... coming SOON to Willapa Bay.

http://www.thedailyworld.com/news/dfw-pr...in-willapa-bay/

Do these people even hear themselves when they talk....Holy $hit...Someone else please say they see how messed up these paragraphs are...

“I recognized that people are concerned that a fish trap will absorb everybody else’s fishery, but that’s not the intention at all,” she said. “The idea behind it is to help fisheries target the hatchery fish and minimize the impacts on wild fish.”

Hoffman also said the trap proposal is not an attempt to replace other commercial fishing methods.

“We have no intention to have any type of alternative gear to take over. That is not what this is about.” Since federal regulators have placed a higher value on enhancing a more robust population of native salmon than adding to the overall population of salmon with hatchery fish, Hoffman said the trap is just one idea to help grow the number of native salmon while allowing sport and commercial anglers to harvest the hatchery fish.

It's a double edged sword, for sure.

Losers are those fishing upstream of the trap. For them, it's the ULTIMATE low-hole for any meaningful opportunity.

To preserve that opportunity, the logical place for hatch removals is at the barrier weir itself

But realistically the quality goes to $h!t and no one can sell those boots.

Properly prosecuted, the trap will be the most selective gear. It will also maximize hatchery removals because of wild fish survival rate. Essentially, nobody should be allowed to fish upstream, like Doc said.

An interesting aspect is that a trap will allow hatchery harvest without accompanying loss of wilds. As such, it will be somewhat superior to hook and line and hugely superior to tangle net. It raises, then, the ethical question of why kill (depressed/listed) wild fish when it is not necessary.

It will also create some interesting conflicts for treaty fisheries, especially when listed stocks are mixed in.

Spent some time at Hoodsport this week while the commercial nets were working. That is the kind of commercial netting we need. It is pretty much a 100% terminal hatchery fishery (Im sure a few wild skokomish kings find the nets). Build more of those on the sound, let the tribes and cowboys have offsetting days. That is a sweet fishery for the sure fact that the fish are salt fresh. I have caught 1 pink there this year with a slight hump. I doubt this suggestion would ever be recognized by anyone of importance, but it is by far the best option for all involved.

The other option would be the states worse nightmare, have fish traps, but only allow so many hatchery fish to be caught and then let them through to river...I know the DFW would have ulcers over the idea of letting fish make it to the river and God forbid get caught or worse make it to the hatchery. If it helps the recreational in river fisherman, then I doubt anything good would ever see the light of day.

Oh well.

The trap design thus far in Willapa does not even slightly resemble the one in the picture but if you want to have it PM me and I will dig it up. Second issue is this, any harvest method has NOR morts and the method in the photo will have a substantial one as you have to physically handle them. Now that said it would still work but it is the mix of H&W's which narrows things right down to yikes in the Willapa. This year the trap was allocated 24 NOR morts for its operation from the commercial side. Others running the math to get down to the HSRG numbers of hatchery staying allowed would use up both the commercial and REC NOR impacts on Chinook morts at a 4 to 10% coming from the trap. Selective fishing commercially with a trap in Willapa is not likely practical as the NOR population is much much smaller than the hatchery. It is the unspoken thing for those of us who worked in hatcheries. You need a strong vibrant NOR population that is proportional for harvest. In other words the hatchery production harvest must fit within the the limiting NOR populations ability to support the harvest impacts. It does not in Willapa at this time. Wrong fish, wrong place, wrong approach, that simple.

Been around fish and fish management for a long time. Even learned a few things, I think. It is becoming obvious to me that you can have wild fish or you can have hatchery fish but you really can't have both in the same watershed. If, that is, you want more than a a museum population of wilds.

The future, I think, will require that some wild stocks be totally written off. They may be there, but nobody cares. Mixed stock fishing will need to be severely constrained but the terminal area fisheries should flourish.

I received word that staff reported at the Commission meeting that dead for this year, trap that is. The Commission still wants to pursue it as does the agency but ah... in a little different manner. Also the expanded Naselle Chinook production will continue. Best I have so far.

"Wrong fish, wrong place, wrong approach, that simple."

That's the part that makes the most sense to me. I just cannot help but think this Willapa Chinook management system is completely bass-akwards. If the Naselle has the best habitat for a wild Chinook population, and the Naselle hatchery is a POS facility, and the Naselle weir is flawed, and perhaps fatally so, then it seems most logical to shut down the Naselle hatchery (save money the Dept doesn't have) and let the Naselle River be the wild Chinook tributary of Willapa Bay.

Then restore hatchery Chinook production to Forks Creek hatchery on the Willapa River. The hatchery was remodeled or renovated not that long ago and appears to be a good production station. Further, my familiarity with the Willapa River suggests that it isn't likely to be a good producer of naturally self sustaining wild Chinook any time in the foreseeable future due to the prevalent land use of forestry and agriculture. None of the Willapa tributaries were great Chinook streams historically, and it's fundamentally illogical to expect any of them, particularly the Willapa River, to become a viable wild Chinook habitat when there is zero intention to change or modify the watershed's land use.

Produce hatchery Chinook in the Willapa and wild Chinook in the Naselle. How can that not be more consistent with habitat reality, economic viability, and come closest to the apparent management goals of having both the benefits of hatchery Chinook and a mostly feel good, but viable wild Chinook population in the stream best suited to achieving that end?

Sg

Obviously, Salmo, there are issues and concerns known only to WDFW (and maybe shared with a local legislator or two) that trumps the use of common sense and logic.

