An interesting problem that used to occur with sonar is that it counts fish passage but not direction. On the Fraser one year, the sockeye went up and down a lot, resulting in on overestimate of the run by 750,000... Out of about 10,000,000 that wasn't too bad but led to some late season adventures. Like a purse seine fishery that took 750K in 4 hours......

Let's all be optimistic that the "new tool" is something good. The "old way" doesn't work great so it's not like we're giving up a proven accuracy.

This came from R6 with a model attached. Long and short the combined seasons have Chinook NOT making escapement and Chum just barely. The Chinook it is the the QIN with over 3,000 that is the driver and Chum both NT & Tribal but models out 238 above escapement. If these go forward we have a good chance not making escapement in two of three the fall salmon runs.

Link: https://wdfw.wa.gov/get-involved/calenda...-public-meeting

To Grays Harbor salmon fishery interests:

A friendly reminder of the combined Grays Harbor and Willapa Bay salmon fisheries discussion will be held next week. Please see the information below for the date and time, if you have not registered for the meeting, click the “Join Zoom webinar” link.

•
TUESDAY, APRIL 19
Grays Harbor and Willapa Bay fisheries discussion
Post NOF review of the outcome of regulations and schedules for the 2022-23 fishing season.
Join a public meeting:
6-8 p.m.
Join Zoom webinar
Visit our calendar event listing for additional details.
Also, for your information, please see the link to the Grays Harbor and Willapa Bay season summaries and agreed fisheries: Season summaries and agreed fisheries | Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife

The attached excel file is the planning model that was used to develop the salmon fishery package.

Enjoy the weekend and hope you can make next week’s meeting.

Were I a betting man my money is that none of the 3 species will make goal.

Wouldn’t be shocked either, carcass. If Coho fail to make it, that’ll provide even more ammunition to the conservation-minded approach to next years NOF talks. The two-fish non-selective still irks me. Never know if we’ll get a major rain event or three in December-February that smother out all the eggs from the “big” Coho run.

In the presentation to the Commission Region 6 put forth the two items below and frankly kinda confused some, myself included. So I was asked to see if I could get clarification and I asked staff for just that.

From Commission briefing:

WDFW and Quinault Nation have developed an in-season monitoring tool used to evaluate the abundance of the current year’s coho return. Evaluating the catch per effort during the Quinault Nation fishery has shown a close relationship to final escapement for coho in the Chehalis basin. WDFW will utilize this tool in 2022 to monitor the progress of the Chehalis coho return and adjust fisheries, as needed, if the return does not look like it will achieve preseason objectives.

WDFW will implement a fishery monitoring plan to evaluate effort and catch during WDFW sport fisheries. This is a new tool available to Grays Harbor fisheries this fall and will provide information needed to implement adaptive management actions if needed, as provided in the Adaptive Management section of the policy.

Staff Clarification:

Forgot and your email got moved down below my screen. What we are talking about is the moneys we received to monitor freshwater areas in the Chehalis basin that was discussed in the earlier public meetings. These are funds that haven’t been provided for in the past, but we will be able to put up to four freshwater fishery monitoring techs out on the Satsop, Chehalis, and a few other places this fall to collect coded-wire-tags, mark rates, and data needed to evaluate catch per unit effort. We won’t be doing harvest estimates this fall, that would require a bunch more effort and money, and a justification. It’s the same work was we are doing in the Humptulips, collecting enough data we understand the progress of the fishery. We will also use QIN commercial data to monitor the coho run. This is not a new method, we used this in 2015 to evaluate the returns in-season and those data helped to make the decision to close fisheries early that year. The forecasted runsize in 2015 was over 100k, but only 28k returned. These are the things that are within the Commission briefing. If you want to chat more about this, please give me a call.

So I did call and the explanation previously posted captures things best one can with the information available.

That said I asked why a two fish Coho bag on tributary streams that continuously failing to make escapement. Trying not to screw up a boiled down explanation here we go. The QIN manage to aggregate of Grays Harbor streams and WDFW manages the Humptulips and Chehalis separately but to the aggregate of each separately. WDFW on the Chehalis Basin manages Rec seasons and bag limits that are the same based on the basin aggregate. This was not always the case but Rec users had continuously objected to the seasons in the regulations pamphlet being to difficult to understand so Region 6 simplified the regulations by using a standard bag limit. Run timing and extraordinary circumstance do create variations such as opening dates.

