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


May 30, 2019


Contact: Fish Program: Mark Baltzell, 360-902-2807; David Stormer, 360-902-0058
Media: Ben Anderson, 360-902-0045

WDFW lists changes in Puget Sound summer salmon fisheries for 2019
OLYMPIA – As anglers plan their summer fishing trips, they should be aware of some changes to Puget Sound salmon seasons as compared to recent years.

Projected low returns of several stocks of wild chinook salmon this year prompted fishery managers to restrict salmon seasons in several Puget Sound marine areas, said Kyle Adicks, salmon policy lead for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW).

"Anglers should expect shorter chinook salmon fishing seasons in several Puget Sound marine areas," Adicks said. "We want to make sure anglers have plenty of notice about changes to some of the popular chinook salmon fisheries in Puget Sound."

The department outlined many of the changes in mid-April in an announcement about the 2019-20 salmon seasons. That news release can be found online at https://wdfw.wa.gov/news/washingtons-salmon-fisheries-set-2019-20.

Significant changes planned for 2019-20 include:

• Marine Area 7 (San Juan Islands): Closed to salmon fishing in August.

• Marine Area 8-2 (Port Susan and Port Gardner): Scheduled to open to fishing for hatchery coho Aug. 16-Sept. 15 only in the area south and west of the Clinton/Mukilteo line. The rest of the marine area will remain closed to salmon fishing.

• Tulalip Bay Special Area Will be closed to salmon fishing Saturday, June 15 for a tribal salmon ceremony.

• Marine Area 9 (Admiralty Inlet): Opens Thursday, July 25, to fishing for hatchery chinook salmon. WDFW intends to close the area to chinook salmon fishing beginning Monday, July 29, to determine how much quota remains. Any subsequent openings will be announced on WDFW's website.

• Marine Area 10 (Seattle/Bremerton) Opens Saturday, June 1 to fishing for coho salmon. Hatchery chinook salmon fishing starts on Thursday, July 25 and is scheduled to be open through August 31 or until the quota is achieved.

• Marine Area 11 (Tacoma-Vashon Island): Will not open to salmon fishing on June 1, as listed in the 2018-19 pamphlet. The area is scheduled to open to salmon fishing July 1. In order to maximize opportunity for chinook, boat fishing will be open five days per week (Saturday through Wednesday) while shoreline fishing will be open daily.

While some chinook seasons may be shorter, coho fishing in Puget Sound should be better given the higher number of coho forecasted to return compared to recent years, Adicks said.

Additional details on salmon fisheries will be available in the 2019-20 Sport Fishing Rules Pamphlet, which will be available online (https://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/regulations) in a few weeks and at license dealers mid-June.

Before heading out, anglers should check WDFW’s website (https://fortress.wa.gov/dfw/erules/efishrules/) for emergency fishing regulations or to download the agency's mobile fishing app. More information about the Fish Washington app is available online at https://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/regulations/app.

Persons with disabilities who need to receive this information in an alternative format or who need reasonable accommodations to participate in WDFW-sponsored public meetings or other activities may contact Dolores Noyes by phone (360-902-2349), TTY (360-902-2207), or email (dolores.noyes@dfw.wa.gov). For more information, see http://wdfw.wa.gov/accessibility/reasonable_request.html.
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"Worse day sport fishing, still better than the best day working"

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They just dropped the hammer on us. Muthafvckers

Not yet. Wait until they lose the court case.

Bring it.

All the NOF regs for the NI side being declared illegally filed and not valid? Need a whole lotta popcorn for that one.

While all for increased transparency and broader local inputs for all users in the NOF this focus of lawsuits for relief from this continued reduction in recreational angler opportunities complete ignores the two underlying factors that are limit fishing; especially mixed stock fisheries.

The first is the question whether fishing represent a legitimate use of the underlying stock productivity of individual salmon stocks? And if so what portion of that historic Chinook productivity should go to fishing rather than to support other uses of that productivity (logging, development, agriculture etc.)? 50%, 20%, 10%?

