I almost forgot Chehalis Tribal Fisheries effect the Skookumchuck Late Coho also. Bit of a double whammy on the upper basin Late Coho and the numbers show that.

The thing is, those late fish are fairly easy to plan for. Reserve harvest, don't take it all during directed management.

Very eye opening. As much as I wanted a Winter Steelhead season, it’s hard ignoring this continuously mounting evidence that this closure may be just what the doctor ordered, both for Steelhead AND late Coho.

Definitely will be worth tracking Steelhead numbers as well as the season goes on.

I also have some hope that the major rain events this winter won’t be as detrimental as I first had expected. Summer chum outmigration surveys over the past few weeks have resulted in above expected numbers thus far. Granted, this is on Hood Canal rivers/creeks that drain much less water than say the Satsop or other Chehalis tribs, but still a reason for hope. Let’s hope some of these fall eggs made it through alright.

While I know that gill nets are viewed as the Devil's Tools around here, it is possible to GN either the SH or late Coho and fish them reasonably separately IF there is a decent size difference. For example, on the Skagit they (I and NI) fished for chum with a larger mesh and avoided the smaller coho. It was when they switched to small steelhead mesh that Skagit coho got slammed. So, again, if there is enough size difference they can be gill netted. Or, they can be fished using traps/rec gear with mandatory release.

The Satsop has a bit of an insurance policy for Chum as the volunteers maintain a broodstock program for Chum & Chinook. Egg take for Chum was 467,500 and 260K & change for Chinook. While not a perfect scenario even if the gravel got trashed the broodstocked prodigy will keep the runs out of the dumpster.

Hoping Coho and Steelhead redds do well. I’m sure there’ll be a few more soakers between February and May. Would be interesting to float some of the upper rivers just to see the redds without pressure from fisheries.

The higher flows will allow the coho to get way up into the headwaters of mainstems and tribs. That should protect the eggs some in and of itself plus it will give the fry the maximum amount of watershed to seed into. Still too early to affect primary steelhead spawning but higher flows will get them further upstream too.

[quote=Rivrguy]So we are still tracking Late Coho at Bingham and this is getting more than interesting! Posted up previously a couple of weeks back the 2021 the rack report was 1290 H and 35 W and for 2022 same week it is 2750 H and 115W.

January 20 2022 report is 5300H 345W and same in week 2021 is 1310H 35W. I mean like crap this shows the effect on Late Coho that harvest has had. Keep in mind that 2021 was not a good year at all and numbers are 2020 for Normal timed as Coho come back after the Dec 1 start date for Coho report year. 320% increase on the wild is awesome as is 400% and change for the hatchery Coho. The wild fish have been pounded into the ground for years and it is one of those things that the QIN have to shoulder most of the blame as they harvest Steelhead in Dec & Jan when very few Steelhead are present and take Late Coho as incidental. Recs have also had impact but not to the same degree.

Skookumchuck numbers are even more of an eye opener. Same week thing as Bingham Skookumchuck is 2022 937H 21W and 2021 was 113H 1W.

I’m sure that shutting down the Chehalis trips had substantial effect on the tribs there this year, let’s not forget that the models for this last fall into the winter were waaaay off. Kings, silvers, and now hatchery steelhead we’re all “eye opening”for sure. Willipa and tribs had volumes of silvers not seen in years, not because of no retention. It was just modeling faux pas due to a strong unforcasted return. Using these return numbers to substantiate your argument makes about as much sense as closing all steelhead hatchery production in the state because the Nooksack can’t get fish back.

The fact that more Late Coho retained this year (so far) only means that more returned; it says nothing about the effect of fisheries. The data has to be built from escapement outwards, including all catches. This year's run may have been larger, hence more on the grounds. Or, the closures protected the returns and put more on the grounds.

It is probably the effect of closures but until all the information is put together it is premature (in my mind) to say that. Especially since WDFW does not to regular updates and certainly not stock -specific ones for coho.

Comparing the numbers for this years returns to last years are a bit of apples to oranges to be sure. That is why I caution folks not to take it as an absolute because you have many variables besides harvest. That said 300% to 400% increases on the same number of smolt released are not a preseason forecast misstep. If that was so the normal timed Coho return would have been in the 186k to 248k range which is not in the realm of real.

Preseason forecast are simply data driven best guesses and always wrong to some degree. Years back I asked the harvest manager RWS how accurate his forecast numbers were? His response " plus or minus 100% " which is a rather straight forward response.

Little edit: I have sent the 2021 preseason forecast model, the 2021 harvest model, and the historical escapement spread sheet to everyone who has asked for them. Staff provides them each year and the preseason forecast model has the historical data to compare. It also breaks out past NT Rec, NT Commercial and QIN harvest down to the tributary level right along with escapement. Frankly they are really helpful to get a feel for what is what. So again if anyone wants them just PM me and I will send them right over.

