Those who followed the new GHMP may find this interesting. It is a simple paper addressing issues both Rec and Commercial in setting the Grays harbor 2014 salmon seasons that was utilized by Region 6 staff.


Grays Harbor Fisheries Issues

Commission Intent:
• Did the Commission intend to allow a 5% impact if a stock was not meeting its escapement goal.
o If yes, we are meeting that intent for all natural-origin stocks.
o If the intent is that there are no allowable impacts, we are not meeting that intent for Humptulips natural-origin coho.
The recreational sector has the vast majority of the impacts on Humptulips NOR coho.
Impacts occur in both the marine area and the river.
All fisheries in the marine area, including recreational and commercial fisheries in 2 A-D, have Humptulips NOR impacts.
Recreational impacts in the river occur until late January and possibly even into February. Therefore steelhead fisheries also impact Humptulips NOR coho.
It would be arbitrary to close commercial fisheries while leaving recreational fisheries open.
• Hatchery escapement is not predicted to be met for Chehalis River hatchery Chinook.
o Commission policy says we will meet escapement for hatchery fish.
o The Chehalis hatchery stock is integrated and we could collect additional wild broodstock. We have enough over the escapement goal available, but it cuts our margin down to 63 fish over goal.
o We are within our harvestable share for this specific group (Chehalis hatchery)?
o Would Quinault reduce fisheries to meet hatchery escapement?
o Would we close fisheries to meet hatchery escapement?
o The recreational sector has the majority of the impacts on Chehalis hatchery Chinook.

Proposed alternate commercial schedule.
Commercial sector has provided an alternative schedule.
The alternate schedule meets the policy criteria for natural-origin stocks and is quite similar to the schedule we proposed.
We were more conservative in the modeling of the alternative schedule because they proposed some 8-hour day fisheries and we don’t have experience with them. We modeled them as 12-hour.
The alternative schedule would not start until October 22, whereas our proposed schedule starts on October 1.

In-Season Management
Policy says we will do in-season management.
Advocacy indicates we need to provide details of our in-season management protocol in the CES (will ask Grossman).
At least 3 possible options:
o Take action (closure?) if they exceed modeled impacts by a set level, e.g. 0%, 10%, 25%, etc.
o Take action if they hit the modeled amount plus any unallocated impacts (e.g. 184 harvestable Chehalis NOR Chinook were not allocated to fisheries).
o Utilize in-season update to determine a minimum expected escapement and hold them to that level.
Hasn’t been done before.
Would we go the other way if ISU shows a low run?

Gill Net Release Mortality
Advocacy continues to challenge the 90% compliance.
Is a compliance incentive day warranted, as we did on Willapa Bay?


Edited by Rivrguy (10/07/14 09:30 AM)
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Dazed and confused.............the fog is closing in