Lots going on with the Chehalis issues and I will update as soon as I can link to the documents on the FTC website.

Now this bit below is something else. Gary e mailed Kirt Hughes on the Willapa seasons and Kirt responded. ( best to read it bottom post up ) and nothing in his response was not true. What it was is pure 100% BS! The response from Kirt Hughes was intended to mislead and leave a COMPLETELY inaccurate picture of the issues and agency actions with Gary. As luck would have it Gary sought out help and that information is also in the thread.

So folks I would urge you to in the future do not go at R-6 and CC the Commission but rather go right at the Commission and CC R-6. That way R-6 has to meet the Commissioners standards for being forthright and honest. I think it is a better approach as it is clear that the standards the Commissioners have attempted to maintain do not exist in the District 17 ( Willapa & GH ) R-6 staff.


The E mail thread:


Not surprising. The dip in stuff is crappola. Here's some info for a response if you are so inclined.

The dip-in fishery is shown in the FRAM as July 22nd-August 15th. The FRAM predicted they would catch 1833 and they landed 2572. During the dip in they were over prediction by 739 fish. From Aug 16-Sept 22nd the FRAM predicted they would catch 6506. Instead, they caught 10,979 or 4,473 over expectation with the harvest overage occurring in September after the dip-in was long over. The over-whelming majority of the fish taken over the prediction is clearly Willapa and not Columbia fish.

In it's recent emergency rule WDFW stated "Catch and sampling information to date, suggests that the amount of effort and recreational harvest of Chinook in marine area 2-2 (Grays Harbor) will exceed pre-season expectations with no indication that the runsize is commensurately larger." The returns of upriver brights in the Columbia are coming in above the preseason forecast, the joint staff report created by WA & OR dated Sept 12, 2013 finds lower river hatchery returns for Chinook are coming in below expectations (http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/crc/2013/crc12sep13_facta.pdf). Willapa Chinook are not "upriver brights" and closely resemble the lower river hatchery Chinook found in the Columbia and those in Grays Harbor where you have already stated no evidence exists that would lead you to believe the run would be larger.

It is obvious your judgement of season conditions changes dramatically depending on whether it is the recreation season or the commercial gill nets that need adjustment.



My response from Kirt

Gary L Johnson
-----Original Message-----
From: Hughes, Kirt M (DFW) (DFW) <Kirt.Hughes@dfw.wa.gov>
To: lk2thlite <lk2thlite@aol.com>
Cc: Commission (DFW) <COMMISSION@dfw.wa.gov>; Warren, Ron R (DFW) (DFW) <Ron.Warren@dfw.wa.gov>; Scott, Jim B (DFW) (DFW) <James.Scott@dfw.wa.gov>
Sent: Tue, Sep 24, 2013 7:35 am
Subject: RE: Chinook Impacts & Overharvest in the Willapa Bay

Thanks Gary. Appreciate the contact. I am well aware of the catch. There is nothing nefarious about not posting the update prior to Monday. This is a time when staff are quite busy and our posting of the information is a lower priority than monitoring and sampling fisheries.

As you and I have discussed a before catch modeling is based on pre-season predicted abundance using recent harvest rates to predict future harvest. In our monitoring of the Willapa Bay commercial fishery we are seeing effort that is similar to our expectation. Early catch of Chinook is higher relative to prediction than later catches. And I can well imagine that you have seen dam counts at Bonneville. Passage has been particularly good, typically this feeds into early season catches in Willapa – the dip-ins.




From: lk2thlite@aol.com [mailto:lk2thlite@aol.com]
Sent: Monday, September 23, 2013 6:51 PM
To: Hughes, Kirt M (DFW)
Cc: Commission (DFW)
Subject: Chinook Impacts & Overharvest in the Willapa Bay

Dear Kirt,

Once again we are looking at a failure by WDFW and Kirt Hughes for in season management on the Willapa Bay. The facts are know posted with the numbers and the Commercial Harvest continues! This is not acceptable any more and I would like some answers of why this is allowed to continue and when will it end.

They just posted the Willapa landings after inquiries this weekend about why they weren't posted. http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/commercial/salmon/landings.html

The first attached PDF is what the web site shows. As of Sept. 22nd, the nets have landed and sold to buyers 13,551 hatchery Chinook.

The second PDF is the FRAM cover page. It shows WDFW had anticipated 8,047 net impacts and 3,015 Rec impacts (Marine & FW combined) for a season total for both user groups of 13,512. The commercial nets at this point are 5,504 over the predicted net impact at this point exceed and exceed the entire anticipated impact of both Rec and net seasons in the FRAM for the entire year and we still have a way to go.

I look forward to your response in these matters.
_________________________
Dazed and confused.............the fog is closing in