can we have too much of a good thing? Not in our lifetimes. Seems that most of us on this board do not support such action. One thing that is hard to believe is that they would liberalize the limits on the Clearwater river,as well as others, when just a few years ago they tightened everything up to help the runs. And what about the upping of the yearly and daily limits on small pennisula streams, to 30 killed a year and 2 killed a day. (I hope that I misinterpreted or read that one wrong)

Who the Heck is running the show? There must be some alterior motives they arn't making public. They definitely are not listening to us.
BTW, just got back from a trip to the Umpqua river in oregon....boy what beautiful country....all we did on the way there, was spot herd after herd of Elk and flocks of ducks and geese everywhere. Boy were we drooling, and no we did not fish, we went to buy a boat, uh, (Mavrick) I mean a battleship. Really....a battleship compared to mine, my brother picked up a 28 ft,10ft beam, aluminum Seamaster to ship up to Juneau. Since I towed it back for him, now I have an excuse to visit him in the spring or summer!
Lets keep prodding them guys in Olympia with our e-mail....let em know how we feel.

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Steve Ng....The FishNg1
99 F-350 4x4 SD, 18ft Alumaweld Formula Vee Sled, 115 Yamaha.

Well we've tried this one before, but let's have at it again. First, my personal disclaimer: I don't support regulations allowing harvest of wild native steelhead in Washington State. I'm just trying to explain how WDFW comes up with their position.

WDFW is charged with the responsibility of preserving, protecting, and perpeptuating the food and game fish resources of the state. However, they are similarly charged with managing those fish resources for the beneficial use of our state's citizens. This stuff is in the state RCWs (Revised Code of Washington) and WACs (Washington Administrative Code).

For the majority of our citizens that still means catching a fish, killing it, and retaining it for personal use or in the case of commercial fisheries, selling it. Most of the citizens of Washington do not fish for steelhead (I know, it just seems that way when you show up on your favorite river on Saturday morning), so it is not intuitive to most people that C&R is the best, or even a good, way to manage declining steelhead resources. And then, within the steelheading fraternity there are those who passionately believe that if a steelhead run cannot support a kill fishery, then it should be closed to all fishing. Period. End of discussion. No amount of factual information will disuade them of their position. This is what is known as a visceral belief. It's like religion or abortion, where the person's opinion is an article of faith, so debating it is a waste of time.

Yet, WDFW has a responsibility to anglers of that persuasion, just as they have a responsibility to those of us who believe that C&R is the management salvation of recreational steelhead fishing when the runs can no longer support the generous harvests they did when the runs were large and the angling public were few. Now, I'm not saying it's right, but WDFW's fish management section believe's that fishing for personal consumption is on the same high moral ground as C&R, so long as the steehead population is meeting it's spawning escapement goal. The department asserts that most of the coastal rivers do meet their spawning escapement goals, and therefore steelhead in excess of that number are surplus to spawning escapement needs and therefore are available for harvest. Ergo, the notion that the Quillayute and Hoh systems yield run sizes 3 times larger than their escapement requirements, so recreational harvest limits should be increased.

Now, you all remember the escapement goal and harvest discussion from last year, right? Just in case, here's a brief summary. Coastal river Z gets a run of 9,000 steelhead every year, on average. (Average is important; this whole thing is based on averages.) But River Z, like all rivers, in fact any environment - aquatic or terrestrial - has a finite carrying capacity. For river Z it is 9,000 steelhead. But because river Z has its headwaters in the protection of Olympic National Park, the habitat is of good enough quality that only 3,000 spawners are necessary, on average, to fully seed that entire river basin with little steelhead fry to produce the maximum number of steelhead smolts that river Z can possibly produce, on average. So according to WDFW's statistics, there are 6,000 harvestable steelhead every year, on average, in the river Z. Well the treaty Indians take what they can. And the sport anglers take a few. But it rains a lot on the coast and the river is out of shape a lot, so many more fish are making it to the spawning grounds than the 3,000, on average. But the run size still doesn't go above 9,000, on average. Because that's the damn carrying capacity (or the smolts that produce the 9,000) of the river Z. So more spawners aren't going to make for a run size greater than 9,000, on average. So WDFW determines that they could liberalize the sport harvest regulations and still meet the 3,000 escapement goal, and maybe get the sport harvest a little closer to a 50% share with the treaty Indians. (Don't kid yourself. This is a very big deal for certain individuals. Some people absolutely are near having heart attacks over the fact that treaty Indians are taking over 50% of the steelhead harvest. Even moreso when there are OBVIOUSLY more harvestable steelhead out there, but the sporties just aren't catching them.)

