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#1044581 - 12/30/20 08:39 PM Best place to catch a HATCHERY Humptulips coho?
eyeFISH Offline
Ornamental Rice Bowl

Registered: 11/24/03
Posts: 12766
It would seem to be intuitively obvious, right?




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You might be shocked...

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Guess AGAIN!

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Uh, huh....

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_________________________
"Let every angler who loves to fish think what it would mean to him to find the fish were gone." (Zane Grey)

"If you don't kill them, they will spawn." (Carcassman)


The Keen Eye MD
Long Live the Kings!

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#1044588 - 12/31/20 06:22 AM Re: Best place to catch a HATCHERY Humptulips coho? [Re: eyeFISH]
Rivrguy Offline
River Nutrients

Registered: 03/03/09
Posts: 4393
Loc: Somewhere on the planet,I hope
When the hatchery was built its primary goal was to provide Coho for the marine fisheries off WA coast. It ended up being that the greatest benefit was off the Grays Harbor coast. The hatchery gets a fairly high rate of return on smolt releases due to the short out migration to salt with the down side being returning adults on a river rise make the hatchery in blink. This limits fresh water catches. With the reductions in production over time the hatcheries contribution to the fisheries off Grays Harbor have been significantly diminished. For the bay the thought was the Rec could get all over them in the harbor in 2.2 ( zip right out of the Westport Marina ) but that has been shut down for years.
_________________________
Dazed and confused.............the fog is closing in

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#1044594 - 12/31/20 08:11 AM Re: Best place to catch a HATCHERY Humptulips coho? [Re: eyeFISH]
Get Bent Offline
Juvenile at Sea

Registered: 05/13/03
Posts: 232
Loc: Vashon/Grayland
Pretty young Scyphers what year was that.

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#1044597 - 12/31/20 08:34 AM Re: Best place to catch a HATCHERY Humptulips coho? [Re: eyeFISH]
eyeFISH Offline
Ornamental Rice Bowl

Registered: 11/24/03
Posts: 12766
Nine years ago for Master Sypher
_________________________
"Let every angler who loves to fish think what it would mean to him to find the fish were gone." (Zane Grey)

"If you don't kill them, they will spawn." (Carcassman)


The Keen Eye MD
Long Live the Kings!

Top
#1044638 - 12/31/20 04:57 PM Re: Best place to catch a HATCHERY Humptulips coho? [Re: eyeFISH]
Canyon Man Offline
The Golden Child

Registered: 03/08/99
Posts: 1221
Loc: Bothell, WA U.S.A.
Remember it like it was yesterday. Biggest hatch coho I have ever laid hands or eyes on at 23.5lbs. Don’t expect to ever see one like it again but won’t give up trying👍 Happy New Year PP’ers!
_________________________
Remember none of us know as much as all of us!
Canyon Man's Guide Service
www.griffinmaclean.com/scott-sypher
Your Insurance Professional

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#1044642 - 12/31/20 07:35 PM Re: Best place to catch a HATCHERY Humptulips coho? [Re: Canyon Man]
Get Bent Offline
Juvenile at Sea

Registered: 05/13/03
Posts: 232
Loc: Vashon/Grayland
Time flys. You’d remember me when you interned at SPS while in college. Stories of catching snoqualmie summer runs in the box when they shut the water off. Too funny.

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#1060567 - 10/12/22 05:13 PM Re: Best place to catch a HATCHERY Humptulips coho? [Re: eyeFISH]
eyeFISH Offline
Ornamental Rice Bowl

Registered: 11/24/03
Posts: 12766
When they say it's about conservation, is it?
_________________________
"Let every angler who loves to fish think what it would mean to him to find the fish were gone." (Zane Grey)

"If you don't kill them, they will spawn." (Carcassman)


The Keen Eye MD
Long Live the Kings!

Top
#1060570 - 10/12/22 09:14 PM Re: Best place to catch a HATCHERY Humptulips coho? [Re: eyeFISH]
eyeFISH Offline
Ornamental Rice Bowl

Registered: 11/24/03
Posts: 12766
So on another note... when the Hump hasn't made wild coho escapement but once in the past 20 years (OK, mebbe twice)... I have three theories.

1) If they behave anything like their hatch counterparts, they're simply disappearing into that HUGE black hole we call the mark-selective ocean fishery off of Westport (MA 2). When your sorting thru 5-10 wilds to find a hatch turd for the box, that's a lot of crab food.

2) When inriver guys are sorting thru 4-8 wilds to find a hatch keeper, ain't no way in hell an entire escapement of wild coho ain't making it to the river.... just sayin'

3) Mebbe.... just mebbe... the spawner survey crew is focusing on the WRONG index stretches of the river to find their wild escapement.

