In response to the West End Bait Ban thread, I thought it seemed like an interesting idea to try and look at the likely future of steelhead fishing in Washington State.

We should examine the range of potential fishing regulations and restrictions – “the good ole days” 2 steelhead per day, 4 in possession, 30 per year. First, a word about the good ole days. They aren’t coming back. They aren’t coming back for several reasons.

First among them is the relentless growth of the state’s human population. My best estimate is that the state passed the mark of harvestable numbers of self-sustaining wild steelhead somewhere between 1968 and 1972 when the human population was about 2.8 million people. That date varies, of course, by river system and mostly geographic location, with the OP rivers generally being later to still producing harvestable wild steelhead. But when the Columbia River basin and Puget Sound rivers are included, it was decades earlier. With a human population now around 7 million and no end in sight, the future is not promising in terms of restoring or recovering huge increases in wild steelhead.

Even though only a fraction of the new state residents will fish for steelhead, everyone places some degree of burden on development of the environment, and thereby, the habitat that is essential to the production of wild steelhead. Our society is dedicated to giving the highest quality lip service to protecting anadromous fish habitat, all the while continuing at the local, state, and even federal levels to approve projects that at least incrementally continue to degrade, rather than improve it. With these plain as day facts before us, how can anyone envision a future where wild steelhead are abundant enough to sustain harvests even close to the “good ole days?”

If not wild steelhead, then how about hatchery steelhead? Anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock is aware that hatchery steelhead stocking in Puget Sound area rivers has been cut in half or more. A large part of that reason is the ESA listing of all Puget Sound and Columbia River basin wild steelhead. Both the real and alleged negative effects of hatchery steelhead on wild steelhead stocks makes it unlikely that we will see hatchery steelhead stocking returned to former numbers any time soon. Further, hatchery steelhead program levels are subject to Hatchery Genetic Management Plans (HGMP) that are subject to ESA consultation and are presently limited to five scaled back programs in the Puget Sound region.

Another factor, less mentioned, about the hatchery steelhead programs is the much reduced smolt to adult return (SAR) rates the plants have shown in recent years. Programs that formerly delivered SARs of 5 to even 10% (if the anecdotal stories are true) now struggle to perform at even a one (1) percent level. This makes the cost of producing one adult hatchery steelhead more than 5 to 10 times more expensive than in the programs’ heydays. So even if there were no ESA or biological constraints, it’s doubtful that the agencies producing hatchery steelhead could or would afford the immense costs of producing hatchery adult returns experienced two and three decades ago.

At the far other end of fishing regulations like the good ole days is something like the ZEC rivers in Canada’s Gaspe’ peninsula in Quebec. There are over 100 rivers in 29 zones, and regulations vary by both river and the zone within a river. A fishing license costs about $40 for resident and $110 for non-resident, plus you must have a daily fishing access pass that costs from $30 to $100, depending on the quality of fishing pools in the zone. Rivers and zones can be restricted or unrestricted, which limits the number of anglers per zone per day, or not. Fishing in a restricted zone is subject to a draw. Half the draw is in the winter well before the season begins, and half are 48 hours prior to the fishing day. Unrestricted zones are the cheapest to fish, but they also have the most anglers fishing in them.

Catch limits vary by river and season, but a license holder may keep up to 7 salmon per season, distributed across rivers that allow retention, to strict CNR. Fishing with bait is prohibited, and many, but not all, waters are restricted to fly fishing only.

So, a look at the far other end of fishing restrictions include: higher cost, a lottery to obtain fishing days, and more restrictive fishing methods and catch limits. There would be no free drifting, side drifting, boondogging, or bobber-doggin’ from drift boats or jet sleds, to say the least.

I think the most probable future conditions lie somewhere between the extremes. I base that on observations of WDFW’s fishing regulation behavior. Along with cultural differences between here and the Canadian maritime, WDFW traditionally pays no attention to the quality of the angling experience in adopting regulations. And it will adopt the least restrictive regulations necessary to comply with resource conservation requirements.

Paker suggests that steelhead fishing on the OP would be more improved by limiting fishing guides, having a limited entry fishery, or limiting guided fishing days than by banning bait. I agree with him that regulations that reduce the number of other anglers on the river will do more to improve the quality of my fishing experience than a bait fishing ban.

