COWLITZ, KALAMA, LEWIS ADULT SPRING CHINOOK 2019 FORECASTS AND RETURNS, AND 2020 RUN FORECASTS


The first number was the 2019 forecast
The second number was the 2019 return to the tributary
The third number was the 2019 return to the Columbia
The fourth number is the 2020 forecast to the Columbia
The fifth number is the 2020 forecast to the tributary

The last two numbers are the most important. But none of them are good.

Cowlitz 1,300 1,600 1,600 1,440 1,400

Kalama 1,400 1,000 1,005 1,030 1,000

Lewis 1,500 1,000 1,046 1,340 1,300

Total 4,200 3,600 3,651 3,810 3,700

*Tributary forecasts and returns are to the tributary mouths; Columbia River return and forecast is to the Columbia River mouth.

➢ The 2020 spring Chinook forecast for the Cowlitz River is the second lowest since 1980.
➢ The 2020 spring Chinook forecast for the Kalama River is about half of the recent 10-year average runsize of 1,900.
➢ The 2020 spring Chinook forecast for Lewis River is about 75% of the recent 10-year average runsize of 1,700.
➢ Ocean conditions between 2015 and 2018 were among the worst observed during the last 20 years and have likely had a strong influence on the Spring Chinook cohorts that will return to these tributaries in 2020.

For more information on historical ocean conditions, refer to https://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/research/divisions

When I look at the tables accompanying this information I am struck by how many times the forecast run didn't materialize. I would think there may need to be some tweaks in the forecast model. Just a thought.....

Uh... Yeah... That sucks.

I understand the frustration of low run-size estimates, but I wouldn't blame WDFW for this.

The run-size estimates are developed by WDFW, ODFW, and the Tribal technical staff (CRITFC). The models aren't not perfect, but the estimates usually fall within a reasonable range.

The reasons for the low run-size estimate is clearly stated in the article: The past few years have seen the poorest ocean conditions ever recorded in the North Pacific.

Pacific salmon do not survive well in in the ocean under poor ocean conditions. Lots of warm water predators (tuna, mackerel) and very few coolwater prey for the juveniles to eat (copepods).

Nobody should blame WDFW for any of that.

Forget about it!!!!!

It's going to be epic!

Buy your 2 rod endorsement!!!!!!

Columbia river enhancement!!!!

The forecast is stellar........................Until it's all just Bullchit!

The challenges WDFW is currently facing in SW Washington is low run-size estimates for the Kalama, Lewis, and Cowlitz Rivers.

I have no doubt they will address this challenge by reducing the bag limits accordingly, on these three rivers (either one fish per day or complete closure). That’s the responsible thing to do when faced with this particular challenge.

Your statement suggests you don’t think WDFW will address this specific challenge.

I disagree. They have shut down this fishery in the past; and, in my view, they will do so again, if warranted. That's the right decision to deal with or mitigate the challenge they're faced with in SW Washington.

Yup........Pensions for all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WDFW..............Plant fish and quit making excuses.

Does not bode well for the big river forecast yet to be released.

My guess is limited opportunity in the listed tribs, and mainstem CR closed again below Lewis like last year.

Bad year to be a salmon

Worse year to be a spring salmon angler.

A restructure absolutely needs to be done.

For each river, WDFW will likely need a little more than half the escapement to meet broodstock goals (+/-) for the hatchery program.

That doesn't leave many fish for recreational anglers. At this point, I won't be surprised if they completely close all three.

I would note that they use a combined total for all three hatcheries since if they get more than they need at any one facility, they can transfer the excess to any of the other two.

But they probably won't be doing that anytime soon.......

Haha that's a good one. You've clearly never worked there

Funny thing, Minter Creek got back almost 1200 white river fish. They also got back more fall chinook, despite the run being down. Is the down river migration the problem, is stock selection or is it hatchery practices or some thing altogether different. I have to believe that the cowlitz is stocking more, and if not, then why? The skok and other hatcheries also seem to be getting back much better numbers. Yet, the conditions in the Sound are always stated to be a problem. Someone needs to do some deep analysis to see why some stocks seem to do better. I probably am missing something crucial, so would love to here opinions.