So what's WDFW to do? Their fisheries model, that they and the tribes are pledged to use - MSY, MSH (maximum sustained yield and maximum sustained harvest) tells them that there are harvestable steelhead out there. How can they tell those anglers who believe and demand (like it's their God given right, which it isn't, but that's another story) to catch and kill fish, that they shouldn't.

Time for a brief aside: MSY and MSH have been used to manage commercial fisheries all over the globe. With a couple of exceptions, that management model has led to the collapse of every fishery that used it. No kidding. MSY has a horrible track record. Yet professional managers seem wedded to it. I guess because it looks so good in theory. That's the beauty of math. It works. The model, unfortunately, hasn't. Except in a couple cases.

So here we have our state and tribal resource managers believing in a model that fails to deliver. And certain coastal steelhead populations are relatively healthy, especially compared to the rest of the state's steelhead populations. I guess since government, like public education, plays to the least common denominator, it is more important to bring the remaining healthy steelhead runs into the mediocre, or worse, status shared by the other steelhead runs.

It does puzzle me that WDFW doesn't take a leadership role in public education. We have some very good steelhead runs among many mediocre ones. We could acknowledge that there is a known, and high - according to history - risk of overharvesting steelhead by hanging on to the MSY model. We could declare that it is in the public interest to conserve these runs at the highest level possilbe, with a management goal of Maximum Sustained Recreation, which requires a much higher escapement goal than MSY. MSR requires C&R, the fishery management policy than minimizes human mortality to fish.

But there is a problem here. If WDFW admits that MSY is a risk to this steelhead population, then it might be a risk to any other fishery that is also managed according to it. Wow! Talk about subverting the prevailing management paradigm! Better to fish stocks to extinction than to admit we are using a model that is wrong. Oh, but that model will fish them nearly to extinction. Yeah. Well, mission accomplished. How about a gold watch and a golden parachute?

Sorry for the tangents, friends. But you get the idea. To admit that one is wrong takes courage. Better to just let the resource die. As long as it's on someone else's watch.

My point: if you believe the state of Washington should not target kill fisheries on wild native steelhead, just keep on telling the fish and wildlife commission so. It doesn't have to be the best, only, or right way to manage. It just needs to become the prevailing public thought. And some day, our children or grandchildren will thank us for our efforts.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

I am in full support of a catch and release fishery for natives, with one hitch. No wild fish is to be netted. I am sick of seeing wild fish netted and handeled for photo's etc. Sure there are a few cases where a fish can be netted and not harmed, but these are the exceptions. The year that we had all catch and release we didn't even take a net. All fish were kept in the water, and revived and released. None of this net em and let someone hold them up with wool gloves (removing all of the protective slime) and takeing a bunch of photos. I realize that I'll piss a few people off with this but I fish for my own satisfaction and I am sick and tired of seeing catch and release advocates holding up fish for pictures.

Seriously Rouge? I agree with you 100% about not netting native steelhead while c&r. I do however feel that carefully landing a fish well before it is belly up and gently holding it up for a picture or two is well within reason. I don't kill wild fish, I don't net wild fish, but I intend to keep on snapping a picture or two when I get the chance. Let's not get anal! Education is the answer. If you care so much, and you see a fish being "abused", say something for crying outloud. Pass on the knowledge that you have aquired. You will certainly save more native steelhead teaching others how to handel them properly than you will bitching about it on this page!

I'd like to see Bob cut and paste Salmo g's comments somewhere in the website so that these words of wisdom could be viewed by random visitors as well as the hard core (readers of this Board).

As for the topic of how to properly release fish, Bob mentioned a while back that this was on his priority list for the Tips section.

