Thousands of Washington State recreational fishermen are joining in a temporary boycott of fishing license sales. "With yet another North of Falcon, with its public prohibition on transparency, it only makes sense to delay any license purchase until after the public gets to see what deals WDFW were coerced to accept in order to get any fishing for recreational fishermen."

With fishing shut down, why not delay any purchase until after the List of Agreed fisheries is public? By withholding the influx of early license sales revenue, we might send a message for better transparency and equality in our fisheries management.

Licence Boycott

Open North of Falcon: License Boycott

Given how iffy and variable seasons seem to be now and how, personally, time to go out varies with trips and such I don't see buying either a hunting or fishing license until I am sure that I will be going.

The days when "I know" that I'll be able to do that hunt or pursue that fishery are gone.

I’ll put my puny shoulder to the wheel, and buy a Canadian license instead.

[quote=Bay wolf]Thousands of Washington State recreational fishermen are joining in a temporary boycott of fishing license sales.

Licence Boycott
How can "thousands" of Wa. fishermen be boycotting something that is not being sold? And how many tens of thousands will buy them as soon as we are able to buy licenses and go fishing?

I will be waiting to see if there are any fisheries that I want to take part in. Like the Stillaguamish being open for cutthroat trout fishing this summer. If I knew they were going to open the Skagit C&R fishery I would definitely buy my license.

Go for it. They closed more than WA the last few years so if you think it’ll be better up there this year good luck.

who needs a license?

I agree, I might get a shellfish license. I'll head to Oregon for smallmouth (maybe?), and later to B.C. this summer for a quality trip in the saltwater. I really don't feel guilty about catching our fish up there since our spineless politicians won't do a hard negotiation to get them back to our waters.

Baywolf,

Fabulous letter to the editor in THE REEL NEWS this month. Points our problems that few know about. Don't give up the ship!

I think the director is being a bit optimistic in the article. When this virus thing ends ( and it will ) the loss of state revenue now and for several years to come as things recover is going to be monumental. I really doubt that WDFW's current manner of operating will survive as it is not going to be a priority agency. Just sayin.

The WDFW money grab, needs to be shut off. WDFW fat cats need to take a salary reduction until the States fish and wild life are up to the standards of years past. Its absolutely crazy to have the "chopped up fishing seasons" and WDFW continue to operate with a full budget......and then want more........grrrrrrrrrr

You old guys act like there is no fishing left. Get over it things change. Your license is still the cheapest part of fishing.

Deerlick,

Sure, we older anglers know there is still a lot of fishing opportunity left. However, compared to what was available not so very long ago, it does amount to practically no fishing opportunity. These days we think it's a big deal if Grays Harbor gets a coho return of 30,000. But 35 years ago the average return was closer to 300,000. That's kind of a significant difference, ya' know?

Sg

You young guys act like losing opportunities, harvest and time on the water is no big deal. As long as you get to fish somewhere for something, sometime.

Believe me, in a few years you too will be pissed because the little fishing you used to enjoy has all but disappeared too.

I hope when the young guys tell you, Hey you don't deserve to fish, because you didn't do anything to help, GET OVER IT, you'll understand what was lost.

Salmo, not only that the SS coho used to top a million ITSELF, Bellingham Bay had over 100,000 Chinook too. The rec catch out of Westport was in the neighborhood of 750,000 coho. Nah, we haven't lost much.

I have not yet purchased my new license.

I was all set, couple of friends purchased the shellfish only two weeks ago. denied!

I will wait until just before, If I buy in at all this year.

We didn't lose anything, we destroyed it. Pollution and plastic in the marine waters, habitat destruction in the fresh water ecosystems, and climate change everywhere. WDFW didn't do this, all of society did and buying or not buying a license will not change it.

I know there are other fisheries.....my problem is Age, 79, and bad knees.....I'd love to be able to walk in a few miles and fish in a quiet area.

I always get a kick out of public meetings......younger generation people throw up ideas on, "no boats in certain areas" or want "drift boats only".....I loved it when I was younger, 50 years ago, very few drift boats on any of the rivers in Grays Harbor and very few sleds.......I did the walk bit, then the drift boat, now jet boat......oh, I still drive to certain areas, and carefully walk down the bank.....then pray, not many others there.....and now its hope there isn't a drift boat or two......

You'll all be there some day, age wise----as Salmo g., Carcassman, WN1A, Slabhunter, and many others know.......best future fishing seasons really will be nothing compared to the "old days"

I'd pay thousands more for a license....if I could take 50 - 60 years off my age..

WN1A it appears that age has not effected your clarity of thought thank you for your input that’s spot on. Why so many continually put the blame on fisheries management or specific user groups is beyond me. I’ll still be buying my license as usual and enjoying any opportunity available.

x many tens of thousands.