Hanker - Are you sure they were referring to spring Chinook? Fall Chinook might be more reasonable.

An additional 1M springers is a huge increase, particularly since they have to keep spring Chinook on station for 18 months. They are released as yearlings (6-8 inches). I’m not sure they have space and water for an extra 1M springers. And spring Chinook are not a major prey item for SRKW.

Conversely, raising an extra 1M fall Chinook is easy and cheap. Fall Chinook don’t spend much time in the hatchery before they are released as sub-yearlings (3-4 inches). The juveniles hatch in February and March. They are released a few weeks later in April and May. So the feed costs are minimal compared to spring Chinook, which they have to feed for a whole year. Plus, since fall Chinook are much smaller at release, the densities in the hatchery can be quite high without running into fish disease problems. So they can raise and release millions of fall Chinook for pennies, as compared to springers.

Plus, SRKW feed extensively on fall Chinook all along the WA and BC coast. And fall Chinook contribute to the major recreational fishery off the Washington Coast, and return to the Kalama Rv in huge numbers every year. Last year, they got 10,000+ adults back to the Kalama. WDFW only uses about 2000 for broodstock. So it would be easy for WDFW to take extra eggs for additional fall Chinook releases for SRKW.

The Cowlitz salmon hatchery is a disgrace and the folks running it should be ashamed of themselves. It was advertised as the most advanced and expensive multi million dollar hatchery in the state. Yet they continue to randomly spawn the fish and go against all natural selection. With this policy in place for all WDFW hatcheries, the future of hatchery salmon in WA state have no chance. It still amazes me that these folks go to school for this, get a degree in fisheries where they learn all about natural selection, and still cannot figure this out. The should spawn only the largest healthiest fish of each year class. But instead it is easy for them to blame it on ocean conditions instead of trying to get better because there is no incentive to get better. When was the last time that you heard of a WDFW employee get laid off?
We have had WDFW staff increases in personnel and salaries year over year with a corresponding decrease in adult fish production.

I would suggest the following:
1) Privatize each hatchery with a bidding process to contractors and a reward or incentive for higher production. Without a doubt, a private company will do better in all aspects than the government.
or
2) WDFW Staff numbers and salary be correlated to number of adult fish produced per hatchery

How will you calculate "adult fish produced per hatchery"? Include BC and AK?. Use adult equivalents as many of the hatchery fish are purposefully harvested as juveniles.

The first Cowlitz mitigation agreement required a certain return at least to the river, if not the hatchery. WDF just harvested them in the ocean and then told TCL that they were not meeting agreements.

All about natural selection? Coho and Chinook produce (naturally) lots of jacks which do successfully spawn. They aren't the largest, by far. Chinook, chum, and steelhead all have multiple year classes (3 or more). You want to ignore the younger fish ('cause they are smaller)? Not saying that the current spawning guidelines are perfect, but it works better than "just spawn the big ones".

Carcassman, good questions. There are already tagging programs in place which are used to help identify and estimate the number of fish caught in the ocean and freshwater belonging to which hatcheries they were produced that. It is an estimate and not the best but it does give an idea of the number of adults that have been produced from each Hatchery. I would include that along with those that returned to the Hatchery.

I mentioned spawning only the largest and healthiest fish in each year class so no that does not mean that you would ignore the younger fish but rather that you would take the largest ones of each year and the healthiest ones of each year. The fish ladders could also be easily designed such that you could take the most athletic ones of each year. In my opinion there is no need to spawn the jacks as they are the most unsuccessful in nature and the genes for jacks are in the DNA. They will show up even if you do not spawn them. The Kalama demonstrates this. If you insist however, I would agree to spawning one lucky Jack per year.

Why do you assume that the fish that, for example, jumps the best, makes a better parent? Just another human-decided character.

The purpose of life is to reproduce. In nature, the combination of age at maturity, size, and such are all subject to selection. A bigger fish can dig a deeper redd which is more freshet-proof. The ability to dig a deep redd is useless in a hatchery fish. Maybe they do better with smaller (or larger) eggs than an egg in the gravel. If you've ever played around in a hatchery adult pond you know that the calmer fish gets way less beat up (damaged) prior to spawning. Many think that this "calmness" leads to better egg-fry because of less stress on the adult. Hatchery fish don't need to select mates/impress the ladies. They just need good gametes.