There must be some strong (probably outside the Bay) reasons why they went the direction they did.

That, or they are showing that science and logic don't matter and are hoping to get jobs with Administration.

Carcassman, I think the local legislator has a thing for keeping the Naselle hatchery operating (a salmon hatchery in his district!) even if it doesn't make economic or biological sense. Still, I would expect that could be over-ridden with Senator Pearson's concerns about management dysfunction in the agency and its financial resource allocations. I'm sure there is more to the story than meets the eye.

Slight hijack: Like Carcass said, there are no native stocks if a hatchery is present. Perhaps you could call them wild (hatch x native naturally spawned fish), but not native.

I always thought wdfw could select rivers that are past any practical hope for recovery. Raise and release smolt every month and let the hoards have 5 per day. Don't release in times where release/returns would conflict with wild runs in close proximity.

On the handful of "native" or wild rivers , fish by guide only by lottery permit, all catch and release, and try to save the rivers we can. would the tribes rather net overly-abundant hatchery rivers, and leave the regulated "wilds" alone? Why not? It's all about the money, right?

I just think if we keep treating all rivers the same, they'll all fail. I realize this crosses over to co-managers and other issues, but "if you keep doing the same thing, you should expect the same results."

Carcass, eyeFish, Smalma, interested to hear your interpretation or alternative on major scale refocus for the long haul.

Ned. Sounds interesting but never work. There are seasons (generally spring) for smolt releases although some species also have later summer/fall but survivals are different.

As for fishing, your idea would work IF all fishing was terminal (bay/river). Otherwise, the co-mingled wild stock would get hammered as it does now anyway. Your idea of either/or is, in fact, the steelhead model as fisheries for them are terminal. It would mean writing off stocks in some systems and the political system won't do that.

As to the Tribes, they are confined to their Treaty-mandated area. So, lets say we plant the heck out of the Green, Cedar, and Puyallup; get huge returns of coho and Chinook back. The Skagit, Stillaguamish, Snohomish, and Nisqually would be purely wild. Some tribes would get lots of fish and others much fewer.

WDF actually proposed something like that with shellfish. As background, the WDF shellfish staff studiously stayed out the "Salmon Wars"; didn't learn the details. When the tribes got shellfish, the staff proposed developing a few beaches for the tribes where intensive culture would load them with harvestable animals. They were amazed that, say, the Suquamish were unwilling to welcome the Lummis with open arms to did on their beach.

In many respects, Carcassman is correct. You either have wild fish or hatchery fish, but not both.

But the Naselle River seems to be the exception.

Wild Chinook production on the Naselle can be quite substantial in some years, even though there is no retention for wild Chinook. It has one of the strongest wild coho populations anywhere in Washington State. In most years, you can take four adult coho, two of which can be wild. I don’t know any river in SW Washington where you can keep two wild coho. And all chum salmon on the Naselle are wild. In some years, you can’t keep the chum salmon off your eggs. But there is no retention of chum on the Naselle. I’ve caught dozens of chum before I can find something to keep (hatchery Chinook or coho).

All this even though the Naselle River hatchery releases lots of coho and fall Chinook. And it remains productive for both hatchery and wild fish with the heavy commercial harvest in Willapa Bay.

It’d be great if there were more rivers like this in Washington State.

The Naselle has done well in natural Chinook due the the massive influence of hatchery origin adults spawning in the river. Frankly it is like most coastal streams that are not prime Chinook producers as they lack the habitat needed. Much different than Columbia or some of the PS streams. It is similar the Chehalis a good Coho stream but the reality is in its natural state the Willapa estuary streams were and are prime Chum producing habitat. This is one of the things that most choose ignore.

I am told that there is capital budget moneys to solve the issue ( a weir I assume ) so we will see. The one thing that is certain is that the inriver fishery that benefited from the straying will be the ones who feel the most pain as the fish will no longer be allowed to stray and support that fishery inriver.

The Cathlamet pound net (fish trap) project is the modern-day model for deploying this uber-selective gear type.

...

Final 2017 report....

A total of 7,129 salmon and steelhead were caught; about 2,000 Chinook and 1,000 steelhead were tagged. The Wild Fish Conservancy’s very preliminary analysis of post-release survival of the tagged fish to McNary Dam was 99.6 percent for Chinook and 94 percent for steelhead.

“We were thrilled with these results,” Tuohy said.

https://www.nwcouncil.org/news/blog/pound-net-experiment-on-the-lower-columbia-december-2017-report/

These traps will raise some really tough questions if they are successful at releasing wilds/protected fish. The basic question will be why have a hatchery at all if the only harvester will be traps? Until the wild run gets large enough, even release mortality will be important. As the wild run grows, it would be a higher fraction of the run (assuming a rather constant hatchery run). So, to maintain a mixed stock rec fishery you would actually encounter more releasable fish, which would then lower the hatchery fish take when the impacts are reached.

Salmo,

I gotta agree, going away from Naselle as primary stream on WB was plain stupid. But that's what most of the WB advisors wanted. I argued against it repeatedly to no avail.

If run properly, fishtrap mortality will be very very low. In its most selective incarnation, reef nets can be used without ever even capturing the non-target fish. No handling at all.

Even if run poorly, the fishtrap folks will be sticking it to the sporties for not being selective enough in a wild fish release scenario.

Did they change state law lifting the fishtrap ban?

It's experimental. If there is a decision to actually authorize a commercial (rather than test) fishery then the law will need to be changed.

Whoa Awesome Survival! I wonder if some of the Steelhead headed downstream?