Fish on...

Todd

Well now do not disagree with many of the thoughts in the thread except the willingness to not look at the complete picture. Just about all of what is written is true but I will add this bit. In 2020 the Grays Harbor Wild Chinook run forecast at the bar is 11144 and allowable harvestable impacts to meet escapement are 1391. I realize this sounds bad and it is but let me add this little gem. Off the option two PFMC ocean model 7719 wild Grays Harbor Chinook will be taken in AK & BC with the addition of our marine the number of ocean caught wild Chinook is forecast at 8004. Oh and Washington state AGREED to this.

That habitat has been degraded is an absolute and to ignore that fact is absurd but to totally ignore the impacts of harvest is just as great absurdity. Look at the Grays Harbor numbers and get this. Your bloody Puget Sound stocks that are collapsing are suffering the same massive harvest impacts in the ocean. The willingness of some folks to only view the world through the PC environmental world and deny the other half the equation is not short sided but rather allowing themselves to be blinded by their own prejudices.

Off the soap box but it needed to be said.

I think those things are all coexistant...yes, we are way overharvesting in SEAK with regard to our local Chinook.

That being said, the pie that they are taking too big of a piece of isn't a pie, it isn't even a piece of pie...it's the tiniest of crumbs of the tiniest piece of the crust of the tiniest pie in the world.

We are fighting over almost no fish because we have destroyed the other 99.9% of them.

I'm not saying that divvying up that .1% isn't worthwhile, because it is, but it's still everyone fighting over almost no fish compared to what we've actually lost.

Fish on...

Todd

AGREED!

http://www.piscatorialpursuits.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/997319.html#Post997319

http://www.piscatorialpursuits.com/forum...html#Post877033

I dont bank fish or do any hike in fishing, which there is alot of, i have a large sled and small sled a fish all different species of fish and never have a shortage of places to go or fish to catch. Try something new for once you might be surprised at whats out there. Lets just get past this closure and get back to fishing.

Now that is somewhat of an odd response. In very simple terms for Grays Harbor the fundamental change has been the hatchery reductions . Depending on the point in time you choose to use Grays Harbor has about 100k to 130k less hatchery Coho each year than in the past. The decline was over about 20 years give or take.

Now with Chinook it is about Boldt and the tribal share removing about 50% terminal which was a big change. Then came the AK and BC ramp up post Boldt in the marine and pretty much did things under not just for NT but also the tribes.

So if you have the means , skill, time ( which it appears you do DL ) and do not mind traveling you can find fish. Now if you a working stiff with family & job limiting your access to the water it is another thing. So yes we have fishing but the quantity and quality have been so degraded that they do not resemble anything available 15 years ago let alone 20 or 30.

It really depends on the fishery we're talking about.

For some its habitat, some its over fishing, some its mismanagement of existing opportunity. For many its all of the above.

Prime examples of pure gross mismanagement include:

Willapa Chinook
Lake Washington spiny rays
Lowland trout
W. Wa. Hatchery Steelhead
Lake Wa Sockeye
Searun Cutthroat

There are many others, but many of those involve a complex mixture of habitat issues and overfishing

WDFW has earned this license boycott based on their ineptitude and embrace of the status quo in the face of obvious management crisis.

Placing blame on coronavirus aside, it will likely eventualy cost the current director his job. . .

No argument but this. Willapa Chinook are an odd one. Other than maybe some remnants numbers the native Willapa Chinook where pretty much gone by the start of the depression and for sure by the late 1930's. The Willapa estuary was never a Chinook region but rather Coho and a massive Chum producer. What natural Chinook that remain are the descendants of large scale hatchery straying of a true mix of about everything genetics. So it becomes a philosophical argument as to just what a Chinook spawning in the gravel is. It takes about five generations minus human interference for a population such as the Willapa Chinook to begin to evolve with site specific genetics, which is 50 years in this case. Human intervention includes habitat and harvest which includes marine. We as a people have working on the habitat problem since the 1970's with modest success. Harvest on the other hand is just the opposite as the emergence of massive marine harvest has negated any gains from habitat reform and actually accelerated the Chinook decline. Pick your poison.

Take any year you like, with any combination of prior escapements, redd scour, and quality of ocean conditions you like; it's how many fish get harvested off SE AK, BC, and then our own coast that determines what we'll have to fish for each year in our local streams. Management does their damnedest to ensure that number is as close to the same as possible, every single year. If they hit their ocean harvest goals every year, the in-river fishing would be like what we see in a slow year every year. Let that sink in for a second. If WDFW were capable of planning fisheries perfectly, every year would be slow for in-river fisheries. BY DESIGN.

