LBL
Steelhead
For fun compare to last years creel count.
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Dismal on the 'Duc - Coho management failure
- Thread starter Thomas Mitchell
- Start date
Yes - wild coho too as they are available to harvest unlike springers (another pain point for me), but that's very aligned to my perspective and is why the whole thing is so disappointing. If it was a one-off, it'd suck and I'd hope for better next time but it seems like every season has a similar example.
Thanks as always for taking the time to add your thoughts.
Kashf
Steelhead
Do you have any insight as to why wild harvest on the OP is so liberal when the runs are actually quite small? When I started fishing back in 2020 I always thought of the OP as our mini Alaska of salmon runs, but turns out many systems have fewer wild fish returning than even Puget Sound systems
The technical end of your question I'm not qualified to answer so I'm not going to attempt to. However I will speak to the cultural end of things in that it was not long ago you could harvest wild winter steelhead on many of the rivers in that area.
To add to this point, there is still direct harvest of steelhead by the co-managers. I am not sure if there is any directed harvest of steelhead in Alaska. I doubt that there is.
In fact, is there any other place but Washington state where there are directed harvest fisheries on steelhead? I am not talking about Skeena steelhead taken as incidentals in the sockeye fishery. I mean is there any other place where people target steelhead with the intent to harvest them, either by hook and line or net?
I don't think that there is, but I may be wrong.
It seems like the intended and expected result of our co-management paradigm is the harvest of every potential "surplus" fish. Did the culture create the paradigm or did the paradigm create the culture? Does it even matter?
This is the thing that has to change if we want material improvements. It's also the thing that no one, including the NGOs, seem to be working on in a meaningful way as far as I can tell.
Yes, there is steelhead harvest in SE Alaksa. Annual limit for you or I is 2, not how the tribal fisheries are regulated, but their harvest data is public
I believe there are a handful of rivers in southern Oregon where harvesting of wild steelhead is still allowed. Very limited in scope. I recall there being an effort to do away with it a few years ago, but the regional bios said the impact was insignificant to the population and there wasn’t a scientific or data backed need to stop the harvest.
I think you know my very mixed feelings towards fish NGO's. I am not a believer that harvest is the ripest fruit to pick when it comes to improving WA state fish stocks. However, it does have a large impact on some stocks.
It is interesting the WFC and TCA both are very lawyer based and policy centric in their approach yet have not tried to tackle the co-management paradigm. Maybe they have never seen how they can change it. If it is to be changed, I think lawyers will play a role. If they just found a way to challenge the idea of foregone opportunity it would be helpful in empowering the state to make different decisions with their share of the fish. It would change the paradigm in a modest way but would change it. It certainly could have changed the outcome on the Sol Duc. If the tribes are going to net, why would you not allow the sport fishery? Paper fish wise, it makes no sense to stop the hook and line harvest.
Thread drift: Why does the Army Core of Engineers never get sued? WFC recently sued NOAA and won in the Alaska harvest lawsuit. This is the only time that I remember the feds being sued. There may be others like a NMFS BiOP on the Snake or something?. Like the steelhead harvest issue, I could be wrong. Maybe WFC will be emboldened to take on ACE or NMFS in other places now?
If this thread has done anything, it's to remind me to give some cash to the Hoh river trust or a similar group that protects habitat by purchasing it.
Kashf
Steelhead
With the conversation about management for harvest, I wonder how you guys feel is the right way to manage anadramous fish runs in Washington. I have yet to form my own opinion on the subject but I have a variety of feelings about it. Long term I would like to have large, healthy runs of native fish in my home waters that I am able to appreciate and angle for. At the same time, harvesting my own food is something that has been important to me and my family since i was a child, and is why I started fishing. I never considered catch and release until I found a fishery where it was the only option.Eating salmon at the dinner table is one of the things that got me connected to the fish. Harvesting only hatchery fish and leaving wild fish alone is great in theory, but it feels like we are slowly moving away from that school of fisheries management, perhaps for the better.