These are all factors that we can't/don't measure.

In order to be successful, the hatchery must produce fish that work well in that environment, just the same as the wild fish must meet those criteria. And they are different.

The hatchery did a far better job in the 70's and 80's before tech and all the educated excuses.

Plant more!!!!!!!!!!

Carcassman, you seem to be against change and in favor of keeping the status quo. Yes I would assume that the fish that are the most athletic are going to survive the best in the wild.
Really it does not matter if you raise and release 1,000 inferior fry that cannot even make it out of the river or to year one. I would rather release 100 superior fish if 10 of them make it to adulthood. Selecting for the most athletic is biologically plausible and is similar to why they do all of the tests at the NFL combine.

The fact that Hatchery fish do not need to select mates as one of the biggest problems because it negates any natural selection. Therefore there should be some artificial natural selection based on common sense which seems to be lacking not only in the government but also in your post. The criteria for survival that Hatchery fish must achieve it's not that different from a wild fish. So I would also disagree with you on that point also. Fecundity should not be your only selection criteria.

It is quite obvious that a larger fish was more successful in the wild not only at hunting and catching it's prey but also in the ability to survive and make the correct decisions. Why would you argue against that? That is like arguing against Natural Selection. That is also what Hatchery workers would like to believe because they don't want to do the heavy lifting of reproducing the larger fish and taking the time to determine which ones they are for each year class.

"I assume."

"It is quite obvious."

"common sense."

"Plant more."

"Most athletic"

Some classic stuff in this thread.

You are a brave soul, Carcassman! Keep up the Fisheries Sciences fight for the rest of us! We got your back.





Sadly, this is a very true statement. "their own way" is a nightmare, less than successful (all sides share in equal blame) co-management strategy with stakeholders who are in this for their own interests, economic and political gain.

Science, or the lack of valid science isn't the downfall of our fish. Hatchery and hatchery reform isn't the magic rainbow that is going to save anything.

It's all about politics. One can't science that.

And that my friends, will never change or stop in our state.

Looks like elparquito is too lazy to make a change also and is willing to roll over and accept things the way they are. Blame it on politics or blame it on ocean conditions and watch things get worse and worse without taking responsibility or any action. You sound like an excellent candidate for wdfw. Do you work for them? They are looking for a few fat men like you. Did you happen to suggest a way to make things better in your post? I am sorry if I missed it because it seemed as if you contributed absolutely nothing.

Wow. You should have waited one more minute before posting and smoked a big fatty. You are one of the more mentally challenged folks to blast insults here when you have nothing intelligent to add to a discourse. Why don't you get your head out of your own butt and smell the world for what it is? There are a LOT of issues affecting salmon and steelhead runs besides the obvious targets you rail against. But you put it on a few guys on a fishing forum? It's easy to insult people online you have never met, perhaps you should go to a meeting or two and introduce yourself by your "handle". That would be fun. Keyboard jerk offs never do that. Why has it taken so long to come back? It's funny that You have just posted a private message to me for "insulting "you 9 months ago while I am responding to your rant!! Ears burning? Do you even have ears? You obviously have no brains between them! Bob R

Well then, what have you personally done to take responsibility and action?

Typing some words on the internet isn't really action and contribution.

Show us how you've lead the way in real life. Demonstrate or STFU.

The track record of hatcheries that did intensive selection on few traits such as size, age at maturity, and so on have gone down in flames. The most egregious was Doc Donaldon's super trout. Selected for fast growth, high fecundity, etc. One year they picked live eggs out of the trays rather than dead because inbreeding caught up big time.

The hatchery spawns what the managers let get through. The harvest rates are 90+%. Kinda narrows the gene pool.

In my experience, the long-term successful hatchery programs have been those that spawn and release large numbers of juveniles. The smaller the program the more problems.

The idea that "plant more" is really getting tested in the N Pacific as AK is pushing, I believe, mega millions of not billions of pink out. There are lots of correlations showing that more pinks give you less zooplankton, Chinook, sockeye, coho, SRKWs, and shearwaters (and probably other seabirds). More is not always the answer.