Habitat absolutely limits the number of fish that can potentially be produced (if we forget hatcheries for a minute, though, to Rivrguy's point, they are another factor in today's reality). Until such time as production can no longer support harvest, fisheries management is what will determine how many salmon we get back each year. This is where NMFS and WDFW are absolutely accountable for the current state of our (in-state) fisheries.

At least until we reach the point of no return, habitat dictates abundance; harvest management dictates what survives to spawn.

As regards boycots, I can blow as much smoke as I want to; I'm still going to fish if there's an opportunity. I've resigned myself to the fact that these are the good old days, so I'd better just keep fishing. Ghost fish are even harder to catch from the couch....

Low land trout, Searun cutts and Lake WA spiny rays? How are they mismanaged? WDFW puts thousands of trout in the lakes. Searun cutts have been catch and release (in the salt) for many many years. Great fishing. Lake WA spiny rays fishing is great. Some of the best smallmouth bass and yellow perch fishing anywhere.

I’m also interested in the mismanagement of searun cutts.

The one thing I can think of is why have no retention in the salt then allow them to get harvested once they hit freshwater.
That never made any sense to me.
SF

Lowland trout that rival endangered Cowlitz smelt for taste and texture, cutthroats you can't keep, and Lake Washington spiny rays you're advised not to eat. Musta been oversight that caused you to leave out Lake Washington's peamouth chubs and northern pikeminnows.

Comparing the past with the present, we "oldtimers" had Marilyn Monroe, today's "young 'uns" have Marilyn Manson. But, "Don't worry; Be happy!"

I'm talking about mismanagement of opportunity in defiance of all logic.

For instance lowland trout is the premier fishery supporting WDFW budget. It definitely pays most of the bills for the dept in terms of license sales. Take a look at the plant trend on that program. Stupid management.

Also WDFW closes things for no good reason for the sake of salmon management.
For example how does searun cut closure, or lake wa closure, protect salmon? It doesn't. However spiny ray fisheries and searun cut fisheries get closed routinely to protect salmon. Never mind the lack of measurable impact. Why should other fisheries be shut to protect salmon. Close salmon fishing and be done. Again, stupid management.

Steelhead management. More than enough said on that on this board. Google hatchery steelhead and you can spend the rest of the corona shutdown reading. My contention is this is bad managment.

Sockeye? Scientifically unsupported escapment goal is maybe between 5-10 fold higher than reality. WDFW cannot see the writing on the wall here. Maybe the tibes are driving this one but whoever is driving, its not good managment.

Willapa bay is the king of stupid managment by WDFW and they own it all on this one. They've taken a fully integrated hatchery chinook population and tried manage it for wild Chinook recovery on a stream system that has no real chinook habitat. On top of that they've instituted a C&R gillnet fishery and eliminated the best performing hatchery in the complex for the sake of non-existent wild chinook. Stupid is as stupid does.

I agree that lowland trout is a major fishery supporting the WDFW budget. WDFW puts a lot of effort into it because , yes it is a money maker, and WDFW does not have to deal with the tribes demanding their share as with salmon and steelhead. A no brainer for WDFW.
A major reason that searun cutt retention is not allowed in the salt is because whenever the WDFW has had a meeting to consider retention of cutts in saltwater, the only rec anglers who show up are flyfishermen who want to keep it at catch and release. I argued for many years with a friend of mine who is an avid flyfisherman of searun cutts who wanted to keep it catch release. I argued with him for retention. He had plenty of 20-50 cutt days in the salt in the South Sound. Most of the rivers and streams allow for the retention of 2 trout/day over 14 inches (cutts included). The Cowlitz has had a cutthroat planting program for many years. You are allowed 5 hatchery cutthroat/day.
We all know that WDFW wants to get out of the steelhead business altogether.

Geoduck, thanks for the expanded explanation. I'm still not understanding the mismanagement issue regarding lowland lake trout. My understanding is that the Dept. switched from planting fingerling releases with some opening day legals to all legal and larger sized trout due to intense cormorant predation on fingerling plants.

You're dead on accurate with the rest of them based on what I know. However, the reason for closing game fish seasons on Lk WA, the Stilly, and others has nothing to do with gamefish species management and everything to do with treaty tribal demands on the Dept. If WDFW doesn't cave to those demands, they don't get to piggyback the tribal permit for PS fisheries.

And the Willapa Bay debacle is wholly owned by WDFW. As an outsider looking in, it appears that the goal was to screw over every possible interest. In which case it's been a smashing success.

While the cormorants do eat trout, the primary reason for going to legals instead of fingerlings was spiny-rays. WDFW lost the ability to rehab lakes as they had in the past. Having competitive species in the lake gets the fingerlings eaten. Also, as I said while the corms eat trout, they tend to be on the lakes with spiny rays and then switch to easier to swallow fish when they get stocked.

