WDFW NEWS RELEASE

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
600 Capitol Way North, Olympia, WA 98501-1091
http://wdfw.wa.gov/

April 22, 2019

Contact: Edward Eleazer, 425-775-1311, ext. 109
Kyle Adicks, 360-902-2664

Lower Skagit River opens May 1 to fishing for hatchery spring chinook

OLYMPIA – For the first time in nearly 30 years, anglers will get the chance to fish for spring chinook salmon in the lower Skagit River next month.

State and tribal co-managers recently agreed to move forward with this year's fishery, based on the number of wild and hatchery fish projected to return to the river, said Edward Eleazer, regional fish manager for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW).

"We've seen a sufficient number of spring chinook returning to the Skagit River in the last several years to allow us to open this section of the river," Eleazer said. "This is essentially a new opportunity for most anglers. We hope it provides some great fishing this spring."

The fishery will be open for hatchery spring chinook from May 1 through May 31. Anglers fishing this section will have a daily limit of two hatchery chinook, which are marked with a clipped adipose fin, but must release all other species.

The lower Skagit fishery includes the area from the Highway 536 Bridge (Memorial Highway Bridge) in Mount Vernon to Gilligan Creek.
Eleazer noted that the upper Skagit River, from the Highway 530 Bridge at Rockport to the Cascade River Road, will open June 1 to fishing for spring hatchery chinook, as will the Cascade River, from the mouth to the Rockport-Cascade Road Bridge. More details on those fisheries can be found in the 2018-19 Sport Fishing Rules Pamphlet, available online at https://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/regulations.

Think how cool this could be if EVERYONE had to fish hook and line only. Just dreaming again...

I don't want to be too negative on this as it's pretty cool that a fishery that has been closed for 30 years is now going to be open once again! However, I wonder what's in the fine print and since the tribe agreed to this fishery, what do they get out of it? I know from speaking to the local bio that the tribe is allowed a kill quota of almost 700 wild Steelhead in the Skagit system, which the bio at the time I spoke to him, did not think they would bother catching the entire quota. (BTW, those approximately 700 harvestable fish are the direct result of the co-managers agreement of a C & R Sport fishery on the Skagit and Sauk Systems). So with this "new" fishery does that mean most of those 700 Steelhead will get killed as by-catch now in the nets? And won't most of those Steelhead be down river kelts or fish close to spawning?

The Skagit tribes want to fish for the run of hatchery spring Chinook, and they have been doing so for a number of years. Their salmon fishing has been limited by the incidental take limit of ESA steelhead and ESA listed wild Chinook. The Skagit steelhead RMP allows a sliding scale of steelhead take based on the projected run size. This means that the tribes will be able to more fully access their spring Chinook allocation because of the increased steelhead take limit. And yes, a lot, if not most, of those steelhead are downstream bound kelts. But take counts all fish taken, whether pre or post spawn.

Saw some hooked and released steelies on the Sauk with gillnet marks about a month ago. These were 9+ lb fish and it looked like they were able to make it thru so I suspect the tribes are using larger netting for springers and probably catching some of the bigger steelies. Hope most of the skinnier kelts can make it thru

Hmm,
The Skagit gets just a prediction of 6,116 and a direct fishery is opened up on them. The White river gets a prediction of 5,799 and none are clipped due to the need to protect every last one.

Don’t try and dig too deep trying to figure this out. Even if you could crack the secrecy you may not like what you find.

At the risk of pointing out the obvious, they are different systems. One size does not fit all.

yeah, the Skagit is 4 times the size of the White....

probably more like 10 times....

Im surprised that its shocking to some that the tribe gets to net if sport get to fish. Just be glad you get a season up north.

I don’t think the issue is they get to net, I think it’s more about what “deal” was made to allow us to fish.

Exactly Baywolf and I also wonder about all those Steelhead that will be killed as by-catch.

What deal. Pretty obvious, they get to net more fish than you

As future Coast, Straits and PS Chinook season restrictions increase to protect SRKW or the tribes tighten the noose more and more on Blackmouth and Fall Chinook seasons. I wonder if we will ever be able to open more river fisheries for Chinook, since harvest numbers and encounters in MA's will decrease? Like Puyallup/White Spring Chinook. If closures drop encounters in the salt, seems fair to provide opportunity elsewhere. If we ever get a change in the guard in the WDFW to negotiate tougher w/ the co-managers, at least their may be many new chips to negotiate with. Pipe dream?

Not likely. Allowing recs to harvest kings in-river would be an admission that the ocean quotas they set had been too restrictive. There would be instant outcry from the commercial and ocean rec fleets.

Personally, if the new rules DO return more kings to the rivers, I'd want to see as many as possible on the gravel, so I'd rather they kept it closed. My fondest wish would be for the increased escapement to result in better numbers of smolts, eventually leading to improved adult returns that allow us to responsibly harvest a few. Now THAT's a pipe dream!

+1. Real $hit flea flickr.

Whether we like it or not (some should and some shouldn’t, all based on where you live and how you fish), we are moving to a system that will be more based on single-stock terminal fisheries rather than open water mixed-stock fisheries. For salt guys, it sucks. For guys that live near low-return rivers, it won’t change much because their rivers are probably already shut down. For people that happen to live near rivers with a “fishable” run though, they might see some improved opportunities. We’ll see though. Tough when the overall trend is down and 7 billion humans don’t want to change the way we do things.

Aaron pretty much wrote what i was thinking..

My point was that increasing terminal opportunity and escapements was not an objective sought with this change. If either of those things does happen, you can bet (at least I will) that "adjustments" will be made to shore that up.

Allowing/requiring in-river harvests is an admission that fishing in the ocean reduces the probability of meeting escapement goals.