The second is the continued decline in the status of PS Chinook and the resulting declining allowable impacts associated with fishing. In every status review of PS Chinook since their ESA listing has consistently found that the 3 major population parameters considered in the status of those populations; abundances, productivity and diversity, have consistently declined. Given the failure of recovery efforts it can not be a surprise that NOAA looks to lower allowable impacts associate with fishing.

In recent years the Stillaguamish Chinook has been one of the stocks limiting PS fishing; especially in mixed stock areas. When one considers the answers to my above questions it is clear why the Stillaguamish Chinook has been such limiting stock.

For the Stillaguamish that once supported and estimated 40,000 Chinook portion of that productivity reserved for fishing is now less than 1% and if one considers public input for society (letters to the editor, input at various public meetings, etc.) we have determined that is too much and should be reduced further. To 0.0%?

Back envelope calculations seem to indicate for the Stillaguamish during the 1960s and early 1970s wild Chinook runs were in the 4,000 range. In the late 1970s through 1980s in the 1,500 to 2,000 range. From 1990 to 2009 run reconstructions should that in spite of average escapements of 1,500 spawners the average run-size (number adults that would return without any fishing) was less than 1,000 (933). Looking at fishing rates and escapements for the period 2010 to 2016 the average wild run likely fell to less than 600. In 2018 the total escapement of wild Chinook in the Stillaguamish was 117 fish (likely run size of less 160 fish). During those same periods Southern US (SUS) fishing rates fell from more than 50% to 35% to 21% to 15% to last year 8% but populations continue to fall.

Folks maybe able to win the court case battle but the harsh reality the war for stocks like the Stillaguamish has all ready been lost and other stocks are sure to follow. The end of mixed stock fishing is in sight with more and more of the fishing be forced to terminal areas with less critical wild stocks. The last 50 years have clearly demonstrated that we as a society do not have the political will for meaningful restoration and will also opt for ending fishing before taking other painful actions.

Curt

Any idea where the stilly fish are caught and at what rate?

In PS it is the combination of all the above that got it to where it is and sad as it is mixed stock fisheries are toast. Frankly this has been known since the 90's when a AD in a meeting " we are going to loose Puget Sound". Add to the foolish recovery BS pushed it was never even remotely possible with the AK & BC interception marine fisheries.

In the end it will be the Orca's that put the nails in the coffin for ocean marine fisheries when a judge finally says you shall not as to harvest. Then the issue will resemble Boldt as it will massively effect AK marine fisheries as well as BC. The thing is BC has long said you get AK off our fish we will get off yours. Strange as it sounds this will benefit PS but I am not familiar enough to know what % of the total run is intercepted. I read one time total impacts ( anything that harms a fish ) is about 84% of the harvestable. What I do know is you shut the marine impacts down the number of fish projected to return will exceed the expectations as nobody and I mean nobody truly knows the true impacts of marine harvest.

One last thing. You will not believe how many of the commercial fishers in AK come from WA, OR, and Idaho. Add to that the many other AK fisheries for other species are also based in PS. Don't look for Gov Green Jeans to lead the charge as that guy is all show and no go.

One needs to also look at the real numbers for interceptions versus what we use, or used to use, in models. The models told us that no US fish come down the east side of Vancouver Island. CWT data showed a great difference from that. The more north the PS stock, the more it was intercepted there. Plus, when they quit fishing chum up there for 4 years the Nooksack chum run exploded. Then, when they went back to fishing the numbers showed a decline.

There are a lot of games being played within management to keep fisheries open. If, as Rivrguy says, a judge finally grows even one, much less a pair, and shuts down the intercepting fisheries in AK then all hell will break loose. The God Squad will jump into action, I'm sure.

Beyond that, if Smalma is right that rivers like the Stilly simply can't support the spawners, then closing AK won't help much. We have to to a much more holistic view and look at the whole ecosystem. Those fish that survive in AK will need food (and it's not there as Chinook and coho are starving up there), they will need access to quality spawning grounds (coverts, dams, levees, floodplains), and they will need estuaries to make the transition in (pinnipeds, birds).

It looks like a tough year for Puget Sound Chinook opportunity, let's hope that estuary projects on the Skagit, Stilly, Shohomish and others helps long term... but I'm praying for a wet fall to help all those nookers get to the spawning gravel.