Bob r I have a life and don't visit this site very often. I responded to your PM to me telling me not to insult people and I pointed out that you are a hypocrite. Apparently you had a hard time with that. Feel free to post the PMs.

Carcass, the track record of a few of the tribal hatcheries speak for themselves with regards to salmon and steelhead. Those trout that you speak of are less relevant and cannot be applied as well to salmon and steelhead.
Inbreeding is a good point and a definite concern. I believe that it could be minimized by working towards more genetic testing and mating across year classes. Evaluating scale samples could also help with this.
Even if they did 80 to 85 percent of mating in this fashion it should move the needle towards some natural selection instead of the reverse selection with the random mating that we have now.
Not sure I understand your comment about the successful hatcheries spawning and releasing a large number of juveniles? Are you talking about spawning a large number of jacks? If so, could you provide a few examples?

Planting more it's not really defined here. I would say that each river should be planted up to the carrying capacity of each specific River.

I'll re-ask the question that you failed to answer above, what do YOU do to change the dynamic of what is going on? Nothing if you only run your mouth on line. As far as insults and being a hypocrite I never said I don't insult people on line. I just say you are a gutless wonder for not going to meetings and then throwing insults at people you don't agree with on line. It's easy when you don't have to look them in the eye. I try only to use insults in retaliation or when other folks are expressing their opinion and someone like you doesn't like their answer and starts to get all snotty like a school -yard jerk-off. Get some volume of meaningful posts like the people you run down first. I can't hold a candle to the collective knowledge of the posters you choose to insult. You should post on the dark side, you'll fit right in. Bob R

The V=Chambers Creek steelhead, when one delves deeply into how the program was actually run, reflected intense inbreeding and is likely one of the reasons for its collapse in Chambers.

Obviously, there are well run operations, and poorly run ones. I tend to hark back to Lloyd Royal's view that the river carrying capacity is relatively meaningless as far as hatchery production is concerned. The capacity of concern is the estuary and the ocean, and it seems to be getting exceeded.

I think hatcheries should serve one primary purpose, and that is to produce fish as mitigation (only). As such, they should be located as near to the fishery to be mitigated as possible. I also think that mitigation has to include escapement, and that the spawners upstream of a dam need to be replaced as much as the catch downstream.

I don't think that "enhancement", where more fish are produced than would have naturally, is a evil and destructive practice for the ecosystem.

And, to piggyback on some of the comments to this thread, I put my name on these ideas and put them out in the fisheries literature and at fisheries meetings.

Bob R, did you contribute something to this topic? Because if you did I missed it.

Carcass, the Chambers Creek steelhead were never naturally selected. They are probably one of the better examples of inbreeding. Natural selection avoids the negative effects of inbreeding.

Obviously carrying capacity of a river includes it's estuary but I would disagree that it includes the entire ocean. Protected Birds, seals, and sea lions eat many of the fish that would count towards the carrying capacity. Again the government has interfered with natural selection here by protecting them.

Your definition of mitigation seems to be limited to dams only. Mitigation should include but not be limited to all environmental and human factors (including the significant increase in commercial catch rates). Runs that were present in the 70s were far more abundant then the ones present today. Hatchery plants should mitigate the loss have those fish also but my suggestion is not to just plant more genetically inferior fish but to work our way towards a more efficient system where we get a higher percentage of fish survival and adults returning. It really is common sense and a no-brainer as it would save money in the long-term with feed cost and staff cost along with utilities and Facilities.
Usually when people have nothing to contribute and no further argument they want to fight physically, issue insults, or intimidate. I do the same ad you do in putting my name on it in writing to the wdfw. I find that the greatest opposition to change is uneducated folks like Bob r, El poquito, and nick.

Incidentally I don't believe that you responded to the question about a hatchery successfully spawning juveniles.

If the fish are sexually mature they should be used in a manner commensurate with their presence on the wild spawning grounds. We don't know enough to understand how the jacks, resident steelhead, etc. contribute to the run but they do.

