I met Jacques White, PhD who is the executive director at LLTK this week, and we discussed this project for a spell. Posting up some information on how you can sponsor a Steelhead smolt this spring in the Survive the Sound interactive game that is currently accepting sponsorship for outmigrating smolts this spring.

Check out the contest details here: http://www.prweb.com/releases/prweb14216599.htm

Sponsor a fish here: https://www.survivethesound.org/home

I'll be sponsoring a fish and reporting it's name and progress here, as well as observations during the contest.

If any of you decide to sponsor a fish, it would be fun to compare progress here once the contest starts!

Post up if any of you decide to participate!

So my Sponsored fish is "Puget Pounder". release date set for may 8th and this is a Nisqually fish....looking forward to seeing how he does!

In. My smolt is "Jet." Hails from the Skokomish and claims to always be on time. We shall see....

This is a really cool way to get people to support much-needed projects that WDFW can't or won't fund.

I am wishing Puget Pounder good luck! He'll need it with a 78% mortality rate!!

Here is a link to their preliminary report as presented to the Commission in August 2015:

http://wdfw.wa.gov/commission/meetings/2015/08/aug0715_06_presentation.pdf.

The Puget Sound Recreational Fishing Enhancement Program and the Squaxin tribe are collaborating on a study whereby tagged coho are being released at several locations leading out of South Sound
to Admiralty Inlet to ascertain if predation decreases the further out the fish are released (and presumably the comparative differences).

And then there is the recently released report on a Canadian study which shows the extent of harbor seal predation on Chinook in Puget Sound; twice what Orcas consume and six times what fishers take. Here is the abstract:

http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/cjfas-2016-0203#.WObC2zvysdW

Again, I wish Puget Pounder well as he faces a truly hostile marine environment called Puget Sound.

And I also wish that NOAA would take ownership of how this predation adversly impacts the potential recovery of ESA listed salmonids and push Congress for changes to the MMPA.

Used to be real active with a LLTK project here when the Wishkah hatchery was going.

fp

Been hangin' on to that shirt a while, eh?

Thanks for ponying up and participating, I appreciate it.

Great idea!

My family will sponsor one fish each. . .the ladies have Fishy-McFishface, Fin-E-US and Bubbles from the Skok, and I'm pulling for Twitch from the Nisqually.

Go Twitch!

fb

I've got Bruce from the Skok.
SF

I got that unpronounceable Skawel smolt.

8 fish so far, shaping up to be a great side contest here on PP.

"Sharkbait" leaving the Nisqually.

Merman is my fish!

I am in for Sgt. Snackbar but I was really disappointed when I realized I could not name my own fishey as I had already planned on C. L. Snack. Well, Sgt. Snackbar is close. Granddaughter at Western will be notified she has her own Nisqually fish to follow: Sushi.

By my choices am I projecting a negative outlook on short term survival? No doubt!

The data on smolts is very interesting. Mortality, at least in all the studies I looked at, was highest early in the individual's migration. Loss rates were highest in the first few kilometres of migration. It is as if the fish, when it converts from a stream resident to migrant faces new challenges, new predators, etc. that take a while to learn. Once learned, survival per km is better. The loss was also rather equal, on a per km basis, for hatchery and wild.

That said, there was a real problem for fish having to pass Tacoma Narrows on the way out. White River Chinook, released as yearlings from Hupp/Minter survived at a lower rate than fingerling White Rivers released from the MIT facility on the White. Conventional wisdom and management models tell us yearlings survive way better than fingerlings.

I still maintain that while this tagging data is great and much needed it tells us only what is happening today. We know that OVERALL marine survival appears to be down but just because the number leaving the Straits is low does not mean that in-Sound mortality is the problem. Unless there is some old data on in-Sound survivals.

Plus, for steelhead, I have asked and asked and nobody on the Pacific Coast was able to provide me with a good data set (real, not indexed escapement, whole brood-year ages) where the R/S even equaled 1. Repeat spawners are critical. We do know that if the smolts are younger, a stream produces more so the same stream will produce more age 1 than it can age 2 and so on. So, as we keep stream productivity low, we produce fewer smolts form the same habitat. A downward spiral. Fewer smolts, fewer repeats, ...............

I've got Willy.
Free Willy!

Sea Slough is ready to rock and roll. He will be a 20 pounder in 2020

Sushi and Sgt. Snackbar survived initial release and are heading downstream. Should be plenty of water to flush them out quickly. Appears there have already been some fatalities amongst the participants......

Sgt. Snackbar is reportedly alive and well just off Anderson Island's Devils Head. Watch out Snacky - seal country!!

Sushi on the other hand is reluctant to continue downstream. Is there a problem??

So far so good. “Shark bait” has made it out of the Nisqually into the saltwater.