Moravec-
I'm afraid it is going to the limited Puget Sound Chinook opportunity is going to be tough for much longer than just this year.

I join you in hoping that recovery projects begin paying dividends and we see a up swing in PS Chinook productivity. There has been some major efforts to improve estuaries on a number of the region's rivers. Without a doubt those historic estuaries played a major role in supporting PS Chinook abundances. If the goal is to recapture substantial portion of historic PS wild Chinook abundances improving those estuaries will be important.

While many may disagree my opinion is that the current population production bottlenecks in key river systems is not the estuaries. Sticking with the Stillaguamish example estimates place the current estuary at between 30 and 40% of the historic condition. Yet as stated earlier the 1990 to 2009 data indicates that the carrying capacity was less than 1,000 wild Chinook. It has been estimated that the historic Stillaguamish Chinook abundance was 40,000 fish; that 1990 to 2009 capacity is only 2.5% of that historic abundance. The available information shows that on the average the survival of Chinook eggs in the gravels of the Stillaguamish is some of the lowest seen in Puget Sound. I argue that the capacity of the Stillaguamish estuary to produce Chinook is not being challenged rather the production bottleneck is the quality of the freshwater habitat upstream of those estuaries.

If the above does not convince you that on the Stillaguamish the issue is freshwater habitat consider the plight of the Stillaguamish steelhead; another ESA listed species. Steelhead with their large smolt size have almost zero dependence on estuary habitat yet using the information provide in the recent draft PS steelhead recovery plan the recent wild winter escapements represent approximate 3% if the historic steelhead abundance.

Curt

One of the the factors that depresses freshwater production is lack of nutrients. The steelhead are doing poorly for a lot of reasons, but lack of food in the river is a biggie. Data from WA and BC both show that the younger the smolts, the higher the R/S. The primary source of nutrients in the N Pacific freshwater systems was nutrients delivered by spawning anadromous fish; the salmon, lampreys, smelt. Base level productivity is low.

This was shown rather clearly in AK with the pink and coho. The kicker is that abundant adult coho outcompete the salmon in the ocean.

When BC first showed that nutrient levels were controlling steelhead abundance they warned folks that simple nutrients weren't the silver bullet that would save the fish. It is a piece, but only that.

The fish need water, clean and cold. They need stable streambanks with a good mix of habitat, they need functioning estuaries with reasonable levels of predation, they need marine waters without plastic (apparently oceanic steelhead eat a lot of it) and toxics, they need a prey base in the marine waters to allow them to grow, they need less exploitation so that they can grow to adulthood and return, for steelhead we need repeat spawners.

This is, in my mind, one of those thousand piece puzzles and most folks don't want "their" piece used. They want the other 999 to be used to fix it. Meanwhile, humans continue to reproduce.

@Smalma

I know that there have been a number of in-river projects on my Snoqualmie River to improve Chinook spawning habitat, such as repairing riprarian habitiat on the lower Tolt and softening riverbanks at Chinook Bend and downstream of Fall City... I wonder if there are similar efforts in progress or planned for the Stilly? Small valley with plenty of small lots so I wonder how possible that is?

When I was little (90's), we would take late fall walks down to the mouth of the Tolt and the number stinky carcasses were scattered everywhere. Amazing how everything can change if a few decades.

CM -
I agree whole heartedly that any meaningful chance at significant improvement in our Chinook and steelhead population will require addressing large scale ecosystem problems.

The first decade of this century Puget Sound saw astounding pink returns providing an opportunity to see the effect of having significantly large biomass of spawning salmon improve steelhead survival. Consider the following Snohomish/Skykomish example:

In the 1980s the average pink escapement was 165,000 and the average wild steelhead escapement was 3,072.

in the 1990s the average pink escapement was 143,000 and the steelhead escapement was 3,715.

For the first decade of the 2000s the average pink escapement was 1,263,000 and the average steelhead escapement was 2,171!

Since 2010 the pink escapement has been 699,000 and the steelhead escapement has been 941.

Clearly increase spawning salmon biomass did not produce the expected results. That does not mean that nutrient question isn't important; it is. However I believe without stable flows and complex habitat features to capture and retain those carcasses we will not see the expected benefits.

