How's summer going?

[JACKspASS]

I know Salmo likes to hammer home the smolt to adult survival rate being terrible, which he is correct, however, .005% of 80k is indeed terrible, .005% of 500k is putting us in the ballgame. From a business perspective of cost per adult, it's terrible, there is no easy answer. My solution is make summer steelheading profitable by planting lots of fish, having long seasons, let the 10% wannabes pump it on social media. Make unicorn fishing great again... It seems like a lifetime ago walking into a gin clear run with the cascades towering in the background and seeing grey silhouettes laying in formation. That adrenaline rush doesn't come out much anymore chasing all that Montana, Idaho and Eastern Wa has to offer, it's great for sure, but it ain't Summer Run fishing either. God forbid the next asshole that shits his dog in my lawn...


How many would pay alot more for a steelhead tag to have opportunities? I would

 

[JACKspASS]

I'm curious how you feel about taxes.

I pay more than my fare share, then bitch about it....

 

[skyriver]

I know Salmo likes to hammer home the smolt to adult survival rate being terrible, which he is correct, however, .005% of 80k is indeed terrible, .005% of 500k is putting us in the ballgame. From a business perspective of cost per adult, it's terrible, there is no easy answer. My solution is make summer steelheading profitable by planting lots of fish, having long seasons, let the 10% wannabes pump it on social media. Make unicorn fishing great again... It seems like a lifetime ago walking into a gin clear run with the cascades towering in the background and seeing grey silhouettes laying in formation. That adrenaline rush doesn't come out much anymore chasing all that Montana, Idaho and Eastern Wa has to offer, it's great for sure, but it ain't Summer Run fishing either. God forbid the next asshole that shits his dog in my lawn...


How many would pay alot more for a steelhead tag to have opportunities? I would

I would!

 

[Salmo_g]

My solution is make summer steelheading profitable by planting lots of fish,

Hate to spoil the joy, but how can summer steelheading be "profitable" when the cost of putting one in the creel rises from $25 to $125? (And those are 1993 prices.)

 

[Yard Sale]

I know Salmo likes to hammer home the smolt to adult survival rate being terrible, which he is correct, however, .005% of 80k is indeed terrible, .005% of 500k is putting us in the ballgame. From a business perspective of cost per adult, it's terrible, there is no easy answer. My solution is make summer steelheading profitable by planting lots of fish, having long seasons, let the 10% wannabes pump it on social media. Make unicorn fishing great again... It seems like a lifetime ago walking into a gin clear run with the cascades towering in the background and seeing grey silhouettes laying in formation. That adrenaline rush doesn't come out much anymore chasing all that Montana, Idaho and Eastern Wa has to offer, it's great for sure, but it ain't Summer Run fishing either. God forbid the next asshole that shits his dog in my lawn...


How many would pay alot more for a steelhead tag to have opportunities? I would

Without wild fish there can't be hatchery fish.

Trust me, I'd love to make certain rivers hatchery put and take places and other wild sanctuaries. Its just not how the rules work.

So given that, every decision you make has to be based on how it affects the wild fish. To be honest, to consider anything else is just disrespectful and greedy.

 

[the_chemist]

Hate to spoil the joy, but how can summer steelheading be "profitable" when the cost of putting one in the creel rises from $25 to $125? (And those are 1993 prices.)

Compared to the chinook profitability where we just put them in the Alaskan creel, it seems like a great investment.

 

[Divad]

None in WA

 

[JACKspASS]

Hate to spoil the joy, but how can summer steelheading be "profitable" when the cost of putting one in the creel rises from $25 to $125? (And those are 1993 prices.)

Steelhead tag $300 with yearly fluctuations based on 5yr avg returns? Throw in beer garden and hotdog stand at Reiter, Blue crk, Fortson, etc...sell T-Shirts(I caught a chromer in 2027) ?

 

[JACKspASS]

Without wild fish there can't be hatchery fish.

Trust me, I'd love to make certain rivers hatchery put and take places and other wild sanctuaries. Its just not how the rules work.

So given that, every decision you make has to be based on how it affects the wild fish. To be honest, to consider anything else is just disrespectful and greedy.

Are those wild fish at the same levels as they were when we were planting fish? Interesting to see data on that. I see where you are going Yard with the wild fish being the constraining stock

 

[Long_Rod_Silvers]

I know Salmo likes to hammer home the smolt to adult survival rate being terrible, which he is correct, however, .005% of 80k is indeed terrible, .005% of 500k is putting us in the ballgame. From a business perspective of cost per adult, it's terrible, there is no easy answer. My solution is make summer steelheading profitable by planting lots of fish, having long seasons, let the 10% wannabes pump it on social media. Make unicorn fishing great again... It seems like a lifetime ago walking into a gin clear run with the cascades towering in the background and seeing grey silhouettes laying in formation. That adrenaline rush doesn't come out much anymore chasing all that Montana, Idaho and Eastern Wa has to offer, it's great for sure, but it ain't Summer Run fishing either. God forbid the next asshole that shits his dog in my lawn...