One of the major surprises during my career was that anadromous and resident my kiss are the same fish. I am pretty sure that I handled a few wild steelhead smolts that had spawned before smolting.

To be clear, I was speaking about putting my name on professional papers/talks/books/etc. WDFW will simply ignore me.

I agree that hatcheries should mitigate for documented loss due to habitat destruction. I do not consider increased fishing effort/catch to be something to mitigate for. You fish for what the ecosystem can produce if you are using the open ocean. And, capacity has to include the ocean because if food decreases, sedation increases then you get less back.

Here's the full spring/summer CR forecast document released yesterday...



Buffered upriver springer run-size puts us at 57.1K

57.1K puts the NON-treaty impact allocation at 1.50% for season-setting.

Commercials get 20% and sports get 80%.... leaving a rec impact allocation of 1.2%.

1.2% impact leveraged against a 10% release mortality says we will be able to handle 12% of the run to stay within the impact cap... well at least til the runsize update.

57.1K (0.12) = 6852 total handle available for the 2020 mainstem CR springer season.

Those ~6800 will then be split 75:25 between the below Bonne vs above Bonne contingent.

Set your expectations accordingly.

Solid info eyefish. Very informative. Thank you.

Yes, thanks for the info. I'm already tying flies for spring trout East of the mountains. Had a blast last year in MT. Maybe Canada trout this year. One common denominator is that my $$ are going elsewhere. Feel for the lower C communities that are missing out on those $$ 2 yrs in a row. The only exercise my boat is gonna get again this year is PS crab and short PS Chinook opener, and maybe some coho. Hopefully the PDO will change and the Blob will disappear for a full cycle to bounce things back. Crossing my fingers.

Just in case WDFW doesn't read Piscatorial Pursuits every day, I'm copying down all the suggestions to improve hatchery practices and sending it to them. That way they can start implementing them with the next arrival of hatchery broodstock. Better results are only a couple years out!

I know you are being sarcastic Salmo but I have already done that. It will take more than a couple of years/ generations to undo what WDFW had done to the genetics.

Hanker, wrong again. Salmo G has not worked for WDFW.

To be fair, the issue of hatchery reform has been an on-going discussion for the past 25+ years. The Hatchery Science Review Group (HSRG) came up with some ideas. They recommended that hatchery management should be based the following principles: 1) setting clear goals; 2) scientific defensibility; and 3) monitoring, evaluation and adaptive management.

https://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/research/divisions/efs/hatchery/review.cfm

However, there is always lots of disagreement among those items. For example, what should the hatchery goals actually be? Maximize returns to the river? Maximize returns to the fishery? Minimize interactions with wild fish? Supplement wild fish spawning? Meet ESA recovery goals? Jump start extirpated stocks? Should the programs be integrated or segregated? Should they mitigate for hydropower and lost habitat, or just enhance fishing?

Reasonable people can disagree on the answers to those questions. So there is plenty of room for discussion and debate on this BB. What we must avoid is throwing insults to the folks contributing to this thread. We’re all frustrated with the run-size estimates but throwing insults at your fellow anglers on this BB doesn’t help anyone.

I would note that the low returns for the Columbia Basin hatcheries are not confined to those run by WDFW. Oregon, Idaho, and the Tribes are all suffering from low run-size estimates for 2020. So if you want to make the case that all hatcheries are bad and all of them are run poorly, go ahead. And while you’re at it, you can join the Native Fish Society. They’d love to have you as a member.

Hatcheries are not a perfect solution to anything. They can always be run better. The staff doesn’t always have control over the factors that influence their mission (e.g., water temperatures, disease outbreaks, adult returns). So it is not appropriate to evaluate a hatchery based on factors that can’t be controlled by the people being evaluated. For example, if there aren’t enough adults returning to the hatchery for broodstock because they were all caught off the BC coast, you can’t blame the on-site hatchery manager and the staff. It ain’t their fault that anglers in the Columbia River are getting low-holed by the commercial fishermen in BC.

Based on the information I have seen, the problem for lower-48, and much of BC, is occurring in the Gulf of Alaska. We damn well have pretty good idea of the proximal cause but that is probably a reflection of overall N Pacific conditions.