I think it’s important to call out the two dependent variables that get at the heart of the matter. The first is the health and status of the wild steelhead resource. A suite of regulations that ensures that enough steelhead survive to spawn successfully is the first and foremost order of fish management business. The second is that the regulations create a predictable and orderly fishery of high enough quality that enough of us will want to participate in it. Some combination of too many (pick your poison): guides, guide days, anglers, fishing methods, fishing areas, fishing times, and fish encounters (take, or harvest) will impair either or both the quality and the health of the fishery.

The concept of triage was mentioned and advanced by some who posted. Certain of the more urbanized PS rivers (Green, Puyallup, Snoqualmie) will never recover wild steelhead to fishable numbers, so why not write them off and turn them into hatchery fish factories? First, they could recover to the point of supporting CNR fishing, but I agree that they, along with all the others in PS, are not going to ever recover to sustainable harvestable runs. If for no other reason, the PS steelhead ESA listing prevents writing off any wild steelhead population – even while the ESA environmental regulatory process continues to approve additional incremental losses to those populations. And the hatchery steelhead programs on those and the other rivers are limited to levels that won’t adversely impact the wild populations. And as I mentioned above, large hatchery programs don’t mean large adult returns in this era of very low SAR. For instance, hatchery releases of 100,000 smolts in the Nooksack and Puyallup systems returned only a couple dozen adult returns each within the last few years. Not the kind of program you can build a fishery on unless and until SAR rates climb back up to where they used to be.

Poster Myassisdragon says there are as many wild steelhead in some PS rivers today as there was in the 1970s. This is correct, but on average all but a couple of those rivers remain below established spawning escapement goals. We aren’t fishing any of those populations, but that can change as conservative management plans are developed and approved by NMFS. The problem that I foresee is that many anglers are not going to like the kind of fishing that can be allowed and stay within the ESA take limits. How do we best limit that take so as to remain within the limits? The usual Selective Fishing Regulations, with no bait, single barbless hook, no motors, or no fishing from a motorized boat while under power? No fishing from a boat? No what?

I attended a crystal ball gazing meeting last week to discuss what some future fishing regulations might look like and include. I don’t know what will come to pass, but the long-standing Selective Fishing Regulations are probably a given. They are precedent. Anglers are used to them. Monitoring for ESA reasons, like the mid-Columbia area, is also a given. The funding for that monitoring isn’t. So a North Sound Endorsement, very much along the lines of the Columbia River endorsement, is a distinct possibility. But how much will we pay for it in order to cover the monitoring/enforcement costs?

Under monitoring, when the allowable take limit is reached, the season closes. That could hurt, when one considers that the Skagit season extended to April 30. Anglers I know enjoyed fishing to the last day of the season and want to regain that option. A host of options were presented. Limiting guides is a popular one, but WDFW claims not to have authority to do so, making that option a non-starter. A bill introduced in the WA Legislature this session that was aimed at addressing guide limits on the OP died in committee so went no where.

One thing that is within WDFW’s purview is the catch limit. But how do you do that when the seasons are already CNR? Well, back before there were CNR seasons, the daily steelhead catch limit was 2 per day. That was 2 per day, whether you retained or released your catch. Not much enforcement of that went on that I know of, but it got me to thinking. Enforcement would push back because a catch limit in a CNR fishery is unenforceable. True. But enforcement pushed back when Sparky’s Law – you know, the one where you cannot remove a fish from the water if it must be or you intend to release it – was introduced either. Anglers on this forum made all kinds of negative comments about it being stupid both because it was unenforceable and unnecessary to the survival of released steelhead. But you know what? In the interval since Sparky’s Law was adopted, on average I’ve seen much improved handling of fish that are being released than before. I don’t think that’s coincidental. Anglers are taking better care of the fish that they release. Enforceable or not, I think most of the anglers follow most of the regulations most of the time. With a limited fishery like the Skagit was, and will be again, the army of angler eyes on the river tend to make the fishery relatively self-regulating.

I didn’t want to venture off topic here, but I think the Skagit and the mid-Columbia tributaries are as good an example as we have of what future steelheading regulations and conditions might be. Just thought this topic deserved a thread of its own so as not to divert the west end bait ban thread.

Sg