I know that at least some of WDFW area bios worked really hard to get good lowland lake fisheries and put a lot of effort into what to stock and when. This is probably not an agency wide view, but some were/are working hard at it.

As to searuns, you could have a harvest in salt with about a 16" minimum as this is the size that allows all the fish to spawn once. Because of the two groups of cutts (early-primarily river and late-primarily creek) you need to protect the creek fish in salt as they are spawners to 16". The river fish, since they enter earlier, spawn successfully with a 14" minimum.
It should be noted that about the only anadromous salmonids in WA that have shown strong recovery are the cutts and char. And we don't kill them. Even with the **cked up fw and marine habitat, they increase when we don't kill them.

It's not, to my knowledge, WDFW's fault that Lake WA spiny rays accumulate toxins. That's DOE's bailiwick; talk to them.

FYI - As of yesterday ID is closing to nonresidents for fishing/hunting:

https://idfg.idaho.gov/press/nonresident...d-fg-commission

WDFW does allow harvest of char on a couple systems, which I don’t agree with.
SF

What he said. While I'm certainly not happy with the NOF process, I think WDFW gets WAY too much blame for the state of fishing in our state. 70-80% of our WA bound fish don't make it past Vancouver Island. Not buying a WA fishing license will have little impact on that and in fact may make things worse. Of all the things I spend money on, my fishing license is small potatoes. I spend way more than that in fuel, bait, gear, travel, etc. And even with the severely limited fisheries we have had, I still enjoy myself and catch plenty for the freezer.

Not buying a license isn't about saving money, it is about trying to send a message. I gladly spend over $300 a year on licenses and drive almost 2,000 miles to fish for steelhead in BC. I get more value out of one trip to BC than I do out of an entire year in Washington. My problem is WDFW doesn't keep fisheries open that should be.

I live 5 minutes from the Stilly and can't even go cutthroat fishing after work in the summer. Why? To protect chinook? Yet they leave the Tulalip Bubble open to keep 2 wild chinook. Clip all the bubble fish and close it for wild chinook retention you morons! Keep the Stilly open for trout and steelhead fishing like it should already be. Then there is the Skagit C&R season.

In the end I will buy a license when it opens because my nephews ask me to go fishing. Spending time with them is far more important to me than giving WDFW the finger. Karma is always out there though just waiting for her opportunity...

Looks like no winter blackmouth season.

https://wdfw.wa.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/2020-21-chinook-coho-models-summary-040820.pdf

So we have gone from having opportunity 11 months out of the year in Puget Sound to being offered only 2.5-3 months in the key areas. And what measurable impact has this had on restoring our fisheries? Please someone show me how this is saving salmon.

Just. F*cking. Wow.

They've been gunning for our blackmouth seasons now for years.

This state is an absolute f*cking mismanaged joke.

And yet..only two stakeholders besides myself even bothered to speak to the Commission this morning about the issues in our fisheries.

I get it, people are tired of me “beating my drum” about the importance of transparency in the harvest decisions.

I also understand the thousands of stakeholders who have just plain given up. Resolved to let those who have the power, continue to take advantage. After all...nothing is gonna change.

What amazes me is how surprised fishermen still are at the end of the North of Falcon, where the secret deals are made, and the NWIFC coerces WDFW to accept reductions under threat. Really? Does anyone really think that all of a sudden they are going to be fair.

Insanity...

Stilliguamish chinook.

Welcome to the new Europe.

At least in Europe you can fish on private property and there are fish there to catch.

The reason for no winter blackmouth in Area 6-10 is Stilliguamish chinook. You can thank the Stilliguamish tribe. Also the reason for short summer chinook seasons.

Show me the science the winter blackmouth is killing off Stilly Chinook. I ain't biting on that crock of bull. Sub yearling encounters are nill in winter, and the majority adult encounters are marked fish. I'd bet my paycheck that over 75% and probably (likely even higher than that) of the "unmarked" fish making it to hand have CWT's in their head.

Enough is enough with the Stilly nonsense, this fish can't even sustain themselves and they're only even still around because of decades of unsuccessful broodstocking. Let it go!

GLU, you can ask the Stilly tribe bios about the science. Their model shows that the rec fishermen are impacting the wild Stilly chinook.Then, if they want to protect the chinook, then why do they clip Stiily chinook? Kind of strange don't you think? Their model shows that in Area 11,where I fish, we catch 7 Stilly chinook per year.

The clipped Stilly fish are coded-wire tagged. Most northern fisheries still only sample clipped fish for tags. These are an exploitation rate indicator stock in pacific salmon treaty fisheries.

If they are coded wire tagged then I can understand that. Sure makes it difficult trying to structure a mixed stock chinook sport fishery in the different marine areas.