The ocean is having huge problems in productivity for salmonids and is likely based in problems with the food chain. Whether or not the food chain problems are human(fishery) driven, human (climate) driven, or a combination remains to be seen but it must be looked into now.

What hasn't been mentioned here, or I missed it, is what has happened to the Big C wild stocks. Unless they are performing significantly better than their hatchery cousins, the problem is not how the hatcheries are being run.

I do not work for WDFW and and I am not fat. I am not lazy and I'm very fit. I know many very capable scientists that do work for the WDFW, and NOAA and get the unique opportunity to talk/discuss/speak with them on a daily basis.

I also had the great opportunity to bend the ear of a WDFW Commissioner on a weekly basis during his tenure there. We are still great friends today. He listened to what I had to say (as an educated voice for recreational fisheries) and acted on that.

Anyone who has half a working brain cell left in their head knows that 99.9999999% of anything that is possibly useful in the management of our fisheries is done behind the scenes, behind closed door, and not out here in the open on this board.

Believe it or not, Arm Chair Internet Non-Educated Fisheries Experts are generally really not listened too.

The guys like Salmo, Curt, Cohoangler, and Carcassman are the folks we should be listening too.....

There are quite a few highly educated "lurkers" here that really should step up and tell us all what morons we truly all are, but they refuse too. Can't really say I blame them.

Sorry your feelings are hurt.

But hey, preach away. I'm sure someone is listening.

Mr. Parker - Thanks for the thanks. I appreciate it. However, we should add Fish Doc to that list. Even though he's just an eye doc from Aberdeen, his insight and contributions are certainly better than mine.

I have found over the years that even explaining the simplest and lowest hanging fruit about fish and fisheries management is a lost cause on the interwebz...though I appreciate that some continue to do it, sooner or later someone may learn a thing or two.

Fish on...

Todd

Agreed. Doc is one of the good guys.

Sorry Doc.

I whole heartedly agree with your statement as some one who has been reading this forum and lurking since 1997, the aforementioned names plus some more I have really enjoyed learning a lot from...there are other greats in here on other levels but when it comes to policy your point is spot on.

Been really surprised at what I have seen on this board lately...like some people forgot things they said from 5 to 15 years ago, or those who weren't here and just come to naysay, it's just more work to wade thru the trolling and bullsh!t nowadays to keep with the real topics at hand.
Used to have a lot of great threads on here relating to policy, futures and data collection with some good jabs and good hearted light moods. I see more defaming attitudes lately, potshots and general childishness. Says a lot about even the super old school forums nowadays.

Hey, I resemble that remark! LOL. They call it old age!

Maybe I didn't qualify for 'old age' 5-15 years ago, but I do now!

You are 100% correct.

Today's world is overcrowded and has zero accountability.

Shut down the ocean harvest and plant fish.

If Canada gets in the way..............Cut their foot off in the shoe.

This is like an old boys forum where people follow blindly and are not open to change. I have yet to hear someone say that generating some natural selection in the hatcheries would be a bad thing.

Let me see if I can post some graphs demonstrating Hatchery returns being worse than native returns. Its limitation is that the native numbers are small so there is more room for error but it definitely shows the trend. The only one that it does not show it for is fall Chinook.

TPU Hatchery and Natural origin returns vs 10 yr average

[img]https://www.mytpu.org/wp-content/uploads/12-13-2019-Weekly-Graphs.pdf[/img]

Sorry having trouble uploading an image. It only gives me the option of a url

I'm pretty sure that for the Cowlitz River, "natural origin" = unclipped hatchery origin fish.

First off, hatcheries are full of natural selection. That is how they get to be different from wild fish; they adapt to the hatchery environment.

Hatcheries chief benefit is that they produce more adult fish per unit of water than the wild. To produce "wild-like" fish in a hatchery will reduce the productivity, giving less fish. If you want to produce wild-like fish to restore a population, then there isn't a real worry about overall return. Just get back "more" than nature, especially degrade nature.

Selection of spawners will always be unnatural because the fish will be allowed to choose mates. You can argue that big to big, age to age, etc. is better than totally random but there is now way to now if that is what actually occurs in nature.