How many would pay alot more for a steelhead tag to have opportunities? I would

I'd get in on a chromer tag for sure.

 

[Yard Sale]

Are those wild fish at the same levels as they were when we were planting fish? Interesting to see data on that. I see where you are going Yard with the wild fish being the constraining stock

Of course not. Everything is down everywhere. But I'm guessing you know that.

Wild fish come first, as they should. Anglers are a distant thought after that. Seems simple to me.

On the somewhat bright side, we are keeping up with the (admittedly shitty) 10 year average for the second year in a row.

Adult Daily Count Graph - Query Results

The Fish Passage Center (FPC) provides current and historic data on salmon and steelhead passage in the main stem Snake and Columbia river basins. Data from the Smolt Monitoring Program (SMP) is intended to provide the information basis for federal, state and tribal recommendations for fish...

www.fpc.org

 

[notaspeyguy]

They need to plant 300k summers at Reiter and 75k in every trib with water running in it in summer. We would have a halfassed decent fishery. With those #'s we would still have lousy to decent fishing with a good year thrown in here and there. With 80k planted for the entire system, might as well close it all down, what a joke

I always wondered why they don't just throw in a bunch of summers into every river and see what happens...I know it costs money and all but if a new fishery gets established where there wasn't before it could bring fisherman, hence revenue, to the area...not based on any solid information but it seems like the Alsea, Yaquina, etc. could be good summer fisheries

 

[Salmo_g]

Without wild fish there can't be hatchery fish.

Trust me, I'd love to make certain rivers hatchery put and take places and other wild sanctuaries. Its just not how the rules work.

So given that, every decision you make has to be based on how it affects the wild fish. To be honest, to consider anything else is just disrespectful and greedy.

Aside from inland streams, where hatchery and wild summer runs spawn at the same time, I haven't read of any significant genetic introgression of hatchery summer runs with wild steelhead. I suspect that they don't overlap in time or space enough to have a measurable impact. I've written several times that while hatchery fish don't do any favors for wild fish, hatchery steelhead just aren't the boogeyman for wild steelhead that some folks make them out to be. My main reason for not investing heavily in hatchery steelhead is economic - the poor return rates don't justify a large investment.

 

[Salmo_g]

Compared to the chinook profitability where we just put them in the Alaskan creel, it seems like a great investment.

Not so much Alaska, but way more WA Chinook and coho are caught off the coast of British Columbia (60% and up). This might help make the argument to discontinue raising so many hatchery Chinook and coho for BC and convert to raising summer steelhead so that at least the low numbers that do return end up contributing to WA catches. Maybe not a good economics investment, but certainly a better investment than hatchery salmon that are caught in Canada.

 

[Salmo_g]

I always wondered why they don't just throw in a bunch of summers into every river and see what happens..

WDG (predecessor agency to merger with WDF that became WDFW) did pretty much exactly that. They stocked hatchery steelhead, winter and summer, in nearly every stream in the state. What happened was hatchery steelhead runs in at least 160 rivers and streams in WA state.

 

[Paige]

WDG (predecessor agency to merger with WDF that became WDFW) did pretty much exactly that. They stocked hatchery steelhead, winter and summer, in nearly every stream in the state. What happened was hatchery steelhead runs in at least 160 rivers and streams in WA state.

And fishing was great!

 

[JACKspASS]

I always wondered why they don't just throw in a bunch of summers into every river and see what happens...I know it costs money and all but if a new fishery gets established where there wasn't before it could bring fisherman, hence revenue, to the area...not based on any solid information but it seems like the Alsea, Yaquina, etc. could be good summer fisheries

2000-2003ish was the last good years I remember when they outplanted most major tributaries on alot of Puget sound rivers. Most small rivers had a small plant of 20k summers which doesn't sound like much but when you factor in their propensity to stray, it made for some lousy to decent fishing with a really good day every blue moon. I'll take that over what we have now!


The Cowlitz stocks how many summers? 500k? What's that fishery like now? I'll bet it's not great and I'll bet it's not terrible. Like Salmo said, let's plant less salmon that feed Canada and Alaska and put more summer runs in. Maybe WFC can move onto protecting Sasquatch under '8 tall...

 

[Salmo_g]

The Cowlitz stocks how many summers? 500k?

As I recall, the summer run program goal is 600k. The returns, based on barrier dam separator counts, are about 20% of what they used to be. Pretty terrible in that I used to hook up one or two pretty much every time I fished it. Now I catch one every once in a blue moon.

 

[notaspeyguy]

Reckon why the poor return, ocean conditions? Commercial salmon by catch? I don't know much about this stuff, still learning...I'm on the central coast Oregon, not too many steelhead arpund...been fishing trout and salt just to get a tug

 

[notaspeyguy]

How many would pay alot more for a steelhead tag to have opportunities? I would

Yes!! To experience what you said, I'd sell some sh*t to pay for that...