Wish this would get "pinned to the top"


Going to be some interesting NOF meetings this year......would be a shame have to search all the topics......to either post or to read the posts.

Great thread. I definitely appreciate learning more about the GH area fishery facts.

Doc, or others, do you know of any calendar for WDFW to address any Chehalis or Hump or other GH issues where it would be useful for people to show up?

The link is to the WDF&W NOF calendar for 2013. The Montesano & Olympia meetings for Grays Harbor ( Humptulips, Chehalis, & The Harbor itself ) are open to public participation. While not generaly known the Grays Harbor Advisory Board Meetings ( also Willapa ) are also open to the public BUT only to observe the proceedings not to participate in the discussions.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2tWjgmgVy3yZVh2WmQyaHl1MU0/edit

Didn't see the Montesano NOF meeting on your linked calendar.

Did I miss it? Not in Monte this year?

i think its march 14th in monte

Grays Harbor Fisheries March 14 Montesano City Hall 6-8 pm according to my calendar

Thanks.

I did not catch that the high lighting had changed as it is the way R-6 provided it, sorry about that and we will try to do better in the future. The meetings for the GH Advisory Group on February 28th, March 6th, and March 20th identified as Montesano are at the Region 6 offices. Remember the public can only observe not participate in the discussions.

The meeting March 14th is Montesano City Hall for public participation & input as is the March 29th meeting which is at the Natural Resources Building in Olympia as shown. The March 29th meeting is about who catches what / when.

Rivrguy,

Thank you for what you bring.
I suggest that if you can list 2 or 3 talking points then maybe some folks on this list (like me) could show up for that Mar. 14 meeting and offer supporting comments. Even a simple, "I support identifying separate returning runs," or however that could be better phrased, can be useful. Numbers count! Rivrguy or Francis, can you help us frame the message?

I work until about 4:30 but will plan on coming down to support you and Francis and our fish friends.

Folks, it is very easy to drive to a meeting and be present; just be there to be present. One of the things that is happening is that these local issues, like GH, are coming up on state and regional radar. Rivrguy and Doc Eyefish have worked long and hard on this and they set the tone for how we can help.

Rick

What do we want Region 6 to hear? How's this for starters...

1) Let's be intellectually honest about our harvest models. They've been low-balling the true fishing power of the fleets, both rec and commercial, particularly for chinook. At low abundance returns, the rec fleet has a priority allocation. By being honest about how many fish it really takes to fuel the rec fishery, it leaves us with a more realistic figure of how many fish are actually available to fuel any gillnet days.

2) Let's be intellectually honest about the mixing of stocks in the marine area. The model counts nearly 1/2 the kings in the bay as Humptulips stock, effectively diluting the true impact on Chehalis stock. On paper this permits many more fishing days to be added to the season.

3) Let's be intellectually honest about chum. The other species of fall salmon are segregated into Hump stock and Chehalis stock. Why are chums treated with a double standard? Because lumping them together in aggregate allows more fishing days to occur.

Bottom line, let's stop spending phantom fish that don't exist. While it all may work out on paper, there is no buffer to protect against models that don't pan out in real life. The escapement shortfalls are no where to be seen on paper in the final NOF documents, but year after year, they are certainly evident on the gravel.

Not to bad as a starting point on the conservation side Francis. I will add that we get the preseason forecast at the Advisory Group meeting the 28th, then one can begin to look at what is or is not possible for harvest for 2013. I replied to your PM DR just a little running behind on the e-mail thing.

Little edit: The one thing I can say with certainty that will happen this year is everything that happens in the Grays Harbor NOF and the allocation process will be made public. No exceptions.

Management results from last year can only be considered tragic. Tragic from the standpoint of the destruction of the Chehalis Chinook run and tragic from the standpoint of missed recreational opportunity for Chum.

From my perspective there are four key failure areas:

1. Disfunctional co-management with two different harvest plans for one resource. (Probably not much we can do about it at NOF.)

2. A NOF plan that starts with an imprecise run size estimate and and plans to kill every last theoretically available fish. (The term imprecise is a ephemism for a WAG.)

3. No in-season adjustments are ever intended regardless of new information about actual run size.

4. The harvest model that was used to kill the last theoretical fish had so many arithemetic errors that it was not capable of predicting actual harvest.

