Zak
Legend
One thing I like about @Rob Allen 's posts is that he never attacks other forum members. He just states his opinion and sticks by it. Gotta respect that, even if I disagree with his opinion.
Petition to amend and repeal 2023-2024 winter steelhead season on the Olympic Peninsula
- Thread starter SeaRunner
- Start date
Rob Allen
Life of the Party
If we were operating on the basis of science things would get better. Plain and simple..
That leaves 2 options..
1. We aren't making decisions based on science..
2. Our science isn't good enough to be using to make public policy
No public policy should be enacted that doesn't make things better.
the primary use for gray areas is for people to lie, cheat and steal... most issues are black and white.. regardless of varied opinions.. sometimes people have opinions that are wrong..
In this instance, based on past imperical evidence, closing steelhead rivers to angling does absolutely no good therefore it should never be done.
I'll change my mind when someone shows me a steelhead river in the north west that recovered as a result of an angling closure.
that, would be using science.
Elwha.
Rob, when you position yourself with ". . . plain and simple . . ." please remember that for every complex problem some idiot has a solution that is easy, simple, and . . . wrong. Please don't be that idiot.
Few decisions are based solely on science. That's because thoughtful people want important decisions to be informed by science, social, and economic values. None of these is right or wrong in isolation. It comes down to what people (society) want(s). And how good does science have to be to make or inform public policy? If it has to be perfect, then you're letting perfection be the enemy of good. Is that what you want?
If a policy shouldn't be enacted because it won't make things better, should it be enacted if it can prevent things from becoming worse? I disagree that the primary use of gray areas is for lying, cheating, and stealing, although some people will exploit the gray for that purpose. I claim that there is more gray area in the world than black or white because there is more in the world that is uncertain (gray) than certain (black or white). Closing rivers to steelhead fishing hasn't restored steelhead populations because those populations are not limited by fishing. Some rivers that are closed to angling should probably remain closed because the populations are so low that the additional mortality caused by fishing would be limiting. This gets at that gray area again - some rivers won't be harmed by fishing, some will, and others need more information in order to make an informed decision.
Few decisions are based solely on science. That's because thoughtful people want important decisions to be informed by science, social, and economic values. None of these is right or wrong in isolation. It comes down to what people (society) want(s). And how good does science have to be to make or inform public policy? If it has to be perfect, then you're letting perfection be the enemy of good. Is that what you want?
If a policy shouldn't be enacted because it won't make things better, should it be enacted if it can prevent things from becoming worse? I disagree that the primary use of gray areas is for lying, cheating, and stealing, although some people will exploit the gray for that purpose. I claim that there is more gray area in the world than black or white because there is more in the world that is uncertain (gray) than certain (black or white). Closing rivers to steelhead fishing hasn't restored steelhead populations because those populations are not limited by fishing. Some rivers that are closed to angling should probably remain closed because the populations are so low that the additional mortality caused by fishing would be limiting. This gets at that gray area again - some rivers won't be harmed by fishing, some will, and others need more information in order to make an informed decision.
Does the g in Salmo_g stand for gray ?
I guess the fact that some rivers have anadromous fish populations that are so low that they are hanging on by a gossamer thread escapes some folks.
But hey, fish them anyway...because reasons.
Rob Allen
Life of the Party
What about it?
Rob Allen
Life of the Party
Fishing isn't limiting ANY steelhead recovery nor would it be if every steelhead river were open year around from mouth to the tiniest headwater and there is no science to suggest that it is. Only the presumption that a limiting number of fish would be killed. Presumption is not science and that's all we ever do regarding our fisheries, we presume.
But anyway... I think we should keep rivers open and let people fish empty rivers if they want to... but enough about that.
HauntedByWaters
Life of the Party
I hate to say it, but I agree with a lot of what Rob says. Closing sports fisheries to steelhead may be required by law but this is not really backed by science. Sure there are sports impacts and hooks hurt fish (science has shown hooks hurt fish….duh!), but let’s not miss the forest for the trees, there are commercial bycatch impacts all over the pacific for steelhead that aren’t counted in this mess. Sports fishermen should demand more and be more upset than they are. Major industries are making hundreds of millions with endless nets and their impacts to steelhead are barely considered because they aren’t actually trying to net them. As we all know, unintentional consequences are still consequences.
I never feel guilty fishing for wild steelhead. I’ve never mortally hooked one ever. But in my dozen or so days fishing gill nets for kings I saw about 10 dead steelhead that were massive. It is not scientifically backed that curtailing sports fishing is an effective way to protect steelhead, especially given the commercial fishing occurring that I know is killing steelhead.
It is always the little guys having to take on the burden of saving the earth and these industries do the major damage and it’s always business as usual.
I never feel guilty fishing for wild steelhead. I’ve never mortally hooked one ever. But in my dozen or so days fishing gill nets for kings I saw about 10 dead steelhead that were massive. It is not scientifically backed that curtailing sports fishing is an effective way to protect steelhead, especially given the commercial fishing occurring that I know is killing steelhead.
It is always the little guys having to take on the burden of saving the earth and these industries do the major damage and it’s always business as usual.
G_Smolt
Legend
So you've never hooked a steelhead? Or are you in the "it swam away just fine!" group?
Delayed mortality is a thing, and most anglers have their heads firmly planted in the sand when it comes to those discussions. There's also sublethal effects of sport angling to consider, and some of those include loss of fecundity and reduced egg vitality. While we're at it, there's also the larger trend of declining iteroparity in L48 steelhead stocks - not necessarily a function of sport pressure but as S_G pointed out above, there are many shades of grey in the management matrix.
