Skagit game fish regulation proposal

S

Smalma

Life of the Party
With NOF starting today here is a proposal to modify the Skagit regulations to address concerns regarding the bull trout and resident rainbows in the basin.

Please click on the attachment for the details of the proposal. I am happy to answer any questions or take your ideas. I also encourage anyone with thoughts, concerns, etc. provide comments to WDFW whether in support or not of this proposal.

Curt
 

Attachments

I appreciate the suggestions for catch-and-release and for barbless hooks. That can't hurt. I think they missed the boat regarding proximate causes of bull trout decline after 2015. Climate change occurs in slow increments. And most salmon fishing - for coho - occurs when bull trout are staging near spawning areas and or actively spawning. So most bull trout are not in the area where salmon fishing occurs.

If the high point for bull trout was 2011 - 2015, that appears to correlate, in delayed fashion, with the unusually high abundance years of pink and chum salmon, which created a lot more forage for bull trout than in the years before or since.

Nonetheless, I will be glad to see the two fish over 20" catch limit for bull trout go away. I don't often see anglers retain bull trout, but I hear of it, possibly in response to the absence of harvestable hatchery steelhead.
 
Salmo_g
The salmon fishery that is largely impacting the bull trout is the sockeye fishery. By the early 2000s the majority of the adult bull trout had the anadromous life-history. Of those adult anadromous bull trout 1/2 or more were repeat spawners

Those repeat spawners typically weighted 4 to 8 # and are returning to the Skagit in the early June to mid-July period. Those anadromous repeat bulls are about the same size as the sockeye and in the river at the same time. Thus, the concerns about the potential bull trout by-catch is during that sockeye gill net fishery. My fishing records that between 1995 to 2013 (start of increasing sockeye fishing) show that I average about 6 bulls a year that I considered large fish. Over the last decade (2016 to 2025) I caught only 3 such fish. It looks to me that the sockeye gill net fisheries is selective for those larger repeat spawners. Because of their larger size of those repeat spawners represent a substantial portion of the potential egg deposition.

Curt
 
Smalma said:
Salmo_g
The salmon fishery that is largely impacting the bull trout is the sockeye fishery. By the early 2000s the majority of the adult bull trout had the anadromous life-history. Of those adult anadromous bull trout 1/2 or more were repeat spawners

Those repeat spawners typically weighted 4 to 8 # and are returning to the Skagit in the early June to mid-July period. Those anadromous repeat bulls are about the same size as the sockeye and in the river at the same time. Thus, the concerns about the potential bull trout by-catch is during that sockeye gill net fishery. My fishing records that between 1995 to 2013 (start of increasing sockeye fishing) show that I average about 6 bulls a year that I considered large fish. Over the last decade (2016 to 2025) I caught only 3 such fish. It looks to me that the sockeye gill net fisheries is selective for those larger repeat spawners. Because of their larger size of those repeat spawners represent a substantial portion of the potential egg deposition.

Curt
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Curt, out of curiosity what are your standards as to what you consider a large bull trout?
 
Smalma said:
With NOF starting today here is a proposal to modify the Skagit regulations to address concerns regarding the bull trout and resident rainbows in the basin.

Please click on the attachment for the details of the proposal. I am happy to answer any questions or take your ideas. I also encourage anyone with thoughts, concerns, etc. provide comments to WDFW whether in support or not of this proposal.

Curt
Click to expand...
BoogShoog agrees
 
A bit more about that potential impact on bull trout during sockeye fisheries. According to the co-managers "list of agreed to fisheries" (LOAF) in recent years the Swinomish tribe planned sockeye fishery in Skagit bay as well as the main Skagit begins the middle of June and last 5 weeks. In that period there can be 21 days of fishing each in the Bay and the river. That fishing schedule is such to almost perfectly match the run timing of those anadromous repeat spawning bull trout through that same water. Of course, there could be other bull by-catch impacts in the other tribal fisheries as well as the recreational in river fishery.

It is my understanding that beginning last year that the tribes had agreed to require to release any bull trout encounter in their nets. The survival of those fish is unknown though likely it is greater than zero.

The Baker sockeye story has been a success story though not sure consideration had been given to what potential impact would be on other species. The escapement needs for those sockeye is 11,500; 10,000 for the hatchery and 1,500 for in river natural spawning. Like most salmon fisheries as run size increases the allowed exploitation rates increase. For example, for a run of 40,000 the allowable total fishing rate would be 71% (28,500/40,000) and at a run size of 90,000 (final number in 2025 was 91,880) be 87% (78,500/90,0000). For salmon all this is pretty straightforward, conveniently the uncaught salmon die of spawning thus are exposed to the fisheries once. The situation will the bull trout in different which can survive spawning with those surviving Skagit bull those that survive will spawn annually with the oldest (largest) fish spawning 8 or more times. Unlike the salmon some of those older bull trout would have to run that netting effort multiple times. Even with minimal by-catch levels be exposed to the fishery significantly reduced the number of those older repeat spawners.

Remember that having significant directed sockeye fisheries is a relatively new (last 15 years or so?).

Curt
 
I’d have to think there would be opposition due to tradition and would likely never happen, but it’s too bad the sockeye can’t be distributed to the tribes at the trap once the spawning number has been achieved. The method for getting the fish would be different but the end result would be the same except for the affect on bull trout and possibly steelhead kelts.
SF
 
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Stonedfish said:
I’d have to think there would be opposition due to tradition and would likely never happen, but it’s too bad the sockeye can’t be distributed to the tribes at the trap once the spawning number has been achieved. The method for getting the fish would be different but the end result would be the same except for the affect on bull trout and possibly steelhead kelts.
SF
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Yeah, it's sad. The entire commercial sockeye fishery could be accomplished using the Baker River fish trap in cooperation with the owner/operator Puget Sound Energy. Super efficient and save the cost of gillnets and boat fuel. Just drive a truck equipped with fish totes up to the trap - everything needed is already there. Such an alternative would avoid bycatch of any other species, Chinook, steelhead, bull trout.
 