Meanwhile, the preponderance of encounters on stillaguamish chinook occur in the mixed stock ocean fisheries. While that is the largest culprit it is the most difficult to tackle. It’s easier to limit recs. on Puget Sound and use this as the excuse to get recreational anglers off the water... the ultimate goal of WDFW and the tribes.

Actually, unless you’re talking about the Canadian ocean fisheries, not many of the Stillaguamish fish are taken outside Puget Sound.

That said, Canada does tend to catch more of them than the US.

It was pretty simple for the co-managers this year. Given the low forecast of Stilly Chinook, exploitation was limited to 8% on unmarked stilly fish and 12% on marked stilly fish as laid out in the Puget sound chinook recovery plan. In the past, the state usually took a higher percentage of the impacts for this stock compared to the co-managers. This year, they demanded they wanted half the impacts which forced the state to make up the difference. Advisors were asked whether summer or fall fisheries were more important and the overall concensus was summer fisheries. So, to meet the co-managers half way at 6%, cuts were made to most all winter fisheries. Unless the Puget Sound Recovery Plan is updated to alter these impacts or if Stilly fish start returning at a higher abundance (1,500+), we aren’t getting blackmouth back.

Amazing how the co-managers were able to use catch of ad-marked fish as the thing that ends winter fishing in Puget sound.

Coercion...works better than persuasion.

Want to get the best deal....make sure you have leverage over the other guy. (Permit process)

Want to steal a mountain....do it a pebble at a time.

Want to take rec fishermen off the water...keep the harvest meetings behind locked doors.

It's not rocket science....hell...it's not even fish management.

(don't trip running out the door to buy that license)

In case it has escaped notice, recovery of Chinook and SRKWs has not worked. They have decreased. There are lots of things to blame but the fact remains that close to 30 years of "recovery" have failed.

Time to change the game. Either show annual demonstrable increases in the populations or write them off.

Really too bad you guys didn’t catch these trends back in the 70s and 80s. Course you didn’t have to worry about natural-origin fish back then, as escapement was just seen as free harvestable production you didn’t have to pay for from the hatcheries and escapement goals were based on whatever made it passed good harvest rates....and the ocean would return whatever you put into it!

Good thing for 20/20 rear view mirrors eh?

In the 70s and 80s there were escapement goals for stocks managed as wild. At least thorough the mid-80s, most PS stocks were at goal or moving towards it. But, there were the hatchery-based systems that blew away the wild stocks. And, Washington's human population has significantly increased since the 70s.

Back in 1562 there were millions of unharvested fish.

We need to work on tomorrow and not be looking back so much.

One of the major reasons that we (Recreational fishermen) are failing is because we are so divided in our efforts.

Heck, PSA is fighting CCA, WFC is fighting hatchery. Hatchery is fighting...well you see.

A house divided falls. Unfortunately, there is too much ego and greed to overcome. The death spiral of the recreational fishermen will continue. Eventually the Federal government will step in a finally mess everything up for the salmon.

So, Stillaguamish Chinook. Imagine that. Again we have a PS Chinook management plan that pretends restricting recreational fishing in PS and in the Stillaguamish River will help save and recover Stilly Chinook. Even though the very best scientific evidence indicates that it won't. Stilly Chinook can't replace themselves even if all fishing everywhere is closed. Stilly Chinook are compromised by their natural habitat. Every informed fisheries person knows this by now. So the state and tribal experts, in their collective myopic wisdom have again selected a plan alternative that won't do a damn thing to improve the future condition of Stilly Chinook.

Just like that silly video WDFW and the Stilly Tribe and others released a few short months ago. Through cooperation and working together we can "make the pie bigger" and recover PS Chinook, including Stilly Chinook. Seriously friends, who among us is so blind they can't see how ludicrous this is? In my short history and experience in the fish business, politicians, state, federal, and tribal managers have been promoting this "make the pie bigger" concept, so that there will be fish for everyone through enhancement and recovery efforts since the mid-1970s. And even so, the pie has shrunk another 80% or more, depending on stock and location. Can anyone really be this blind?

The pie is small. And it ain't going to get bigger. At least not significantly bigger. Therefore, fighting over the last salmon is the natural and logical outcome. But I digress.

If saving Stilly Chinook is important - and I'm not ready to throw in the towel - then why in hell are state and tribal managers not adopting measures that actually will preserve the endangered population? And quit pretending that restricting PS recreational fisheries, and particularly, closing FW gamefishing seasons on the Stilly, has any measurable effect on the outcome. If WDFW and the Stilly Tribe really want to save Stilly Chinook, it is past the time to have begun a captive broodstock program for these fish. Why? Because that is the alternative that circumvents the two factors limiting survival of the population. We know that degradation of the Stilly FW habitat precludes natural production of enough fry and smolt to replace the brood population. And horribly low marine survival rates that are completely beyond anyone's ability to control (except Canadian fishing mortality) mean even the hatchery Stilly Chinook cannot return at a rate high enough to do more than maintain the population on the edge of extinction.