The fact that increasing carcass biomass, reducing harvest, eliminating hatcheries, restoring estuary habitats, etc. are not producing the expected results in increased abundances of our Chinook and steelhead is a clear indication that the dominate limiting habitat factors are not being address and appear to continue to deteriorate.

For me it is clear that the simplest and most politically acceptable restoration actions are not moving the recovery needle Without a paradigm shift in recovery strategies towards the more complex and less politically acceptable actions the fish are doomed. Equally it is also obvious that for society as a whole that shift is not acceptable.

Curt

Thank you to the contributors for your thoughtful insights into the issues the PNW faces relative to fish survival. I too fear that we will not have the political will to make the changes necessary because they are contrary to our foundational pattern of human development....more population, more consumption, of everything.

There seems to be a growing number of small improvements made in river habitats, estuary habitats and even near shore habitats, but it seems overwhelmed by the shear magnitude of the growth in urban sprawl, residential development, commercial and industrial construction and environmental footprint.

For my part I will continue to increase my personal efforts, from listening and learning from others, avoiding all pesticides and fertilizers, replanting native vegetation needing no watering, donations of time and money to River Fishery Enhancement and Land Trust organizations, writing and speaking to my local politicians and supporting those that “may” have the willpower that is required. And I will endeavor to be respectful of others who do not agree with my priorities.

Sorry that this post added no new information but I appreciate being able to express my opinions here.

Kind Regards
Doug

The pink/freshwater rearing effect is complicated. It worked well in other PS streams, but.....

The beneficial effect (as shown in PS and BC) was in decreasing smolt age. Younger smolts are more abundant than older for a given watershed. So, while the escapement numbers went down, what was the actually return per spawner to first spawn, by brood? That is what the pinks increased. Plus, what was the composition of the run with respect to repeat spawners? If that number declined, increased nutrients benefitted the smolts.

The systems that show benefit are those systems where we have a rather complete data base. The escapement is a count, or survey of 100% of the anadromous zone. Ages are collected over the whole run timing as age changes over time; sampling only the last half, for example, significantly misses some age groups.

In AK, where they had significant and immediate response by coho to pinks the steelhead response was close to a decade later. Same in some BClake fertilization where the Gerrard rainbow responded about 5 or 6 years into the project while the kokanee response was rather immediate.

The last confounding aspect is that the super abundance of pinks in the N Pacific, and it might be more tied to the AK PNP projects than PS pinks, has shown that the adult pinks are correlated in depressing Chinook, coho, SRKWs, and Antipodean shearwaters.

Also, the increase in pink spawning in the Stilly seems to have occurred about the time Larry's Pets (the pinnipeds) really zoomed up. In this case, unless we know what happened in freshwater with regard to smolt age and number we don't know if the pinks didn't help or if the seals ate the proceeds.

We can't, and we are all guilty of this, look at one piece of the puzzle as if it were independent of all the others. Which is why, I am afraid, we are rather doomed to failure because there are so many things to fix out there.

A lot of info in this thread and interesting. That said two things are a constant with salmonids. First human activities in modern society ( building, water, just everything ) are not compatible with salmonid populations or the complex interactions and dependencies of one species to another that are seldom recognized let alone addressed. Second is the simple fact to allow salmonids impacted by harvest you must reduce harvest as the productivity declines to have any hope of stabilizing any populations of salmonids.

We as a people have chosen not to do either. Wild fish blame hatcheries. Habitat focused blame urbanization, timber harvest, farmer, ect. Harvesters blame the previously mentioned two items. Truth is at this time urbanization is driving habitat loses at a rate never seen before. Additionally the refusal by all involved in harvest to come to grips with the fact that no longer can salmonids be harvested in the numbers and manner all have become accustomed to is and absolute fact.

For anything to change two things must happen. The end of mixed stock harvest in all marine ( including PS ) areas which include AK & BC. Then a watershed by watershed assessment of what the productivity of each one is and what steps can be taken to stabilize and improve productivity if possible.

To do this WDF&W would have to drastically restructure itself and end the dominance of harvest managers. In some cases abolish many positions and reassign funding and personnel to the effort of watershed assessment.