Non-directed commercial impacts to steelhead are present, but I have a feeling they're not as big a problem as you present. Given what we know about oceanic habits - which isn't much in the overall scheme of things - the time/area closures of many net fisheries tend to avoid conflict. AK area 104 seine might be the outlier, but you can bet your ass they take far fewer fish than the Prince Rupert directed sockeye/king fishery does, and those fish are likely Nass / Portland Canal / Skeena fish and have nothing to do with L48 stocks.
Too many folks want and ask too much of the fish that, quite frankly, would be much better off if there weren't people chasing them around.
HauntedByWaters
Life of the Party
I guess I am in the it swam away fine group. I also have never seen a dead steelhead on the bank in fisheries where people are crushing them all around me. I would think I would have seen one by now.
Pink Nighty
Life of the Party
While I agree that nobody that has hooked a fish can claim to be in the "first, do no harm" camp, I do think there is a difference in assumed mortality between various gear types and hooking/fighting scenarios and one can reasonably learn to know the difference between a fish that is mortally affected and one that is not.
While I do believe that the quantity of steelhead caught in oceanic commercial fisheries is small, I'm concerned about the quality of fish encountered in those fisheries. From what I understand, (which I realize is far less than you, I'm a chef for fucks sake) the large fish are the real drivers of future recruitment and are the most likely to end up in a chinook gillnet. I guess what I'm driving at is I am surprised to see you dismissing commercial bycatch as a limiting factor in OP fish, and am wondering why you would so readily do so.
I've also consumed ~ 3 old fashioneds, so I'm hopeful but doubtful I came off respectfully, but in case not I really hoped to!
G_Smolt
Legend
Because the directed in-river fishery harvests far more. The post I was responding to was a claim of nets "all over the pacific ocean". If I had to bet a large sum on it, I would wager the largest single-point contributor to steelhead mortality on the OP is the directed commercial fishery.
No worries, I didn't get a feeling of disrespect from you...also, I'm not too easy to offend. I'm 2 glasses of wine in myownself.
G_Smolt
Legend
In my experience, those fish are food for steeamside and in-river foragers. IMO, The smaller the system, the more fish morts you will see, mostly as a function of "no place to hide". In decades of guiding and now as a field biologist, I see steelhead morts every year, usually looking like I interrupted whatever was eating them. I've seen Otters (unsuccessfully) chase unpressured fish, and I've also seen them eat the hell out of fish in a (now closed for stock rebuilding) popular local fishery...my strong assumption is unless there is an advantage of ambush or something mechanical in play (like a weir), Otters rarely capture unstressed adult steelhead.
One from a local river which sees about 10 anglers for every fish in the stream...
HauntedByWaters
Life of the Party
I disagree. The fishery I worked in was monitoring an in river Tribal fishery, so maybe it isn’t a great example of the mortality to steelhead due to nets in the ocean, but you can’t ignore the scale of fisheries across the entire PNW and how it would all add up. I also think the reporting numbers of bycatch of all types of fish isn’t accurate because it would look bad. The more I read about this stuff the more I suspect we have the fox guarding the hen house and the regulators aren’t willing to make the tough decisions. Just the easy ones like closing fisheries to sporties. I’ve worked with fisheries managers and I know how much pressure there is to keep commercial fisheries open. It is literally scary for them to consider closing a fishery.
I’ve caught the same steelhead on back to back casts. I know you have seen the same fish caught in the same spot in the same day, at least, if you are a guide. Sure these impacts exist and add up, but you can’t tell me a fish I just released getting caught again like that is a greatly impacted fish. This is the reason you mention that small stream fishery impacts do kill fish, because that is their terminal destination, they are getting fished pretty much on their redd all the time. I’m not arguing for fishing on them everywhere and in places like that, I am arguing that sports fishermen are asked to make sacrifices when other fisheries aren’t and I think our impacts are greatly blown out of proportion. There is plenty of opportunity to have cnr fisheries with low impacts but so many start crying about the steelhead impacts when there is such a giant fucking elephant in the room it is comical to me. That elephants are all the people making money off the fish when sporties are not. Anyone making money by impacting these fish should feel a lot more guilty than a sports fisherman.
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Wh
DId you see steelhead as bycatch in a spring king fishery?
Completely unrelated, or not.....
vancouversun.com
B.C. trawlers dump thousands of salmon, depleting orcas’ food source: wildlife group
The group says the report estimates more than 20,000 chinook caught in the nets were dead and thrown overboard
vancouversun.com
Rob Allen
Life of the Party
Yup, I have been fishing for steelhead and generally playing around rivers that were heavily fished for over 40 years and the absence of dead steelhead is striking and in my mind absolute proof that nearly all steelhead caught and released survive. Even those caught with bait.
You mentioned 12 days of fishing and 10 dead steelhead. Fleet wide and season wide, that is no small impact.
I once heard a region 5 steelhead biologist specifically say that South Toutle river steelhead have no chance of long term survival in the face of in river commercial spring Chinook netting.
Half of the Wind river summer steelhead run is harvested in the 8 miles from Bonneville dam where there passage is recorded by pit tags and Shippard Falls where they are recorded again.( tribal netting) HALF the run!
Now I don't begrudge commercial and tribal fishermen their livelihoods, but in light of their impacts it is sheer idiocy to shut down any steelhead sport fisheries.
If this is science then science be damned and let's go with common sense.
Rob Allen
Life of the Party
They see summer and winter steelhead as bycatch in Columbia River spring Chinook fisheries.
