Todd –
Regarding the Deer Creek summer steelhead on the North Fork of the Stillaguamish. The following is short history of them and their management based on my limited information.

You are correct in that historically that Deer Creek (NF Stilli trib at Oso) supported the largest run wild summer steelhead found in the Puget Sound region. There has been various estimates of what the historic run size may have been – my best guess (and it is only an informed guess) was it typically varied from 1,000 to 2,000 annually. They are typical of the summer steelhead found in the Puget Sound region – that is they tend to be smallish (an average fish would 24 to 25 inches in length -range from 19 to 30 inches) and return to the river from late June into September. They have long support and avid group of fishers and were the prime reason that the North Fork Stillaguamish was established as fly only water during the summer season. The uniqueness and vulnerability of the population was recognized early with there spawning and upstream on habitats (Deer Creek) itself has been closed to all fishing for more than 60 years.

The early fishing anglers - Haig Brown and Zane Grey – as well as the list of who is who of the Washington steelhead fly fishing fraternity all fished for these wonderful fish. They are noted for the willingness to take a fly – the dry fly fishing can be as good as any on the coast. They typically are very feisty fish with quick runs and wonderful jumps. The fishing for this fish continued to attract numbers of anglers through the decades into the 1960s. In the mid 1960s hatchery summer steelhead were introduced into the upper North Fork. They so dominated the fishing though not the hearts of many of the fly anglers.

Life history information as well as genetic information indicates that there has bee little or no introgression between the hatchery and the Deer Creek fish. The abundance of the Deer Creek steelhead varied from year to year as natural populations will with some good years and some poor years until the 1970s when the population began to slide. This is believed to have been the primary result of degraded habitats from logging. This continued into the 1980s when a large landslide/erosion event (Deforest Creek slide) aggravated the all ready dire habitat situation during the winter of 1983/84. At the time harvest of the wild fish was allowed. Remember that this pre-dates the mass marking of the hatchery steelhead. Recognizing the need to protect these fish a minimum size limit of 30 inches was placed on the North Fork during the summer season. The 30 inches was determined based on newly available life history information that found that most years more than 99% of the returning Deer Creek adults were less than 30 inches. In effect this began what we now recognize as a WSR regulation – though the hatchery fish were unmarked the fact that many of the wild fish (nearly all 1 salt fish) were smaller than the hatchery fish (mostly 2 and 3 salt fish). With the return of marked hatchery fish in the mid-1980s the regulation was changed to prohibiting the retention of unmarked fish during the summer season. It should be noted that neither regulation was universally accepted.

In spite of this protection the population continued to declined until by the late 1980s less than 100 adults were returning annually. This was due to the continued degradation of the habitat. Summer stream temperatures in the upper basin were reaching into the mid 70 degree levels with afternoon temperatures at Oso sometimes exceeding 80 degrees. In addition there was severe increases of streambed loading with unstable spawning gravels, limited rearing and over wintering habitats for the parr. At the peak of activity of the Deforest Creek slide it has been estimated that an average of 100 dump truck loads of material (silt, sand, and gravel) a day (for more than a year) entering Deer Creek from the slide. The situation looked very bleak for this wonderful resource and many including me thought that they were head for extinction and were likely to be gone by now.

The large floods in 1990 and 1995 moved substantial amounts of material from Deer Creek re-establishing some deep pools and in stream channel complexity that allowed increased survival of the steelhead parr. As a result an increase in run sizes was noted – by the late 1990s WDFW was estimating that 600 to more than 1,000 adults were returning annually (based on visual counts from the air with some ground counts to verify the air counts). The returns appear to have remained at those levels until this past season where there was a drop in abundance as was noticed elsewhere in the region.

Sorry about the long-winded history – you know how us old gray breads are when it comes to recounting the past!

However this history indicates how WSR has been applied in steelhead management. The regulation changes in the 1980s allowed anglers to access the hatchery summer steelhead – both in fishing for them as well harvesting the hatchery fish. In addition the long cherished sea-run cutthroat fish found in the lower North Fork was also allowed to continue. The manager at the time felt that the Deer Creek fish were limited by the habitat conditions and certainly could not support harvest but that the limited loss from hooking mortality in the fly only WSR fishery was acceptable to provide access to the other fisheries. That decision was certainly and could still be second-guessed. Certainly it would be safer for the Deer Creek fish to close the North Fork and main Stillaguamish to all fishing during the summer.

Clearly in this case the WSR regulation was a fishery management tool to provide access to abundance other stocks while providing increased protection to the stock of concern. Just as clearly it was less of a conservation tool. It also illustrates that WSR didn’t allow the population to recover – any rebound in run size did not occur until there were improvements in the habitat caused by the flooding. WSR regulations only aid in the rebuilding of stocks when over fishing is the major cause of the population decline.

I see that there is some confusion with the Catch and release regulations on the North Fork – in this case the CnR regulation is in effect during the winter season. A regulation designed to provide recreational opportunity to the wild winter steelhead. It occurred at times when the Deer Creek summers are not in the river.

Hope that is what you were looking for Todd.

Tight lines
S malma