Do the captive broodstock program already! And then, and only then, if that cannot succeed then the prudent alternative would be to write them off. But not before giving it our best effort.

Now I'm going to join the conspiracy theorists for a moment. What if the goal, or desired endpoint, is not saving Stilly or PS Chinook. What if the goal is to continue the slide toward functional extinction - not complete extinction because that is harder to do - of PS Chinook? You know, and use Chinook recovery as a smokescreen while the real intention incrementally moves steadily toward the real endpoint? If so, then it is not an unreasonable conclusion that WDFW and the PS Tribes are diligently working steadily toward that goal. The billions of $$ in recovery spending notwithstanding. OK, that's enough time on that soapbox.

+1 Salmo!

Will just note that the NW Science Opinion article from the early 2000s "Washington Salmon; Extinction is not and option but may be the Preferred Alternative".

The Tribes have worked very hard to get the recs out of the rivers and PS, with WDFW's full support. I tend agree with Salmo that recovery is not really the goal. Recovery would mean de-listing and with that all of the direct controls over activities go away. As long as fish are rare and listed, the Tribes carry a huge hammer over development.

+2 Salmo. One thing you did not mention was whether the current stock assessment and resulting agreements are based upon Stilly Chinook which the tribe reportedly continues to fin clip?

If so, how would ceasing that fin clipping affect the harvest impact?

I will take a shot at this although Salmo will correct me when I go off course or remind me that everybody knows that.

Stilly Chinook have been a long time coded wire tag indicator group for PSC ER assessment. They have been ad clipped and CWT'd since mid 1980's as I recall. Because they are used for fishery assessment, the ad clip coupled with the CWT has been the standard across many stocks and is part of the coastwise CWT sampling programs by a wide range of entities. Originally, samplers just looked for the ad clip and this would indicate that the snout would contain a CWT. With the advent of mass marking and the ease of fin clipping to designate hatchery fish (but not necessarily containing a CWT), sampling became more sophisticated to find those fish containing a CWT. This is where the electronic magnetic wands came into use to identify those fish with a CWT in the snout. The use of the wands have been phased in over time by the coastwide agencies. Washington was the first to use them in all fisheries for sampling both ad clipped and unmarked fish. Alaska used them for marked fish only. BC used them in the troll fisheries. In the Haida GWaii and Vancouver Island lodge sport fisheries ad clipped snouts were place in sampling buckets at the lodges and later picked up by CDFO to separate out the CWT'd snouts from the blanks. So coastwise sampling has kinda been a mixed bag (sorry) but an important part is that ad clipping was still important to distinguish fish that may contain a CWT.

The other key piece about mass marking was the fishery regulation benefits of having mark selective fisheries that allowed for harvesting hatchery fish while letting go the unmarked ("wild"). MSF regulations got the best bang for the buck because of the requirement to release unmarked fish while retaining hatchery fish. Therefore simply by switching from a standard "keep anything" fishery to MSF, the fishery could go longer and have higher harvest for the same number of dead unmarked. This is the standard MSF sales pitch.

Now come to Stilly, because the intent of the program is to get fishery information from as many fisheries as possible, ad clipping is necessary. Unmarked fish and any CWTs aren't kept in MSFs so you don't get any information from these even though you know that they are encountered. So for Stilly, ad clipping the fish allows you to get CWT information in keep-anything and MSF fisheries..which is what is intended. Of course the down side is that the ad clipped fish are harvested at a "hatchery fish" rate and the MSF regulation is no help and in fact aggravates the exploitation situation.

When the comanagers came up with the Stilly ER limits for unmarked and marked in So US. fisheries along with the total ER limit established by NMFS, they seemed to have selected a marked fish ER limit that is more restrictive than even the ESA NMFS limit. The other big downside is that with a more constraining marked fish ER limit, MSFs now become the bad guy and not a regulation that provides more access to harvestable hatchery fish. Hence, winter BM gone.

So going forward, not ad clipping the Stilly fish will diminish the fishery exploitation information from CWTS. But in so doing, Stilly fish would would be released in MSF because they were unmarked.

Let me just add, that there is a lot reluctance in management arenas to depart from long standing operations and data analysis systems. This especially holds true in PSC land. Compromising the CWT fishery information from the Stilly indicator group by not ad clipping would not go down easy.

Hope this helps. Salmo can fill in the missing pieces.