I want salmon runs to flourish, but I also want food on my plate. How do I find the best approach to fisheries management that lets us have both?
I want salmon runs to flourish, but I also want food on my plate. How do I find the best approach to fisheries management that lets us have both?
Its really concerning. I fished 12 days out there on the lower duc,bogie and the quilleute from oct 11 to nov 3. Mostly floating the quilleute. Worst coho numbers ive seen. Personally i dont think netting in low water alone accounts for the lack of fish, seeing the numbers are weird coast wide. Had no problem finding kings....
Unfortunately the fish managers have no magic bullet that will assure that we will be able to continue to fish let alone harvest some fish.
In the vast majority of cases harvest is not the dominate factor limiting the numbers of fish returning, let alone having any fish to harvest. The situation with Puget Sound Chinook illustrates my point. This spring will mark the 25 the anniversary of the ESA listing of those fish. In spite of 25 years of effect and untold amounts of money spend on restoration efforts limited progress has been made in recovering them. Of the 22 stocks all but 5 have recent recruits/spawners (R/S -the number of potential adults returning without fishing per spawner) of less than 1.0. Have R/S of less 1.0 typically indicates that escapements (spawners) are at levels greater than the system ability to support more production. In short putting more fish on the spawning grounds will not on the average produce more fish. Of those stocks most are at only 10 to 20% of stock abundance needed for recovery. Just one example on the North Fork Stillaguamish the number of spawners post ESA listing was increased by a modest average 291 fish. This resulted in runs that decreased by an average of 438. On the NF Stillaguamish the most recent escapements of natural origin adults has been less than 10% of recovery objectives.
If we are going to have fish in our streams, we as a society will have to decide that we will collectively reduce our impacts on the salmon's critical habitat needs. To date we have not demonstrated the willingness to make those sacrifices. Unless you are an old fart like myself my advice is to you is to find a different hobby and substitutes for salmon on your plate.
Curt
Curt-
Thanks for weighing in. I agree with you completely.
And, habitat isn't really the driving issue on the river system in this thread or the other WA North Coast river systems. While there is some clear cutting, it's generally not close to the river, there isn't much/any diking, residential or farming use or other hardscape except in a few spots close to the road (Hoh) and the issues around tire rubber will be less due to the extremely rural environment with few roads and little traffic.
Puget Sound Chinook and coastal Coho feels like apples and oranges to me but I welcome your insight on why that isn't the case.
Thanks for weighing in. I agree with you completely.
And, habitat isn't really the driving issue on the river system in this thread or the other WA North Coast river systems. While there is some clear cutting, it's generally not close to the river, there isn't much/any diking, residential or farming use or other hardscape except in a few spots close to the road (Hoh) and the issues around tire rubber will be less due to the extremely rural environment with few roads and little traffic.
Puget Sound Chinook and coastal Coho feels like apples and oranges to me but I welcome your insight on why that isn't the case.
Thomas -
I would agree with you that the coastal rivers in general have a lot fewer freshwater habitat problems. And even more so that there is alot of variation between rivers in what may be limiting fish production.
In discussing what maybe limiting our fish production we are well served to recognize that critical habitats for our anadromous salmonid extend well beyond the freshwater portion of that habitat, climate change resulting in lower summer flows, more winter floods, changes in marine survivals etc.. Suspect the steelhead issues on the coast underlines the need for that larger view.
I tend to use Puget Sound examples to illustrate the general questions like the one that Kashf asked just because I'm more familiar with those north Sound rivers and can dredge up examples without a lot of extra work (call me lazy if you want -LOL).
Have to wonder given the ocean coho catches seemed to be below expectations - catch significantly below those quotas were not a red flag about the ocean survivals.
Curt
I would agree with you that the coastal rivers in general have a lot fewer freshwater habitat problems. And even more so that there is alot of variation between rivers in what may be limiting fish production.