Incubtion in gravel produces bigger fry. To incubate hatchery fish in gravel you have to use more water and space. So, you can do it, just not as efficiently and water is the single most difficult piece to obtain.

Some species, like steelhead, rear in riffles and at lower densities as they set up territories. To accomplish this means you don't use ponds and lower density. Many species feed benthically or at least in the water column so surface feeding selects for different characteristics.

The list goes on. We can certainly do better, but each incremental "improvement" in culture comes at a production cost.

I am more of the opinion that we need to separate hatchery and wild. Mixed programs (integrated stocks) merely reduce the productive capabilities of both populations.

It's interesting that we talk about the genetic damage done by hatcheries. How damaging is, for example, having a few hundred "wild" salmon in a population or 20,000 hatchery spawners? What is the inbreeding coefficient for 200 vs. 20K?

At the bottom of it, the fish are different and produced for different purposes.

Carcassman posted, "I am more of the opinion that we need to separate hatchery and wild. Mixed programs (integrated stocks) merely reduce the productive capabilities of both populations."

Yes! I think the only sound case for integrated hatchery programs are those where the hatchery effort is directed at recovering a wild population.

I agree.

But then there is the curious case of the Snake River fall Chinook…..

In the 2008 U.S. v Oregon Agreement, the Tribes were able to secure a provision to stock ESA listed Fall Chinook in the Snake River by the millions. Every year. The result was huge numbers of adults returned to the Lower Snake River over the past 10 years. Lots of fish. This program was intended to mitigate for the Lower Snake Dams, but it also had the effect of supplementing harvest (tribal, recreational, commercial) and helping with ESA recovery (abundance, not productivity or diversity).

In the recent past, the numbers of adults on the spawning grounds above Lower Granite pool has greatly exceeded the amount needed for recovery. And these are wild adults. They are likely direct descendants from the previous generation, which were all hatchery origin. But they’re wild fish nonetheless.

At some point, it’s not hard to ask whether we have achieved ESA recovery when the numbers of returning wild adults greatly exceed what’s in the recovery plan. NMFS would say that recovery means recovery in the wild (i.e., without hatchery influence). So to reach ESA recovery, the stock needs to be self –sustaining. That is, it must be able to persist without continued stocking. The Tribes immediate response is that we can’t stop stocking since the purpose of the program is to mitigate for the dams. And as long as the dams are standing, stocking will continue. They have a point.

So now we have a fully integrated stock that puts huge numbers of wild adults on the spawning grounds with no hope of recovery, regardless of their abundance. The bottom line is that these fish will be ESA-listed regardless of how many wild adults return to the spawning grounds. Presumably, we could achieve historical abundance on the spawning grounds (millions), and still not achieve ESA recovery.

So if we are going to use hatchery fish to help recover an ESA listed population, at some point we gotta stop stocking, and see what happens. But in some cases, I’m not sure that ‘stopping stocking’ is even possible.

Why has the Snake fall Chinook program been successful but we can't seem to replicate it elsewhere? Honest question.

I can provide some ideas on why the SRFC Program has been reasonably successful, but I can’t compare it to programs that haven’t been.

Here goes:

The habitat in the Lower Snake has improved considerably. The huge flow fluctuations from Hells Canyon have been moderated so that the habitat isn’t flooded and dewatered on a daily/hourly basis.

Dworshak Dam is being used more to reduce temperatures in the Lower Snake to help out-migrating juveniles in the summer, and upstream migrating adults in the fall.

Perhaps most importantly, the spill program in the Lower Snake dams and the mainstem Columbia projects is a huge benefit to juvenile subyearling fall Chinook. So their survival through the hydropower system has improved considerably.

To some degree, these fish are less susceptible to harvest. The returning hatchery adults are clipped but if those adults spawn in the Lower Granite pool, and they do in large numbers, their progeny are not clipped (duh) since they are not hatchery origin. Unclipped fish are not subject to recreational angling in the Columbia River, although they remain subject to commercial fishing in the Lower Columbia, tribal fishing above BON, and harvest in the ocean.

And to a large extent, for this specific stock, it appears to be a 'numbers game'. That is, if you stock more hatchery fish, you get more adults back, those excess adults are allowed access to the spawning grounds, they appear to be spawning successfully, and the resulting recruits also return as adults. Not every population responds this way. But this one does.

