Salmo g.
I could not agree more than the two major bottlenecks for our steelhead runs are fry to smolt and smolt to adult (marine) survivals.

In fact several months ago while have lunch along the North Fork I was struck with the changes (all bad) that had occurred over the 25 years that I have been fishing that river. The steelhead redds that are dug in May used to be visible (pit and tail spill still detectable) well into the summer now they fill with sand within days of being made. But what really caused me concern was the nearly total lack of what would be consider over-winter habitats (refuges from the high waters of winter). Today the deep pools have filled with sand, the spaces among the larger stones in the stream bottom have filled in, and there is a major lack of stable log jams, root wads etc. What little wood that is around is smaller and hasn't been embedded in the bars or pools. Rather, with every high water the wood is pushed on downstream (likely killing any parr hiding there). As I continued hiking along the stream I began mentally noting the spots that the young fish could find refuge during the winter and found very little that I thought would full fill the fish's needs. Clearly what is needed is habitats to support 10,000s of parr; in my mental review of the North Fork from Deer Creek to Fortson I doubt that currently there is enough quality over-winter habitat to support more than a few thousand parr. If there were major floods even less would be available.

You raised the concept of maximum sustainable recreation (MSR). My understanding the means producing as much fishing (fishing days) as possible. That would mean that anglers have to like (use) the fishery. That seems to be a pretty slippery idea to get a hold of. An example, the first established catch and release steelhead fisheries that I personally fished was the North Fork Nooksack in the late 1970s and the Sauk in the early 1980s. In both cases the amount of fisherman using those fisheries were so low that I doubt that we could argue that they were appropriate under MSR. At that time as I hiked and fished those areas it was not uncommon that the only boot tracks were mine from my last trip. Does that mean that the fisheries were inappropriate - I think not; it was through those kinds of opportunities that most us learned that CnR is a viable alternative to CnK. Another example - I doubt that a catch and release halibut season would produce anywhere near as much interest as a keep season. It all depends on angler preferneces.

While it is easy to conceptually endorse ideas such as MSR I do find that I often resent other fishermen on "my waters". Clearly that is selfish on my part but given the recent postings regarding the "blabbing" of "zipperlips" it isn't an uncommon response. Before we fully endorse such ideas we need to examine our own "ethics" and preferences and decide how much we are willing to give up for the "greater good". Are we all willing to post directions to all our "zipperlips" so we can get more fishing activity thus coming closer to MSR?

Skyrise -
You stated that CnR works in other areas. First we need to define what "works" means. No question that catch and release almost always results in a change in the type of anglers using the fishery (depending on ones view point that may be good or bad). Whether such management increase or maintians abundacne of wild fish depends on what management options one compares it to. For example complete clousres would be expected to provide for at least as many fish as CnR. From my prospective CnR generally works; I have access to wild populations in that kinds of abundances I like though I'm less than thrilled with the amount pressure on our (my?) steelhead rivers.

It is a little unfair to compare trout CnR (Montana) to steelhead. Most of the good trout examples are working with fish densities of thousands of fish per mile while nearly all steelhead streams have less than a 100 per mile. By the way Washington has had season long CnR on some troutb waters since the late 1980s (1986?). The example that comes quickly to mind is the Middle Fork Snoqualmie.

Steelhead management in British Columbia is often held up as an example of what enlighten steelhead management should be. But even there CnR is no guarantee healthy populations can be maintained. I'll quote Bob Hooten (One of BC's premier steelhead biologist) "Throughout much of southern British Columbia, most notably among stocks entering the Georgia Basin between Vancouver Island and the mainland, steelhead are far below target sescapements (data on file MELP, Nanaimo). In fact, almost all the historically popular fisheries along the eastern Vancouver Island hve been either partically or totally closed to fishing for the past three seasons to conserve remnant populations....
A commonly held view on the primary reason for the impoverished status of many southern British Columbia steelhead stocks is that survial of smolts entering the marine environment has been at historic lows in recent years (Wasrd, 2000; Welch et al. 2000). The evidence in support of low survival is striking and conclusive. What tends to escape notice is the fact that the numbers of smolt produced in freshwater has also been at historic low levels over this same period." (Hooten, 2001).

It remains my opinion that CnR is a management tool to allocate fishing impacts and not a concervation tool. As suggested by Hooten we should be focusing our efforts on: angling regulations and their impacts on adult and smolt recruitment, habitat issues, and hatchery/wild interactions. The single minded pursue of CnR has diverted the focus from the larger issues.

Double Haul -
See the above for suggestions where we can focus our efforts. The recent ESA listings of chinook and bull trout have given us two federal agencies (NMFS & USFWS) with which we can form alliances with whom we can work towards recovering conditions in our rivers that would be compatible with robust production of all salmonids. If we can restore our rivers to support chinook and bull trout everything steelhead need would also be in place. To do this we have to be willing to potentially accept less fishing, increased cost of power, water, etc. Is society as a whole or us individually willing to pay that price. The cynical side of me says no. However that has not stopped me from trying to fight the good fight.

Thank you all for reading my rambling post and taking the time to comment.

To the future health of our steelhead.

Smalma

[ 12-15-2001: Message edited by: Smalma ]