Final comment: This isn't really a PSC problem. Its the comanagers that have imposed a conservation constraint at a low run size that happens to be more restrictive than the ESA limit. And it happens to be on marked fish so MSF regulations make it worse. I can't think of any other instance where a comanagers conservation/recovery objective is more constraining than the ESA limit.

No surprise at all!
Take a look at the posters who get angry about Baywolf posting information!! I think we know who's side they are on..
Lake washington sockeye! Is thier model......
Never let them make escapement...
Put in a hatchery and we will get a fishery....right ... OH NO no fishing by anyone except tribes until we make escapement.... let them fish before the locks so we have to take thier word on how many fish they catch...
And then NEVER let them make ESCAPEMENT! so if they get close to escapement take more fish.....
That way they fish every year and we never fish again.... works for the tribes, works for WDFW, works for state Democrats.... win win win and now the rest of the state to follow the succesful sockeye model that works so great!

Darth -

That is probably as good an explanation of a lousy situation as I have read. Thank you.

While I understand the desire to not mess with data collection procedures (and potentially alter the results) one must also question whether preventing a small ripple in the continuum is worth the overall annual cost with no end in sight (that being recovery of the Stilly Chinook). After all, they could just put a footnote recognizing such a minor procedural alteration.

Frankly, there needs to be a change in the paradigm.

If only I were King for a day.....

"Oh, what a tangled web we weave...."

Thanks Darth,

I'll also point out (as Smalma would likely) that these results are also the price of prioritizing pre-terminal marine sport above all else in the process. If we would let the fish sort themselves out a bit more, impacts to weak stocks would go much further, as far as season length and numbers harvested.

Recreational fisheries should have at least two tiers of structure - one for when the weak stocks are slightly more abundant and fisheries could expand more into the pre-terminal; and a second that focuses on compressing those fisheries to extend terminal and/or "cleaner" pre-terminal areas.

I'd also add that many of these pre-terminal PS fisheries must chew up the lion's share of available total ESA impacts, on these weakest stocks, to even stay open for the limited time they are. This year you see the results of an increased %, relative to the recent past, of Stilly impacts being shifted into the terminal area. Mind you, this likely only amounts to the Stilaguamish fishery getting about 30 Chinook salmon....they got 15ish last year.

There is another reason that I haven't seen mentioned yet for clipping some of the Stilly fish. There is really no other way (that I am aware) to evaluate the impacts of mark selective fisheries (MSF) on specific populations without doing this double index tagging (DIT). In short, some fish are tagged and marked (susceptible to MSF fisheries) and others are tagged and not marked (not susceptible to MSF fisheries). Comparing the harvest (exploitation) rates on the two groups lets you estimate the impact of the fishery. Pretty important to know if you want to keep having these types of fisheries. As discussed above, there can also be a downside, particularly when REALLY important fish are used for DIT rather than using just a hatchery population (thought to represent some real natural population) for the DIT as is done for some PSC indicator stocks (if that is what they are still called).

I am pretty sure that some other stocks are already being evaluated through a surrogate.

To use such an at risk stock with its arguably disproportionate impact on other fisheries in this manner is irresponsible at best.

The stillaguamish hatchery program is small and limited by the number of natural-origin fish they can collect for broodstock. PSC exploitation rate indicator tag groups need to be 200K tags for statistical robustness. That means just about the whole program is tagged and because of the prior mentioned sampling in northern fisheries being clip only sampling, the releases are ad clip and cwt. If the program was larger - at least 400k, the could release the double index tag group that OncyT was referring to.

A key part of DIT analysis for identifying differential harvest rates by fishery is to have the catches in each fishery to be electronically sampled. That is both marked and unmarked need to be examined to see if they contain a CWT (in those "keep anything" fisheries). This hasn't been the case but I don't know what the situation is now. Alaska was a holdout for a long time in that they didn't look at unclipped fish for CWTs. The lodge fisheries in BC were another problem for unmarked. But in essence if only some of the fisheries are sampled then doing DIT analysis is much more complicated and requires some major assumptions.

So using DIT groups for evaluating individual fisheries is problematic because of these sampling issues. However, the differences in escapement numbers for the unmarked and marked tag groups can quickly be used to get an all-fishery difference in exploitaiion rates between the two. What has been found that the higher the proportion of the stock that is exposed to MSFs, the greater the difference in escapement rates between the unmarked and marked groups. EG PS stocks generally show a greater gap between the two than Col R tules for example. But the data is messy and sometimes down track with expectations very well.

Just Because is correct that doing DIT groups requires essentially double the number of released fish and CWTs. That luxury isn't there for Stilly.

First, I really did not enjoy that statistics class in college.

That said, so far this has provided some interesting details but to what end for Stily Chinook? Short term? Long term? And how will this data facilitate achievement of those goals? Or have I just not been paying enough attention???