Frankly I do not doubt that this is the case as I have sat through meetings listening the that very thing. I think maybe the current cure may be liked by those main desire is to kill a fish but coming from the fish point of view this approach is just plain nuts. We going to have a two fish bag on the Wynoochee that has been as low as 20% of escapement and the basin escapement has to be around 250% to 300% ABOVE the basin aggregate escapement goal for it to reach escapement numbers which it has done only 3 times in 20 years. It is true with the tributaries below Fuller Hill with the Satsop hanging out at about 50% of escapement. The thing is when you take a stream down to 20% escapement then on good years make escapement you are not going to get a full seeding of the streams reaches as the fish will mostly return to the spawning reaches they came from. Over time full seeding can be achieved for depleted streams if managed to escapement but not with this starve the stream of spawners then flood the stream with spawners. If one gets the feeling of a Yogi Berra moment ("Déjà vu all over again") thinking Steelhead my gut says your right. Intended or not the current process for bag limits ( Rec & Commercial ) are resulting strikingly similar results that happened to Steelhead and native Late Coho. Again this is nuts but enjoy as I will but I am an old guy. You guys younger and much younger enjoy also because into the future as in Steelhead your butts are going to be off the water as this thing cannot go on forever.

This is the last of the NOF meetings I think.
https://wdfw.wa.gov/get-involved/calenda...-public-meeting

Hi Everyone,

Tonight, we have our last North of Falcon meeting prior to filing the proposed fishery packages for Willapa Bay and Grays Harbor. This meeting is scheduled from 6 p.m. – 8 p.m. via Zoom.

We wanted to share the meeting presentation and a few Grays Harbor documents prior to tonight’s meeting. During the meeting tonight, we will review the proposed modeled fishery packages for both Willapa Bay and Grays Harbor that were the outcome of the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) meeting last week relative to our 2022 management objectives for each harbor.

If you are interested in joining the discussion at tonight’s meeting, please use this link to register Webinar Registration - Zoom. You must register in advance to attend this meeting. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information on how to join the meeting. Documents will be posted to our website and can be found at Grays Harbor and Willapa Bay Fisheries: North of Falcon Public Meeting | Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife.

Thank you and hope to hear from you tonight.


Additional links: 
If you are interested in providing your comments for any statewide fisheries for the NOF process, please see our website at Public input | Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife
If there is anyone who is interested in being added to our distribution list for Grays Harbor, please have them email us at graysharbor@dfw.wa.gov.

Terrible feeling of inevitability to all of this...

Neil R6 just sent out the information on tonight's meeting. Look to the attachment for the QIN and NT Commercial and you will see that to put in a day for the NT Commercials and you will see in week 43 they will violate the 4/3 clause which is three days net free in a calendar week by shifting one day into week 44. Now you do technically get 3 days in a row net free but one day is in another week. 4/3 was specifically designed to insure that did not happen.

This is what happens when I want to kill a fish takes priority over the GH Policy and conservation is put in a dumpster.

I didn’t receive that, could you send it to me? Do I just email them to get on the list?

Yes just email Mike or Kim and they will add you to the mail out list.

Will do on forward and it is off but let me know if you do not get it.

Got it, thanks. Responded by email.

Anyone know when the final escapement numbers for GH are released and how we go about getting them?

2021 had a return around 60k on Coho but Chinook fell short of escapement and Chum made it I think.

Well NOF is done and update time. First up the ZOOM thing stinks up the place as whoever is managing it is still manipulating things to manage participation. This time I even requested time at the end to address a couple of things to Mr. Losee and as the Willapa bit finished up with 40 minutes left zip shut it down. They really don’t want to have any in depth look at things is my thought. Thing is I wanted to compliment Mr. Losee on something but looking back now that might have been a bit premature line of thought.

So why is this important? Well in the model I noticed that the Chinook were modeled to NOT make escapement. The answer to the question is important and Mac & Jim you were right as it does appear that something is going on. As I understand it when the QIN went through the process and got the Chehalis Chinook escapement goal reduced to 9753 there was something else in the document. The manner that wild spawners are counted was also changed to the allow the co-managers to count any fish spawning in the gravel as natural spawners but was not used until this year. This means a hatchery stray or broodstocked spawning in the gravel is counted as part of the wild spawn. So the WDFW model shows 8967 wild escapements but the QIN numbers are 10,418 wild. In other words the QIN and WDFW are counting fish differently. This was not the case until this year is my understanding.