4) OK... I lied, there's more than three. Mebbe... just mebbe.... the escapement goal is wrong. For the record, I believe the other three theories are inordinately WAY more plausible.
_________________________
"Let every angler who loves to fish think what it would mean to him to find the fish were gone." (Zane Grey)

"If you don't kill them, they will spawn." (Carcassman)


The Keen Eye MD
Long Live the Kings!

Top
#1060571 - 10/13/22 07:26 AM Re: Best place to catch a HATCHERY Humptulips coho? [Re: eyeFISH]
Tug 3 Offline
Returning Adult

Registered: 03/06/14
Posts: 260
Loc: Tumwater
Gosh, do you suppose that the river has changed over the course of many years of floods? My, my, could it be that our over-educated salmon biologists haven't really considered this? My salmon index places (where I've had good success catching fish) have certainly changed. It seems to me that WDFW hasn't observed what is going on in the real natural world. For instance, over the last two decades, has our overall salmon size changed? Yup! Fish are considerably smaller now, and very less fecund, but have our escapement number goals changed to reflect that? Alot of the numbers/goals need to be reexamined.

I'm going hunting now. Maybe we'll have a good rain soon.

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#1060572 - 10/13/22 07:43 AM Re: Best place to catch a HATCHERY Humptulips coho? [Re: eyeFISH]
Carcassman Offline
River Nutrients

Registered: 11/21/07
Posts: 7410
Loc: Olema,California,Planet Earth
For a while, one of the "index reaches" for chum in the Nooksack was a dry side channel. Change comes glaciallially in some minds...

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#1060573 - 10/13/22 08:29 AM Re: Best place to catch a HATCHERY Humptulips coho? [Re: Carcassman]
Rivrguy Offline
River Nutrients

Registered: 03/03/09
Posts: 4393
Loc: Somewhere on the planet,I hope
As he was finishing up with his time with WDFW Harry sited the Humptulips Hatchery with the primary goal being hatchery Coho for the marine fisheries. Locals wanted a different location upstream but the present location was chosen. This back fired when power rates went up as it was a pumped station. Additionally the Humptulips was not a major Coho stream so a weir was not needed or so goes the thought back then. There was substantial straying for years for sure but it was not high on the list of concerns for the reasons outlined above and feds and tribes managed to the Grays Harbor escapement goal.

Then when Tim Flint was the harvest manager WDFW separated the Hump and Chehalis to be managed separately and again WDFW and WDFW alone does that for the Humptulips. Since that time for a bunch of reasons the hatchery productions has been drastically reduced and a part time pipeline from Stevens Cr is used for some of the water needs.

With the bay area B closed for harvest it is the ocean to get Humptulips Coho. While inriver gets some the fish make the movement from the ocean to hatchery and outside a get it is difficult to catch them in large numbers. The forecasted hatchery return is 26,129 and of that the combined harvest tribal and NT is 9,463 fish. The wild forecast is 4,358 with combined harvest impacts of 2,305 with the QIN portion being 2146.

I guess the question to ask is how is WDFW counting spawners? For Chinook in the Chehalis the QIN (and everyone but WDFW) count any Chinook spawning in the gravel as part of the natural spawn regardless of origin. So WDFW is counting Chinook one way everyone else another. I agree with Doc that just how the Humptulips wild spawning goal was established is a good question. Also just what matrix was used to define habitat and areas with spawning availability.

With area B remaining closed for terminal harvest it is doubtful any group of harvesters will ever have real access to Humptulips hatchery Coho.
_________________________
Dazed and confused.............the fog is closing in

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#1060576 - 10/13/22 09:31 AM Re: Best place to catch a HATCHERY Humptulips coho? [Re: eyeFISH]
Salmo g. Offline
River Nutrients

Registered: 03/08/99
Posts: 13520
The Grays Harbor basins contain some of the best remaining natural coho habitat in western WA. The best and probably only way to improve and possibly achieve wild coho escapements in the Humptulips is to stop rearing and releasing hatchery coho. I hate sounding like I'm anti hatchery because I'm not. What I'm opposed to is WDFW spending my tax and license dollars to raise hatchery salmon that are caught in AK, Canada, ocean and harbor treaty and non-treaty commercial with few left for the recreational creel.

If there were no hatchery salmon in Grays Harbor, WDFW and even the QIN would have no choice but to manage for healthy wild Chinook and coho populations with harvest rates that those populations could sustain. I don't think we recreational anglers would notice too much difference from what we get now.

