TK,

Sure, I’d take the bet, but what is being bet on is unverifiable, and therefore not suitable for betting.

Relative to the summer steelhead returns since Reiter began returning adults in 1976, native summer steelhead returns to the NF Sky and the Tolt in the Snoq were necessarily small in number by virtue of the relatively small amount of habitat available to produce them. The fact that you hooked one in 1966 is indicative of a fish you hooked, but not the runsize. You may not recall, but the WA state human population was about 1/3 of what it is today in 1966, and far fewer people were fishing for anything, summer steelhead included. It didn’t take much of a run to provide good fishing for the smaller angling populations that existed then.

Not that it matters, but Puget Sound native summer steelhead are predominately one salt fish, with large fish being rare. Thousands of native Deer Creek steelhead were caught and recorded over the years from the NF Stilly, and they rarely topped 14 pounds, which is not to say that none did.

Further, that would have been quite a run from Index to Monte Cristo, seeing how Index is on the lower NF Sky and Monte Cristo is on the SF Sauk. A mountain pass separates those locations, and it isn’t and wasn’t inhabited by steelhead. Enos Bradner described the NF Sky native summer run in his book from the 1950s. I don’t recall the title at the moment, sorry to say. Maybe it was “The Inside on the Outdoors”

Dizzy,

OK, let’s talk about the steelhead then. Biologists have narrowed it down to something in the marine conditions because the usual culprits of freshwater floods and droughts were isolated from the rest of the data. The upshot is that even with good spawning escapements and good freshwater rearing conditions and good smolt production from the systems where that can be estimated or counted, the recruits per spawner has averaged less than one, meaning the populations are barely replacing themselves. (If that isn’t complicated enough, wild winter runs are surviving at a lower rate than wild summer runs lately.) If it isn’t a freshwater factor, it must be a marine factor, but we don’t know what marine factor. Additionally, low returns are occurring among hatchery runs as well, which are not subject the same freshwater limitations as wild fish. But hatchery fish are subject to the same marine factors as wild fish. This isn’t simply default; it’s strong inferential evidence of a marine factor limitation.

All steelhead migrate into the same Pacific Ocean, but they don’t all migrate to the same places in that ocean. Not all areas of the ocean are equally productive at any given time. The current depressed steelhead runs are those originating in Puget Sound and British Columbia as far up as the north end of Vancouver Island. Steelhead populations north of there and from the WA coast and south, including those you refer to in Oregon, are not experiencing this effect. Something along the migration route taken by Puget Sound and lower BC steelhead is impacting survival.

You still haven’t explained what WDFW is doing wrong. Like I said, I know people there who can change things, but they need relevant information to make intelligent changes.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.