Why is a good question and it is the Coho run size. Just like the Rec & NT Commercials throwing conservation overboard wanting expanded Coho harvest the QIN needed the extra Chinook impacts to get at the Coho. My bet is we miss Chinook and Chum escapement this year but it is dead Coho on everyone’s top ten. I have attached the model for everyone along with a spread sheet the shows the massive failures on escapement for the last ten years. So Mac your worse fears were true this harvest process is a mess.

For Recs it will be a two fish limit release Chinook with a little variation around jacks. To accomplish this the 3/5 5% limiter was stood down as was the three net free days. On the net free days the GHMP requires it be in a calendar week but to shoehorn a NT Commercial day it staff placed one day in another week. I objected but a NT Commercial put forth that the Commission authorized this but have since found out he was …ah miss informed but others use different words to describe putting false information out. So the GHMP was manipulated to allow wide open Coho harvest by us NT fishers and the QIN took advantage of something that few knew was allowed to increase the Coho catch. This whole thing is like watching starving dogs fight over a 2 lb. pot roast and it is not pretty. I am of the opinion that in the wild feeding frenzy I doubt conservation not of Coho but Chinook and Chum was even a thought for second.

Little edit: Last year we failed to make Chinook escapement, Coho were well above as were Chum coming in at 48,458

The thing that really concerns me is the whole managing the Chehalis as an aggregate. While that’s great for an overall look at the health of the system, the Department’s willingness to do so in order to “simplify”, in their words, the regulations, is total [Bleeeeep!]. If reading the regulations, and seeing ”Hoquiam River: CLOSED to fishing for Salmon. Wynoochee River: CLOSED to fishing for Salmon” is too confusing for you... “You’ve got bigger problems” would be a nice way to put it. We don’t need you on the rivers.

They’re able to manage rivers individually for Chinook, why can’t they for Coho, especially on the lower Chehalis tribs without hatchery supplementation that are annually struggling to make even 50% escapement. Strikes me as a lazy effort by the Department.

We’re annually carried as a basin by the upper tributaries, many of which are closed to fishing for salmon. I’m old enough to know that EVENTUALLY those rivers that are carrying us now will struggle, and it’d be nice to have healthier lower tribs that could carry us WHEN, not if, that happens. We don’t get there by keeping our collective boot on their neck on these “big” returns.

If you managed the tribs separately you would end up shutting down the ocean for conservation. See how PS is constrained for Stilly Chinook.

How are they able to do it with Chinook and not Coho? No Chinook retention on Satsop, Nooch, Hoquiam etc due to low escapement.

04/20/2022

NOF is done for another year. I expect the vast amount of fishers will think it could be a great year.

I can't even image the amount of boats being in line to launch at Johns River, Hoquiam, 28th Street, Cosie, Friends Landing, Montesano, Fuller, probably Westport. Temperatures have been known to "sky rocket" with persons that can't back a trailer or want to get gear in the boat while on the launch itself. Be prepared for limited parking space at South Montesano.

Wynoochee------ can't make escapement, well who's fault it that????? 2 gill net fisheries, a river bank fishery that has grown in past 20 years, a boat fishery from John's River to Cosie that went from zero to what it is today.

Federal monies available for a hatchery below the Dam, mid 70's, fight between user groups, so Feds took monies back and spent on war effort, how'd that work out?

2nd chance to increase Coho and steelhead, about 1992, known as Wynoochee Mitigation, has that gone ??????? no where, 30+ years still not 1 fish has been placed in the Wynoochee, and then they don't even want to "fin clip" the Coho so even if we did "have a hatchery only Coho fishery", there would be no way to tell a Native from a hatchery, yea I know the fish would be wire coded but well...grrrrrr

Wynoochee problems.....to many user groups fishing on Wynoochee bound fish and then most of the fish are trucked above the dam and expected to spawn in above 4 miles of river AND THEN COMPETE WITH ALL THE STEELHEAD that are also trucked above the dam.

QIN wanted a hatchery...... WDFW, who knows????? Lot's of WDFW higher ups, running around with their heads up their butts, still running even today!!!! Grrrrrr