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#1060579 - 10/13/22 11:43 AM Re: Best place to catch a HATCHERY Humptulips coho? [Re: Salmo g.]
Rivrguy Offline
River Nutrients

Registered: 03/03/09
Posts: 4393
Loc: Somewhere on the planet,I hope
SG with Coho your likely right but we do have 300k Skookumchuck Coho mitigation. Now with Chinook maybe not so much. On the Hump the Rec will take 2849 with a low wild impact due to C&R. The QIN will take about 700 less but with a far greater wild impact as their fisheries are non selective.

One could argue this either way I think depending on ones perspective. What is absolute is WDFW bias for marine harvest at the expense of everything else including tribal and Rec fisheries. Terminal fisheries are an abomination in the eyes of many if not most WDFW staff.
_________________________
Dazed and confused.............the fog is closing in

Top
#1060581 - 10/13/22 11:53 AM Re: Best place to catch a HATCHERY Humptulips coho? [Re: eyeFISH]
Carcassman Offline
River Nutrients

Registered: 11/21/07
Posts: 7410
Loc: Olema,California,Planet Earth
I remember arguing strenuously in my early years at WDF for FW fisheries for pinks. The mindset then was marine, marine, marine. The justification is that more money is spent per fish on the marine harvests so the overall economic benefit is in the salt.

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#1060584 - 10/13/22 01:12 PM Re: Best place to catch a HATCHERY Humptulips coho? [Re: eyeFISH]
Salmo g. Offline
River Nutrients

Registered: 03/08/99
Posts: 13520
Rivrguy,

Although I don't always include it, I mean to exclude mitigation hatchery fish from any recommendation to reduce hatchery production. I'm referring in all such cases to hatchery production funded by state tax and license fee dollars. Mitigation for dams or other stipulations should continue to be funded as they are presently.

The WDFW bias for marine harvest is functionally obsolete, along with using taxpayer funded hatcheries to subsidize welfare commercial fishing. WDFW is overdue to a new business plan, and not the one that Susewind seems inclined toward - eliminating anadromous fisheries and for WDFW to exclusively be a habitat manager of a petting zoo.

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#1060585 - 10/13/22 01:30 PM Re: Best place to catch a HATCHERY Humptulips coho? [Re: Salmo g.]
Rivrguy Offline
River Nutrients

Registered: 03/03/09
Posts: 4393
Loc: Somewhere on the planet,I hope

Could not agree more ! SG it is sad to say but in my humble opinion they will screw up the petting zoo just as they screwed up salmon!
_________________________
Dazed and confused.............the fog is closing in

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#1060599 - 10/14/22 04:47 PM Re: Best place to catch a HATCHERY Humptulips coho? [Re: eyeFISH]
On The Swing Offline
Spawner

Registered: 02/06/03
Posts: 783
I float from Bingham hatchery to the west fork every 10 to 14 days.
My partner floats the west fork from the upper bridge down.
We also work the middle fork from the bridge to mouth and a float 6 miles down to Kelly rd bridge.
Please elaborate how my index areas are "missing things" or how a guy like Curt Holt as a wdfw Chehalis bio since 2012 with 20 years before that as the QIN bio doesn't know every inch of those streams and where we need to be. Plus we helicopter survey upper Chehalis Basin, the middle down to porter and any other areas curt wants to get a idea of what is happening, and buzz the QIN survey stretches to confirm data.

Have you guys every tried connecting with him to ask those questions..
Ever done a survey??

Seriously...Stop going down that road of reasoning because our 5 person crew busts facking arse out there to get the boot on the ground data to work with.

If ANYONE wants to come on a survey with me, contact me and I'll take you out on my own time to give you a crash course so at least yal can have some real experience in what your critiquing..Prepare to get worked hard.

I floated satsop springs today to the middle fork, saw about 300 coho mainly in pools hiding, about 100 or so fall chinook holding. And about 30 summer chinook

I had 1 fall chinook redd, active with fish
And about 14 summer chinook redds, (most of the ones below the s curves had summer kings on them...along with one chum male trying to spawn with the summers for some reason..

I shouldn't have to say that those fish counts and redd counts are WAY below what I should be seeing right now, I don't even have that many carcasses on the banks right now... I only sampled 4 fish today the whole way, all were fall kings that died prespawn...

The kings JUST showed up to Steven's creek hatchery on Wednesday, and rolled in about 2000 deep to the creek and the mouth area...Stevens creek above the bridge goes SUB-T on riffles...and there is NOTHING above that.
Donkey creek is SUBT-T at the mouth so no activity there, and I even walked from the mouth down to the donkey creek access, about 1.3 miles and saw 4 holding kings(hatchery) and 2 active redds with 3 fish between them.... it's a goddam ghost town in all the area we should be plugged with fish, and our trib creeks are a obvious no-go...
He'll, Steven's creek hatchery is questioning if they even have water to spawn fish... and yal KNOW this...

