Those numbers for Chehalis do not add up for e-goal.

I believe you meant hatchery = 410 for broodstock and 8600 for the gravel... that would reconcile with the rest of the numbers.

It is 410 on escapement goal rather than 140. The Hump is 140 so I must have dropped a typo in it. No matter what if you do a C&P you loose formatting so things jump around. Sorry but you guys find that error and go right past that the preseason forecast that is way out there similar to the Salmon forecast?

This.

I was about to blow a gasket when it read 140 wild escapement for the entire Chehalis Basin.

Will be curious to see how steelhead survival pans out this winter/next summer compared to the thin coho returns. Sucks having several places closed still……..makes you appreciate just how good it's been the last several years.

So are they going to reopen the Chehalis rivers to fishing? Seems a bit out of whack if the nets are back in and we can't even C&R fish.

We don't want to C&R coho, need to have retention if the nets are going in.

Then go fish and tell the game warden that you saw the nets in and figured you could exercise your treaty right. Those B runs usually show up around now.

I agree that C&R is not a good idea. You end up harming the very fish you are trying to protect, especially if using bait.

Also something that doesn't seem logical. I understand that starting in late December and beyond, there are many more wild steelhead hooked than hatchery.
The normal method is some sort of bait, usually eggs. Then why are barbed hooks still legal? If using barbed hooks, many wild fish are harmed. Why not allow barbed hooks and the first steelhead caught is your limit for the day? The way it is now it is nothing more than C&R until you might get a hatchery steelhead, killing wild ones along the way.

As for coho

1. Keep it closed until January 1, taking the high road. or

2. Open the river around the 20th and use the regs as written. or

3. Open it sooner and the first coho is your limit for the day. No C&R. January 1, use regs as written. Wild steelhead may mess up the no C&R, but maybe not that much in December.

( Why not allow barbed hooks and the first steelhead caught is your limit for the day)




why should the sports fishers get cut back to one fish a day???? while the Quins take hundreds!!!

I DONT THINK SO

Sucks being a jetboat owner, pretty much "high and dry".

Definite bais in how the opening were set on the Wishkah, Satsop, Humptulips......and NO FISHING in the Chehalis.

1. If you want to protect Humptulips, wild Coho......and you should, 20+ years of NOT making escapement.......No fishing above Reynvans, would have allowed a big saftey zone.

2. Satsop.........NO FISHING above West Fork, would sure do the protection bit.

3. Wynoochee River, completely closed??????? WDFW and othes, can't sit down at the table and get a plan to start spendiing the Tacoma City Light $2.4+ million to put the migation Coho and Steelhead in the river. 22+ years the money has been there......not 1 fish raised from those funds.

Most of the Coho, that now reach the trap, are trucked above the lake, what a waste of a resource.

4. Chehalis definite bias toward power boats......enough said!!!!

5. Wishkah......what is open now should have been the closed area....if protection of weak stocks was the main goal.

How is the Satsop only open below the west fork fair to bank fishermen? Not much access and crowds guys into what little access there is available. I just don't see the logic in shutting down certain stretches of a river. Maybe rivers like the Chehalis that flow into the ocean, but tributaries should be all (at least everything below the hatchery), or nothing. Right now they have the Satsop closed below the west fork, packing everyone into the decker to west fork drift, apparently the state thinks that gives the wild fish a better chance. I think it just lets all the fish get piled up in the small holes and runs from Schafer down to the west fork.

Close the tidal fisheries, when the scales might not be set. Science is inconclusive at best on rod and line mortality on in river fish. One group will tell you a higher number, the other Low. No one really knows. Personally I think it's on the lower side. Anyone who's ever spent much time around a hatchery have seen the chinook with two hooks down their throats and trebles in their back. They made it to the hatchery just fine. Nets are, has been and will always be the problem.

I agree about the wynoochee, no reason why they won't spend that money, unless of course they did, but the state would never do that. I'm not as seasoned as most of you guys on the politics of the fisheries, but it seams pretty cut and dry; they (the state) either have no spine to stand up to the tribal and commercial interests, or they are being paid off. But again, that doesn't happen in politics or any level of government, move along, nothing to see here.