Salmo_g said:
Yeah, it's sad. The entire commercial sockeye fishery could be accomplished using the Baker River fish trap in cooperation with the owner/operator Puget Sound Energy. Super efficient and save the cost of gillnets and boat fuel. Just drive a truck equipped with fish totes up to the trap - everything needed is already there. Such an alternative would avoid bycatch of any other species, Chinook, steelhead, bull trout.
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Is that how you would want to get your fish?
 
Paige said:
But, but, I like to play with my food 😋
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Good line.
I don't know if the Skagit tribe has ever used that phrase but the OP tribes certainly have.
 
Smalma said:
I arbitrary drew that line at fish of 30 inches or more.
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Do you know if anyone has ever tried to estimate the Skagit basins bull trout population? I honestly havve no idea as to how this could even be done but if anyone knows, you likely do.

I appreciate the info on this thread.

It's interesting to think of sockeye and their harvests effect on the bull trout. It seems like sockeye harvest has a way of creating bycatch of the fish taht I like the most, Skeena summer run steelhead being the most obvious. I had not even considered saltwater bycatch as an impact on bull trout. My coworker has a family place on Camano. He has told me that the Bulls are on the beach in May and they seem to be gorging themselves of what he calls shiner perch. He has seen this a bunch of times. It would not take too many well placed nets to have a sizable impact.
 
That's what statewide rules should look like. With exceptions for hatchery salmon and steelhead fidheries.
 
charles sullivan said:
Do you know if anyone has ever tried to estimate the Skagit basins bull trout population? I honestly havve no idea as to how this could even be done but if anyone knows, you likely do.

I appreciate the info on this thread.

It's interesting to think of sockeye and their harvests effect on the bull trout. It seems like sockeye harvest has a way of creating bycatch of the fish taht I like the most, Skeena summer run steelhead being the most obvious. I had not even considered saltwater bycatch as an impact on bull trout. My coworker has a family place on Camano. He has told me that the Bulls are on the beach in May and they seem to be gorging themselves of what he calls shiner perch. He has seen this a bunch of times. It would not take too many well placed nets to have a sizable impact.
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They do redd counts in many tributaries for bull trout every year.
 
jeradjames said:
They do redd counts in many tributaries for bull trout every year.
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Do you know if there has ever been an attempt at arriving at a population estimate?
Even with redd counts I could see why a population estimate could be difficult for bulls. Salmon and steelhead pretty much all end up spawning. It seems like thats not the case for all bulls.
 
Salmo_g said:
I think they missed the boat regarding proximate causes of bull trout decline after 2015. Climate change occurs in slow increments. And most salmon fishing - for coho - occurs when bull trout are staging near spawning areas and or actively spawning. So most bull trout are not in the area where salmon fishing occurs.

If the high point for bull trout was 2011 - 2015, that appears to correlate, in delayed fashion, with the unusually high abundance years of pink and chum salmon, which created a lot more forage for bull trout than in the years before or since.
Click to expand...
SG the bull trout population decline in the Skagit correlates with what has been seen in the Upper Columbia over the past decade. Obviously there is a lot happening differently on either side of the Cascades between fires, pinks and sockeye however I think it's incorrect to dismiss climate change as rapidly as you have.

Tributaries of the Methow with a historic abundance of ~30 redds have recently been in the low single digits. I'm less familiar with the populations of the Entiat & Wenatchee but based upon presentations I have seen nearly every tributary in the Upper Columbia with the exception of the Chiwawa & White Rivers has seen similar scale declines to the reference reaches of the Skagit. The breadth of this decline on the east side of the Cascades perhaps suggests a broader scale culprit than just fire. I'll leave it to research scientists smarter than I to do some statistics nerdery to be more confident than I am.

Check out this presentation from Tracy Bowerman with USFWS at this year's Upper Columbia Science Summit if you are curious to see some of the Upper Columbia numbers. Her talk is at 1:13:20 in the link.

And her slides can be viewed at the following link Bowerman slides
 
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JohnB said:
SG the bull trout population decline in the Skagit correlates with what has been seen in the Upper Columbia over the past decade. Obviously there is a lot happening differently on either side of the Cascades between fires, pinks and sockey however I think it's incorrect to dismiss climate change as rapidly as you have.

Tributaries of the Methow with a historic abundance of ~30 redds have recently been in the low single digits. I'm less familiar with the populations of the Entiat & Wenatchee but based upon presentations I have seen nearly every tributary in the Upper Columbia with the exception of the Chiwawa & White Rivers has seen similar scale declines to the reference reaches of the Skagit. The breadth of this decline on the east side of the Cascades perhaps suggests a broader scale culprit than just fire. I'll leave it to research scientists smarter than I to do some statistics nerdery to be more confident than I am.

Check out this presentation from Tracy Bowerman with USFWS at this year's Upper Columbia Science Summit if you are curious to see some of the Upper Columbia numbers. Her talk is at 1:13:20 in the link.

And her slides can be viewed at the following link Bowerman slides
Click to expand...

I’m only a couple minutes in to her presentation but so far, very cool…thanks for posting
 
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