In discussing what maybe limiting our fish production we are well served to recognize that critical habitats for our anadromous salmonid extend well beyond the freshwater portion of that habitat, climate change resulting in lower summer flows, more winter floods, changes in marine survivals etc.. Suspect the steelhead issues on the coast underlines the need for that larger view.
I tend to use Puget Sound examples to illustrate the general questions like the one that Kashf asked just because I'm more familiar with those north Sound rivers and can dredge up examples without a lot of extra work (call me lazy if you want -LOL).
Have to wonder given the ocean coho catches seemed to be below expectations - catch significantly below those quotas were not a red flag about the ocean survivals.
Curt
Thanks Curt! Always appreciate getting the benefit of your experience. I work in a data-oriented field but nothing near fisheries/conservation so it's always good to get an informed perspective.
Ocean survival... whether the environment, unregulated fishing, or whatever else. I always come back to that being the biggest unknown and the hardest one to address.
As many of the regulars have noted in the past, it's just demoralizing to see WDFW pretend to address issues through reducing in-river sport fishing opportunity instead of higher marginal benefit efforts.
I joke with my (Washington native) wife that we should retire to my home state of Alabama so I can take up bass fishing instead. It's feeling like less and less of a joke these days!
Ocean survival... whether the environment, unregulated fishing, or whatever else. I always come back to that being the biggest unknown and the hardest one to address.
As many of the regulars have noted in the past, it's just demoralizing to see WDFW pretend to address issues through reducing in-river sport fishing opportunity instead of higher marginal benefit efforts.
I joke with my (Washington native) wife that we should retire to my home state of Alabama so I can take up bass fishing instead. It's feeling like less and less of a joke these days!
SSPey
loco alto!
They do
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LBL
Steelhead
Habitat is a topic that interests me. I’m not convinced that watershed degradation is a big factor on the OP. Logging environmental practices are light years ahead of the cut and run of the late 70s when the end of old growth harvest was driving massive clear cuts on the west end. The OP in general provides the best undisturbed watersheds in the lower 48. All on the upper watersheds are in the Park. Hell the worst watershed is the SolDuc because it has 101 next to it, not a city of hundreds of thousands. The habitat of the watersheds from the Dungeness (not included) to the Humptulips is probably been improving over the last 1/2 century rather than degrading. There’s significantly more going on. I was and still am wildly in favor of the Elwha Dam removals. But to predict returns of salmon and steelhead runs while all the neighboring rivers degrade I have never bought into. I’m not that smart but I don’t think that the people who are smart really believed this either.
Giving money to protect the Hoh is GREAT. I couldn’t support that more. Unfortunately I don’t believe it will truly address the problems our fish populations face.
Can anybody suggest why the decline is happening. Is it global climate change, is it tribal and sport harvest, is it over harvest and by catch in the oceans. Or by screwing the runs have we screwed the habitat by cutting off the nutrient supply provided by the runs?
I just don’t see watershed habitat degradation on the OP as a major contributing factor. Please no one interpret this as my not supporting habitat protection!
Well look at that!
It is death by a thousand cuts, every system is different, but 1. ocean conditions and 2. diluted genetics effect salmon across the board. The ocean conditions of the last few years favor pinks according to early research, and anecdotally it seems to check out. The whole food chain is being stressed by changing conditions, commercial harvest, and a influx of hatchery fish from both sides of the pacific. Sex ratios and life history ratios are out of wack as well, which limits the robustness of a population. I don't know a ton about the OP but I think you're right about the habitat.
I would agree that habitat on the OP is the best that WA state has to offer. It does not have the dams, dikes, farms and pavement to the extent that PS and CR rivers do.
I do think that historic and present logging continues to have an effect but the rivers are not as beat up as the ones that I have around me.
As to why the runs continue to decline there. I don't know. There are more salmon in the Pacific than ever before. Maybe we have just changed the composition on the salmon population. More pinks going all over and less spring kings on the OP?