I am a old guy so I doubt I will see it happen but it is a question of when not if this willl happen. The sooner it happens the better.

My pets?? Ha!!

Seriously, I agree with most of what CM opines - and that many of the relationships are subtle and not clearly understood.

That said, we sport fishers have born the brunt of restrictions relative to our overall combination of adverse impacts and positive contributions. One only needs to look at the total unwillingness of the various agencies to address the impact of pinniped and avian predation on Chinook.

If just seals are taking 25% of out migrating Chinook smolt I have to wonder what the total loss is to all predators before those smolt exit Puget Sound? It may not be the only 800 pound gorilla in the room but it seems to be the one few "managers" and fewer politicians want to discuss openly.

Right on!

No doubt.

One thing's clear. Since continued increasing recreational fisheries reductions have had no appreciable historic benefit to chinook recovery, then we will most certainly try more recreational fisheries reductions.

fb

Maybe rec anglers can start claiming forgone opportunity in certain marine areas since returns of 10-20K surplus chinook seems to be pretty common at some hatchery facilities.
SF

Now all get their arms around this fact, it does not matter if the number of surplus is 200k it is the natural production of any salmon that governs harvest, period & put a fork in it. Second that so called surplus is a bogus term as they are the in river sport and tribal opportunity. A hatchery run will have a escapement, give or take a bit, the same as the wild fish. When you do not do that you get what you have in PS.

Rg,
Sorry you took my poor attempt at humor seriously.

No NT in river harvest opportunity on the Skok. None I know of at the Deschutes or Minter creek either.
There is a one fish king limit in I believe only one section of the Green.
The Nisqually got enough kings back that they were handing them out at the hatchery like it was a food bank.
I understand hatcheries have escapement goals, that wild fish shape the management and seasons and that some of the NT share is taken in mix stock saltwater fisheries.

That said, all those fish that end up surplus or whatever you want to call them swim through MA 9, yet we have a likely four day chinook season for a whooping 2,500 or so fish there.
It is a pretty sad state of affairs......
SF

As Rivrguy said, the weak stocks limit the mixed stock fishery. If the total allowable take of all the weak stocks is, say, 200 fish then the mixed stock fishery os over when those 200 are dead. Regardless of what is left.

That is the conundrum of weak stock management and then throwing in hatchery fish. IF the hatchery fish returned to a bay/river where the wild fish were ignored, you could fish them there. Minter, Coulter, the Deschutes should not have any issues with wild fish in the bays/creeks. The hatchery production should be confined, if we really want to have wild fish, to those locations where you can catch everything that is there.

If we want wild stocks, then mixed stock fishing needs to die, at least in the foreseeable future.

If we want wild stocks. . .

Of course we "want" wild stocks. Anybody want to hazard a guess as to how realistic it is in our world to have anything resembling sustainable wild stocks of chinook salmon in Puget Sound tribs? Even if all harvest were curtailed, the chances might rhyme with "zero".

Time for a fresh look at what our goals should be?

fb

We can have wild stocks of salmon in most of the PS streams. Some watersheds, like the Elwha and Skagit, could be fairly large. And they would be sustainable.

But, if you want to kill a lot of them, then wild won't work. We have shown that we can have wild trout, rather large fisheries, but C&R.

You are right in that we need to clearly define goals. Did a chapter in an AFS book on models for salmonid management that examined such a review. The fishermen wanted to harvest 20K Chinook annually. And recover the wild run. It was pretty much impossible, We do need to very clearly articulate goals and not use the warm and fuzzies of "wild fish", "sustainable fisheries" but put solid numbers to it.

CM-

Whether we fish or not the harsh reality is that we will continue to lots of wild Puget Sound every day of year. Eliminating fishing will not end the killing of wild salmon; they will continue to die from a large variety of habitat impacts. In fact in many systems ending fishing will have little effect on the rate of decline of those populations or change the ultimate result -extinction.

Sticking with the Stillaguamish example over the last 40 years the South US fisheries (Washington fisheries) have reduced their impacts by approximately 75%. In the same time period the capacity of the basin to produce wild Chinook has declined by 60%. Fishing was a major driver in that status of the resource how can both of the above be true?