I have raised the question in the past whether it makes sense to fight fish to exhaustion before unhooking them. I suggested it may be better to use a knotless net or a cradle, bring the fish in a little green and then unhook it while it still had some energy. (I've seen too many fish fought nearly to total exhaustion by people who are worse at landing them than I am to believe 'no nets' is a blanket answer.)

Salmo g.:

Thanks for the informative post. Can you, or anyone for that matter, explain the role "foregone opportunity" plays in allotment of catch quotas? Does it apply to wild steelhead? Does in apply in rivers? For instance, if recreational anglers, in the estimation of WDFW, do not catch (retain?), their allotment of fish, wild or otherwise, in a river system, do other consumers, tribal or non-tribal, have the right to take those fish? It seems I read something to this effect some time ago, but I don't know if I'm even speaking English here. Anyway, is there anything to this imagined concept of "foregone opportunity"?

T Dodge,

Foregone opportunity is a phrase coined by the U.S. v Washington court to allocate remaining harvestable surplus fish when those fish were not taken by the treaty or non-treaty party they had originally been allocated to. This was to prevent "wastage" in the event that a harvestable run was so large that a particular group, like non-treaty recreational anglers, could not take their 50% share of the court ordered allocation.

In the early 80s when this concept appeared, as I recall, it would have benefited treaty steelhead fishing, because in the case of some coastal fisheries, environmental conditions and the lack of a non-treaty net fishery prevent the non-treaty fishery from harvesting their 50%. Later on, it became apparent that their are certain treaty fisheries that would be disadvantaged by employing the foregone opportunity concept. Last I heard, it's kind of a stalemate that neither side wants to push for fear of taking a loss.

With respect to avoiding more liberal steelhead harvest regulations on the coast, there is an out. First, WDFW could opt out of MSH as its steelhead management policy, after going thru the proper procedures. Second, WDFW could declare an intent to probe steelhead productivity in those river systems by going wild fish C&R and managing for higher spawning escapements to see if productivity might actually be higher as a result of larger escapements. Seldom does fishery management suffer from too much good data from which to craft its management decisions, and this action would add to the data pool at little cost to the resource or to the recreational fishery since angling opportunity would be preserved, only recreational harvest would be reduced. There are other techniques that could be employed to avoid being undermined by the foregone opportunity scam, but this should serve as a start.

The upshot is that foregone opportunity is not a bonafide reason to shy away from wild steelhead C&R management.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

Another thing to ponder!!!! When I analyze the MSY model, my interpretation of one of the tenets is that anglers that practice C&R may not benefit at all. Assuming that steelhead C&R'd once may be caught again; all conservation-minded anglers do by releasing their native catch is to slow the rate of stock depletion. This makes it "easier," by reducing effort and cost, for meat hunters to get their limits. Because the fishing was so good, the meat hunters will be encouraged to continue fishing until their total costs (gas money, terminal tackle, physical & mental energy, etc.) exceed the returns in native steelhead fillets and roe.

Some may argue that seasonal limits may help this situation by limiting the native take by any one angler, on any one system. Yet, I have fished the peninsula often enough to see the dudes that pound these systems everyday! Some of these guys must be playing with 4 or 5 punchcards. I am not a rat or whistleblower, hence these areas and type of anglers will remain unnamed, but at times like this that I realize my efforts to conserve this awesome fishery go all for naught.

Everyone is pissed off at the State and the Indians for allowing wild steehead to be killed. The whiteman guilts the other whitemen for killing wild steelhead. When my freezer is empty of hatchery fish I will kill a smaller (under 12 lbs) wild steelhead to eat. I enjoy catching and eating steelhead and as long as they are selling wild steelhead in Pike Place market I will keep wild fish as well.

Look at the regulations, the rivers that allow the retention of wild steelhead are the same ones that the Indians net. The State has to, by law, let sportsmen keep wild fish where the Indians net (Bolt Decision).

Everybody wants to point the finger at everyone else and not take any blame whatsoever. Catch and Release causes fish to burn calories that are needed to get to spawning grounds, just as fish ladders around dams do.

Any thoughts?