I have a bad feeling this seasons jump in GH numbers with no one fishing will be ammo to keep everything closed in future years. Especially if the tribes say so. Not that it is a bad thing, just more steelhead pressure elsewhere. Really a good time to boost summer steelhead production in all of GH and abandon hatchery winter steelhead altogether. Maybe with this the wild steelhead numbers will jump and provide at least a C&R fishery with strict regs in the future.
A question: Are we able to have a steelhead C&R fishery on any tribal river without tribal commercial activity at the same time? Are trades available in the negotiating game to have such a fishery without nets participating?

RG I do not know exactly what you mean by a tribal river. We have a Summerrun Steelhead season and the QIN do not. Could we have a trib fishery such as the Wynoochee on marked mitigation Winter Steelhead with C&R on wild when numbers of wild do not allow a mixed stock fishery on the Chehalis? My initial thought is yes but I do believe that the comanagers would need to agree and I could be completely wrong.

You know that is a really good question though. Just to grab a year in 2020 the Wynoochee had a Winter Steelhead escapement of 748 and the escapement goal is 1260. Is 59% of wild escapement enough to allow a C&R ? I think in the future many fisheries will be faced with that question.

I would 100% agree with switching whenever possible to Summerrun as we have no natural spawner conflicts and this wild Steelhead thing is not going to go away. It makes no sense to produce a hatchery fish that you cannot harvest and looking forward has the high likelihood of getting worse before it gets better, if it ever does get better!

To provide an update, I still haven’t heard back from Larry Phillips regarding thoughts on switching efforts to Summer Steelhead. In a day or two I’ll email James Losee, as I’ve heard he’s fairly responsive.

The Tribes have a right to 50% of the harvestable fish. Period. I believe that steelhead are combined (H&W, W&S) for allocation purposes. Release mortality counts. So, if a C&R fishery is modeled to kill 100 fish, the Tribes (and this is all the tribes that might encounter them) get 100 fish to put in the boat.

That said, the State and Tribes can negotiate whatever they want, as shown by the PS allocations where the Tribes are generally ahead. I am reminded of a Phil Anderson comment when asked why the NI recs could not C&R in the Hoh when they had allocations left. He said "We got the fishery we wanted" so I suspect that a lot of trading goes on. I suspect that State prefers open days on the water to dead fish in the boat.

In GH, given that the NI share of salmon (except chum) is weighted to the ocean I suspect that allocating most of a Summer Steelhead return to rec and most of the Winter Steelhead to the Tribe (for incidental in salmon net fisheries) might be workable.

But, it would take a very transparent process with offered trades clearly elucidated.

I think the lack of transparency is part of the problem. With C&R Recs take less wild winter Steelhead than the nation by a mile but with the Wynoochee Summerrun program the Rec jumps way out in front. You cannot be selective with a gillnet and the wild returns govern harvest regardless of how many hatchery fish are available.

Now on the other hand with such a huge AK & BC harvest in the marine waters on Chinook it leaves few Chinook impacts. The Recs are limited by the GH Policy sometimes and then the fact that a thousand or less fish does not allow a fishery as we would burn that in rather short order limiting Coho fishing. So from the cheap seats the nation appears to take it not as foregone opportunity but harvest available.

A friend of mine is convinced that a unofficial trade Steelhead for Chinook has been going on for sometime! I do not know and frankly since the meeting years back that the damn gillnetters interrupted the harvest negotiations rather than observe as they were supposed to so none of us know. Oh, that is the reason the QIN said no public from then on and I imagine in the years since that WDFW is perfectly comfortable with the public locked out also.

I agree Rivrguy, I think there are a whole series of trades designed to support the marine sized stock fisheries. I suspect that there are also trades on various shellfish species. This may spill over into salmon. I would suspect that both sides want to be able to schedule fisheries and go on auto-pilot. And these fisheries satisfy "most", or the "loudest".

I was referring to Boldt case rivers in which tribal rights are exercised.

I believe the Chehalis is in the Boldt Case Area.

I used to think I wanted more summer hatchery fish vs. Winters, but now I'm not so sure. The summer runs we have around now (granted, in pretty low numbers) are getting harder and harder to catch as the rivers trend lower and warmer. On the Nooch, they all pile into deep, slow corner holes that don't fish worth a hoot, and the spooky fish bite worse than the water fishes. Kind of the same for the Kalama anymore. The Cowlitz is a different story; I never understood why they cut back the summer plants there, because that WAS a pretty good summer fishery before then....

The other reason I came to appreciate the winter fishery is that fishing for winter steelhead was about the only thing that got my fat arse off the couch in the winter months, and now that I don't have it, I'm sitting around at home, drinking too much, and getting fatter.

Without hatchery winter steelhead (as we clearly see this year), our rivers will all be closed every December-May (that's half the year!) moving forward. That may just be the reality now, and it sucks... a lot.

Time for a new hobby that gets me motivated to get out. Any ideas?

We could bring in wild pigs and have a 12 month season on them. I see a couple of Texas counties are paying bounties on them.
Year-around fishing for the non-boater is likely gone.