Again I go back to the question of whether fishing is a legitimate use of some of the salmon productivity or should it all productivity be used to support habitat uses? Regardless of the answer to the question this myth that ending fishing will make a meaningful difference ultimate fate of the resource must end if there is to be any chance at meaningful recovery. Holding out the promise of ending fishing will lead to recovery remains a crutch that allows society to delay taking painful actions that might actually make a difference.

Curt

Unless I missed something CM & myself did not advocate ending fisheries as a whole, only mixed stock harvest. That habitat productivity has decreased is a given but with that decline one must reduce harvest to match that productivity stream by stream. That is not possible when you max out harvest when the adults are all mixed up together let alone add in BC & AK. When mixed stock fisheries end, and they will, it is then and only then that watershed by watershed can a true picture of just what is the status of salmonids and what is possible or not possible to accomplish with the concept of recovery. Habitat degradation & harvest are both the key elements of this thing with salmon and it is rather short sited to think they are not connected.

As Rivrguy noted, it is the mixed stock fisheries I am referring to. It is not just the salmon fisheries, but the forage-fish fisheries, the trawls that take salmon as by catch, and so on. It is also the (lack of) pinniped harvest. And, it is habitat degradation which is why triage is so necessary.

Why are were trying to recover Green River Chinook, or Cedar, or some of the rather urban settings? Now, the whole of the OP north of Grays Harbor has a chance. There are some serious long term decisions that need making but we, as a society, stay bunkered in our silos defending our piece of the puzzle.

This all made me think back a bit. When I became involved in salmon restoration it was all about saving native populations. Then the politics of fish came full bore and it was "wild" fish or anything with a ad fin. That pissed me off then and still does. What native runs we have left should be of the utmost importance and a great efforts should happen to save them and allow them to flourish. To create a true " wild " salmon in a genetically degraded stock is a process of many generations under perfect conditions as evolution is a very slow process. Human impacts on salmon is a very rapid process and that is the rub. We need to choose and I choose native populations for max effort and then sort the rest out the best we can as many so called wild populations are simply hatchery established runs with a fin. I choose natives survival first.

When I first started in the business we (the steelhead group in WDG) actually tried to develop and implement identifiers for steelhead. Native, as in basically the original genotype and evolving in the watershed. Wild, anything that successfully reproduces in the wild. Hatchery, spawned and incubated in a hatchery environment. Tried to get all the discussions to follow this.

I would disagree a bit with Rivrguy on evolution. If we stop putting in hatchery fish and let sufficient spawners escape then we will very quickly get "wild" fish. Over time, they will adapt with the first few generations showing the most adaptation.

Back in 1950s a few thousand (I believe Skeena) pinks were let loose in the Great Lakes. By the 1990s they had adapted and spread through the system. Plus, genetic analysis showed they were more different from the donor stock that many "good" species. I also applied one of the genetic clock equations and the solution was that the genetic difference took, I believe, 5,000 years to achieve. Except that it only took 40.

Probably Founder Effect: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founder_effect?wprov=sfti1

Ah yeah we had that discussion before CM and if I recall neither of us budged a inch. So my position. Yes in two or three generations minus hatchery and other influences the fish will stabilize and then begin the process developing genetics tuned to that stream. This is where we always differed. That is not preserving a native fish / wild fish but rather starting a evolutionary process to create a native fish. So if you have a stock that is naturally spawning but is the same genetics as the hatchery fish then why now everyplace? Everything has a beginning and end and sooner or later that hatchery will be closed and done. The fish will then start the process of evolution that we are discussing. In streams where hatchery genetics are the same fin or no fin plan and manage for the time the hatchery is gone and do not make it worse. Put our restoration efforts into saving the native runs which survive today. Those are the genetics of a thousand years of evolution and need to survive. Where the dirty deed is done begin to manage and plan to not make it worse but utilize the production for harvest. Same discussion as Bristol and I ain't moved a inch.

I agree that if we have native fish we should keep them, keep the hatchery fish out, and let them evolve. Where the wild genetics may have been compromised, but habitat remains, let the fish sort it out. When the habitat is toasted, plant the **it out of it.