Also, my apologies for hijacking my own thread. This was supposed to be about spring Chinook........

Somehow, I took us off track to Fall Chinook.

If you have ever spent time watching spawning salmon and steelhead in the rivers you would realize that the big bucks almost always win over smaller males. Spawning randomly removes this crucial aspect of natural selection and slows the process down. It has the potential of slowing it down to the point that it has difficulty keeping up or getting ahead of the changing environments. The primary genetic damage that hatcheries do is a result of spawning randomly.

Not sure I understand your sentences. Just get back "more" than nature, especially degrade nature.

Selection of spawners will always be unnatural because the fish will be allowed to choose mates.

Are you also stating that using broodstock native fish for Hatchery production results in a reduction of productivity?

"Almost always" is not always. There are more reasons for successful spawning than size, and humans can't duplicate that. Plus, it is well known that ancillary males successfully participate in spawning. And, of course, resident mykiss produce anadromous young and vice-versa.

Random spawning is certainly not the most natural way to go but any sort of artificial choice is similarly not natural.

The purpose of most hatcheries is to produce fish to harvest and they need to be bred selectively to optimize production in that environment. When you try to make hatchery fish "wild" or wild fish "hatchery" you lose productivity. The environments are different and require different adaptations.

In parts of the world, they raise fish in large net pens. Thousands of them. They build walkways around them for people to walk out and “catch” the fish using a rod and reel. It’s famously popular in a lot of places, and the fees combined with the sale of excess fish is profitable.

Perhaps WDFW and the Commissioners should take some very serious consideration to this. After all, it would solve a lot of problems. Commercial fishermen could own the pens and profit from the operations. The Tribes could have all the “real” fish. And sportsmen could have as much fish to catch as they want.

After all, isn’t catching fish and saving salmon the real goal after all?

I’m sure with current management practices, were all headed to fishing planter trout...why not net pen salmon and steelhead?

Hmm. High fence hunting....

Lowland lakes, prior to the problems with using rotenone, was essentially this. A created fishery designed to sell licenses. Or, high lake trout. Plant, grow, take.

Georgia has what they call delayed harvest trout fisheries. Plant fish in streams in the fall and have a C&R fishery through mid-May, I think. Then, C&K before the water gets too warm for the fish to live. I can tell you that by November, those trout (planted) are not dumb enough for me to catch.

I’m sure with current management practices, were all headed to fishing planter trout...why not net pen salmon and steelhead?

[/quote]

Already exists over on the East side. Done that many times and it's a hoot on a 5wt.

I suspect that private landowners will create hunting and fishing opportunities. It will be a crop. Lots of areas are now "private-fee" and this will probably expand.

At one time, WDFW had lots of access to lakes, launches in both fresh and salt, and so on that were well maintained and popular. They also had a program, I think there were iterations in the 50s/60s and then 70s/80s that got access to walk rivers for steelhead. They used to work with landowners for access.

Seems so strange to me that the general consensus is that salmon and steelhead are going away along with our opportunities but no one is willing to change.
Random spawning is much worse than selective spawning if selective spawning is done correctly. Your stubborn attitude to continue on the same path and not admit wrong prevents things from getting better. Are you sure that you do not work for WDFW?
The other change that I advocate for is nutrient enhancement with dead hatchery carcasses. To decrease cost I would suggest spawning the males and then releasing them back into the river ALIVE (and as late as possible to minimize any interactions with native fish) after milking them out.
Productivity is different than efficiency.

We have had since the 90s, under ESA, to restore salmon, steelhead, and SRKWs. Lot of progress has been made. Yeah.

We know that the SRKWs are starving and what do we do? Move boats away sio they can die in silence.

Putting the hatchery carcasses out os a great idea. We should be targeting 1.5 to 2.0 kg/sq metre anadromous zone. Try the math on that one. Back in the 90s, WDF was putting 100-200K carcasses out, statewide. The S Prairie Creek pinks were doing 2-400K themselves. Carcasses help but the nutrient deficit is so bad that it will be hard to show benefits.