Sorry Spike ... the mentality of "If they're gonna kill 'em, so am I!" is a poor excuse for whacking a wild fish. If anything, the fact that these fish face a tremendous net harvest is all the more reson for sports anglers who give a hoot about the future of the fisheries to stand up and say that "I'm gonna do my part to help!".

Perhaps you have faith in these models in use by the tribes and the state saying there is a huge surplus of fish, but as Salmo G. mentioned above, in nearly all instances, any fishery modeled under MSY has collapsed over time.

As a responsible angler, it is our responsibility to the fish, other anglers, and future anglers to stnad up and fight to put a stop to this race to kill the last one. How? First, let the wild ones go, and two, fight the politics and mismanagement the best we can. It will be a long battle, but in the long run, the fish, and the responsible fishermen will win.

As I have said before. C&R is not perfect, there is some mortality involved .. there are some watersheds that should be totally hands-off at this point. But as a management tool, it will work wonders on the runs that are in decent shape. If you've ever seen some of the world's best C&R steelhead fisheries, you'd see just how far we have to go in this state to have "good fishing". But then again, if you want a half-assed meat fishery on steelhead (or no runs at all over a long period of time), that's your perogative. But the first time you think to yourself that "Geez, fishing stinks ...", think of your actions!

Spike,
The state does not have to let sports retain wild fish where the natives net. Check the Columbia system. It's hatchery keep only there, with natives netting on listed stocks.

I am all for preserving the Wild Steelhead and Salmon. But I will be damned if I am going to take all of the guilt of degredated stocks because I retain one or two wild fish per year.

Sportsmen harvests account for less than 2% of of wild fish

Catch and release fisheries lose more than 2% through stress on the fish.

Comments?

spike, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make with the 2% and 2%+ statistics. If you would explain, then I'm sure you'll get some comments on your explaination.

Spike, in my mind two percent for both is an "acceptable" number. But, I'm not convince you're making a valid comparison with these two (statistical?) figures. Two-percent of the entire wild salmonid population for a watershed, Washington State, or even the Pacific Northwest, is hardly comparable, numbers-wise, to the two-percent of fish that die as a result of being C&R'd in their respective areas.

From one perpective, using your numbers, in order to make the number of natives caught-and-harvested equal to the number killed through C&R mortality, the C&R group MUST HOOK AND LAND THE ENTIRE RUN!!!

Do the math. Assuming a run of 1000 native salmon and steelhead return to the Zipperlip, the meathunters will take their 20 fish (2%). But, the C&R guys must catch ALL 1000 fish, the entire run of returning adults, in order to kill their 20 (2%) through C&R mortality.

Silly? Yes. I failed to mention that the number of anglers that practice C&R pale in comparison to the meathunters, making our two-percent impact a very small number of the "population." Just another example of how Spike skewed the numbers and I reskewed them back.

Spike, I totally agree with your point about the wrongness of retro-guilt. You see people trying to make some group feel guilty about something that their ancestors did long ago all the time. Your one or two fish per year did not cause the decline in salmon and steelhead. However, as Buckaroo Bonzai said, "wherever you go there you are". We have to deal with the way the situation is now, regardless of how it got this way. The fact is that killing wild fish is a lousy management strategy. See Salmo's posts for details, but for now I'll just say that WDFW's recent rich history of mid-season regulation changes is proof that not enough slop is built into their models.

As someone pointed out, your C&R numbers seem screwed up, but still your point is valid and should be examined rather than dismissed as heresy. If someone catches and kills three or five wild fish a year, and some other guy (or guide) practices C&R on 100 -- and kills five incidentally, who among these has a right to point fingers at the other?
The problem with your stance is that these are exceptions. Most meat fisherman probably kill more than five fish a year and most C&R people catch a lot fewer than 100 per year. I know I do. So the scales tip towards C&R as a better way to manage sport fishing.

For an excellent examination of the Maximum Sustained Yield model take a look at the posting on the www:/.nwfishing.com homepage by Ramon Vanden Brulle of Washington Trout under the heading "More Harvest or More Steelhead".

[This message has been edited by Preston Singletary (edited 02-18-2000).]