WDFW actually had more money available but dithered and 9/11 took it.

Maybe whomever gave them the money should ask for it back (in Court) since WDFW obviously does want it.

The way Region 6, District 17 staff acts.....that might be just the answer....then I can quit going to NOF and WDFW Commission meeting to see if I can help get more fish in the Wynoochee. Would save me lots of gas money...............

It's funny. If, say Weyco, was required by WDFW to do mitigation they would be all over them to do it. I mean, what would the State do if Tacoma had said they'd build the Cowlitz hatcheries and then spent 20-30 years simply planning what to do?

It is a two way street out there.

I thought the Q were going in for only two days of "test" fishing?

There has been no update I've seen of the season. Just checked, still the same.
http://www.quinaultindiannation.com/Fishing%20Regs/chehalis%20commercial.pdf

Shouldn't sport fishers be allowed to fish for steelhead? Since the 6.5 inch mesh is clearly targeting the larger salmon and sturgeon?

Edi: I believe Region Five uses four inch mesh to determine the presence of steelhead and salmon in the Spring time, lower Columbia River? Cold water conditions should be similar.

If there is going to be a "test" fishery. It should include the salmon and sturgeon. Not just the steelhead as the nets select for the size of the fish, not the species.

Folks your crossing between two different time frames & fish. The first three weeks of Dec have very few Steelhead and is a Rec Late Coho fishery. The QIN Steelhead starts Dec 1st and few Steelhead are present in the MAINSTEM river and is really a targeted Late Coho fishery called a Steelhead fishery. The Dec 1st thing for the QIN came from old Dept. Game season setting ( & courts ) and is just ignored as to relevance to the present. So we are down now for the NORMAL timed Coho which ends the last week of Nov.

The first question is why are the REC continuing to be down if two tribes are fishing the first three weeks of Dec? The second issue of the REC Steelhead season piggybacks in Dec but is a stand alone issue from Christmas forward. The two seasons overlap but differently depending on if your tribal or REC on what the target fish is.

R-6 has a conference call with the Advisers Monday so we will know more. They tried to get one going this past week but were late getting to it so it was reboot time. So we are down running on the 33.3 % of forecast with few NORMAL timed Coho available after both tribal & Non Tribal commercial fisheries. Now the thing is that preliminary data on spawners in Willapa came back at 41% of forecast so is the Chehalis showing the same? I do not know but you can bet your butt I am going to ask. It makes a big difference because if it is adjusted upwards then the question is why and the hell is the river down now? The normal timed stock is to the gravel and it is Late Coho time and the tribes appear to not see a conservation issue.

Just so all know I advocated a one fish bag around a restructured inriver Rec season prior to closure but when the QIN pulled agreed to support the closure. Again that was NORMAL timed Coho. If the QIN and Chehalis tribes are going fishing ( which essentially says there is not a conservation issue ) then the inland communities need to get what is left of their seasons back and right damn now!

I realise the early hatchery steelhead are no more. Half of nothing is nothing.

Thank for nothing, Phil

grrrrrrrrrrrrrr ----- hell of a way to go into the "Merry Christmas" let's be jolly time of the year....

Ya pay your money for a "opportunity to fish".......maybe a rebate is in order????? Would be easy to do, just enter a credit amount in the computer system....then when you go to pay for 2016, would be a lesser amount.......

Wouldn't WDFW just crap their shorts?????? Would sure make "somebody" more accountable, for decisions made and then not be able to follow thru.

I view this closure like leasing a car....pay for the lease but then leasing company takes back the car, and then lets Chehalis trible and QIN use the car.........and then maybe I might be able to use for we'll say "1 fish", and then QIN and Chehalis tribe get to use it when they want, for "many fish"....

The only time I bought and elk tag was when there was a season open where we were doing our bow-deer. Turns out there were like 3 elk in the unit and the intent was to wipe them out. When I complained I was told that there were other areas open and I could go there. I am sure that WDFW views sporties as being able to go anywhere to hunt or fish. So what if Grays harbor is closed. Moses Lake is open.