Out of this list I think we could make the best improvement by starting with a conservative view of the run size and then making in-season adjustments if the run actually materalizes. I am coming from a perspective that recovery of weak Chinook runs is a desirable result.

I vote to ask that the NT commercial days be spread out evenly across the season. I'd much rather, as primarily an upstream participant, have three or four days per week with nets in the water over the entire season than lose three entire weeks of prime time opportunity, as we did last October. That way, we can fish the tidewater when the nets are out and fish up higher when they go in. Gives us a legit chance to hook up almost every day. Seems to me this scenario would also ensure that at least some of the wild kings will have a chance to get upstream each week.

Granted, if the weather had cooperated last September, we would have had a great time for those 2-3 weeks, but I've decided that counting on Mother Nature is a recipe for disappointment more often than not.

I also would favor more restrictive seasons that could be adjusted as the runs materialize, including no retention of Chinook outside the Humptulips before Chehalis escapements are either met or imminent.

Commercial non treaty gillnetters:

Willapa Bay and Grays Harbor.....have days for NT netting, the same for both Harbors.

For to long, the Non-treaty gill netters, have been allow to pick the days they want to fish....

By allowing them to set/pick days, the NT gill netters are cherry picking, and the in river fishermen, gets the short end of the stick.

Lost the forematting on this, it is fine in the preveiw but toast here but you should be able to pick out the numbers. Gzzzzzzzzzz So here are the Chehalis and Humptulips Preseason Forecast numbers. Coho is way up there, Chinook not so and the Chum numbers are combined for the Harbor. More later as I have asked for the preseason forecast Excel spread sheets.


2013 GRAYS HARBOR PRE-SEASON FORECASTS SUMMARY

Spring Chinook
Forecast 2247
Goal 1400
Harvestable 847

Chehalis Fall Chinook Humptulips Fall Chinook
Wild Hatchery Wild Hatchery
Forecast 15132 1202 5504 2430
Goal 12364 47 2236 369
Harvestable 2768 1155 3268 2061

Chehalis Coho Humptulips Coho
Wild Hatchery Wild Hatchery
Forecast 168993 51525 12915 29796
Goal 28506 1202 6894 2120
Harvestable 140487 46675 6021 27676

Chum Grays Harbor
Forecast 30176
Goal 21000
Harvestable 9176

Translation... Chehalis fall chinook will be the constraining stock, esp for the NT gillnets in early October.

Chehalis chinook = Tier 2.... marginally harvestable run-size w/ rec priority. Limited chinook retention is likely.

Chehalis coho = Tier 4... fully liberalized harvest on a HUGE run-size

Hump chinook = Tier 4.... count on a full season w/ wild retention

Hump coho = Tier 4.... count on full season w/ wild retention

Chum are harvestable... count on some addl late Oct gillnet days

Let the games begin!

If memory serves, that's a lot more chum than they forecasted last year. Probably at least another couple days of NT gillnetting and double for QIN. With chinook and chum in the mix, this could get ugly.... Hoping for a positive outcome, and I will be at the Montesano and Olympia meetings again this year.

Here are the links to the preseason forecast not all messed up. Sorry it took so long but still working on getting up to speed.

Grays Harbor

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2tWjgmgVy3yX2o0cS1fMmJaSWM/edit

Willapa

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2tWjgmgVy3yUk1NcXJKa1Z1UjA/edit

Just to give folks an idea of how bad the upriver guy got screwed on the Chehalis, just look at the creel counts from Cosi, Monte, and Fuller....

Cosi - 9 days creeled averaging 1 king and 13 coho for 16 boats per day.... thats about 0.06 kings per boat and 0.81 coho per boat.

Monte - 11 days creeled averaging 0.91 king and 16.5 coho for 32 boats per day.... that's about 0.03 king per boat and 0.52 coho per boat

Fuller - ONE glory day creeled (so take it for what it's worth)... 3 kings and 89 coho for 46 boats. That's about 0.06 king per boat and 1.9 coho per boat.

Let's just say the bay guys did a "little" better.

Rivrguy wanted me to post the image, from his posting above:

This is for the Chehalis and Humptukips