The wild Stilly chinook will not come back. Habitat degradation and a
growing human population. Fishing can be closed completely and the fish will not rebound. How many Stilly fish are intercepted by SEAK and BC? But the tribe can always use it as a tool to get the WA recs off the water which is what they want.

The application of the information that the return of the CWT information helps answer some of the questions being asked about Stillaguamish Chinook. The CWT information is the foundation of the managers FRAM model used both pre and post season.

From the draft 2017 co-manager plan the post season FRAM Stillaguamish exploitation rates (ER) estimates for the years 2005 to 2014 yield the following information

Alaska had a 1.7% ER on unmarked fish and 2.3% on marked fish.
BC had a 15.7% ER on unmarked fish and 19,6% on marked fish.
SUS troll had a 1.7% ER on unmarked fish and 2.6% on marked fish.
SUS net had a 1.2% ER on unmarked fish and 1.2% on marked fish.
SUS sport had a 4.2% ER on unmarked fish and 9.4% on marked fish.

The NF Stillaguamish hatchery program has been a conservation program designed to supplement spawning escapements. A run reconstruction for the same document for the 20 year period (1990s to 2009) should on the average the natural spawning escapement was approximately 1,500 (marked and unmarked combined) which on the average produced and naturally produced runs (fish produced by those spawners) of 933 adults (2.5% of the estimated of 40,000 historic population). Over those 20 years there were 4 years where the number of naturally produced adults (recruits) exceeded the number of spawners. Those R/S (recruits/spawners) that were greater than 1.0 had values of 1.02, 1.02, 1.06, and 1.23. During the first 10 years the average R/S was 0.7 and during the second it was 0.6. 6 individual years had R/S of less than 0.5 with the lowest being 0.24. Pretty clear that conservation problem is essential to supporting Stillaguamish Chinook.

The lower North Fork Stillaguamish USGS stream guage (NF Stillaguamish near Arlington) has a reasonably long period of recorded of annual peak flows that might help illustrate the sorts of habitat issues that Lifter is referring to. Those records go back 1929.

From 1929 to 1979 there was not a single year with an annual flood larger than 32,000 cfs.

During the 1980s there were 3 years with floods over 32,000 cfs (32,100 to 36,300).

During the 1990s there were 4 years with floods over 32,000 cfs (34,400 to 36,700).

During the 2000s there were 8 years with floods over 32,000 cfs: those events were 33,500, 39,000, 39,200, 39,800, 44,000, 49,400, 50,600, and 55,100.

I'll leave it to the reader whether the increase in larger floods is significant or not

BTW -there now a second Stillaguamish hatchery program in the basin. This a captive program for the SF fall Chinook population.

Curt

Smalma,

I did not know that there is a captive broodstock program for any part of Stilly Chinook. I wonder if those fish are significantly different from NF Chinook. I'm leaning toward using NF Chinook for captive broodstock would be a more valuable use (higher and better under the "wise use" concept) than ad clipping and CWT for indicator stock release to the ocean. The data we already have suggests that ER, while significant, is not the factor driving these fish toward extinction. I will talk with Ed about it. I can't believe he's really satisfied with keeping gamefish seasons on the Stilly closed for the next 100 years, which is exactly where we are headed by maintaining the status quo.

Sg

Apparently there is at least 10 years worth of data available to provide comparative exploitation rates.

If (an important qualifier) the number of returning adults is a limiting factor in ability to increase brood stock production how would not clipping those fish impact returns?

Reading the numbers the SUS sport fishery has an impact of 9.4% on clipped fish but 4.2% on unclipped fish. Just playing with those numbers and with all other factors the same it appears as though NOT clipping them would reduce impact by 5.2% so how many additional adult returns would that produce in river?

You can also throw in another 1% potential savings tied to the SUS commercial troll fishery and roughly 4% in the Canadian fishery and .6% AK.

Total potential close to 11%.

Do I have those numbers right and, if so, how many additional returning fish would that represent?

Let the tribes have the fish.
All of them.

Then we will go fish on their fish.

Time for a revolution.

Salmo,

They have actually found that, since the listing in 1999, the two populations are likely more associated with migration timing than fork-specific distributions, in general. These are a summer and a more fall-timed component. The summers are more prevalent spawning in the NF and the "falls" more in the SF, but they both overlap in space a bit. The captive brood program is on the fall or "SF" population and yes, they can tell the pops apart genetically.

Larry, a simple answer to your question would be that since there is a forecasted terminal run for just shy of 1,000, and since the total exploitation rate is roughly 20% and the hatchery component rate slightly higher in the SUS, you could expect roughly 200+ additional fish (H and W) to return absent all fisheries for this year. Just shutting down specific fisheries would be some subtotal of that added amount.

Mind you, this is my back o' the napkin estimate....mileage may vary.