Fish are around, but they are moving up to the spawning stretches begrudgingly. Next week is gonna be a busy one for me because some of them will feel forced to hit the gravel....of course with current flows, sadly most of the action is in the deeper heavy current areas which ya know will scour first with a heavy freshet.


I'm not happy with how this year is going either, nobody in that damn office is but we can't make up fish that arent there



_________________________
Fish gills are like diesel engines, don't run them out of fuel!

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#1060601 - 10/14/22 07:03 PM Re: Best place to catch a HATCHERY Humptulips coho? [Re: eyeFISH]
Smalma Offline
River Nutrients

Registered: 11/25/01
Posts: 2844
Loc: Marysville
Just for the heck of it I did a little poking around at WDFW pre-season forecasts and the result escapements for the Humptulips wild coho. The most recent year I could find data was 2020.

In 2020 the forecast was 7,290 with a resulting escapement of 1,241 or 17% of the forecast.

In 2019 the forecast was 17,400 with a resulting escapement of 1,175 or 6.8% of the forecast.

In 2018 the forecast was 9,891 with a resulting escapement of 804 or 8.1% of the forecast.

I did not look at any earlier years.

Assuming the forecast and escapement estimates are in the ballpark there is some serious management issues in the various fisheries. Seeing average exploitation rates in excess of 80% is almost certainly excessive for western Washington wild coho populations (Puget sound primary wild coho populations have ERs that vary between 30% and 60%).

Curt

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#1060602 - 10/15/22 07:26 AM Re: Best place to catch a HATCHERY Humptulips coho? [Re: On The Swing]
RUNnGUN Offline
Repeat Spawner

Registered: 12/06/07
Posts: 1382
Originally Posted By: On The Swing
I float from Bingham hatchery to the west fork every 10 to 14 days.
My partner floats the west fork from the upper bridge down.
We also work the middle fork from the bridge to mouth and a float 6 miles down to Kelly rd bridge.
Please elaborate how my index areas are "missing things" or how a guy like Curt Holt as a wdfw Chehalis bio since 2012 with 20 years before that as the QIN bio doesn't know every inch of those streams and where we need to be. Plus we helicopter survey upper Chehalis Basin, the middle down to porter and any other areas curt wants to get a idea of what is happening, and buzz the QIN survey stretches to confirm data.

Have you guys every tried connecting with him to ask those questions..
Ever done a survey??

Seriously...Stop going down that road of reasoning because our 5 person crew busts facking arse out there to get the boot on the ground data to work with.

If ANYONE wants to come on a survey with me, contact me and I'll take you out on my own time to give you a crash course so at least yal can have some real experience in what your critiquing..Prepare to get worked hard.

I floated satsop springs today to the middle fork, saw about 300 coho mainly in pools hiding, about 100 or so fall chinook holding. And about 30 summer chinook

I had 1 fall chinook redd, active with fish
And about 14 summer chinook redds, (most of the ones below the s curves had summer kings on them...along with one chum male trying to spawn with the summers for some reason..

I shouldn't have to say that those fish counts and redd counts are WAY below what I should be seeing right now, I don't even have that many carcasses on the banks right now... I only sampled 4 fish today the whole way, all were fall kings that died prespawn...

The kings JUST showed up to Steven's creek hatchery on Wednesday, and rolled in about 2000 deep to the creek and the mouth area...Stevens creek above the bridge goes SUB-T on riffles...and there is NOTHING above that.
Donkey creek is SUBT-T at the mouth so no activity there, and I even walked from the mouth down to the donkey creek access, about 1.3 miles and saw 4 holding kings(hatchery) and 2 active redds with 3 fish between them.... it's a goddam ghost town in all the area we should be plugged with fish, and our trib creeks are a obvious no-go...
He'll, Steven's creek hatchery is questioning if they even have water to spawn fish... and yal KNOW this...

Fish are around, but they are moving up to the spawning stretches begrudgingly. Next week is gonna be a busy one for me because some of them will feel forced to hit the gravel....of course with current flows, sadly most of the action is in the deeper heavy current areas which ya know will scour first with a heavy freshet.


I'm not happy with how this year is going either, nobody in that damn office is but we can't make up fish that arent there




Swing. Thanks for your efforts. This being the case. How can tidewater and the bay be open for the recs, non tribal and tribal netters at all, period! This accurate survey info should have shut down the whole thing the first of the month!


Edited by RUNnGUN (10/15/22 07:27 AM)
_________________________
"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” – Ferris Bueller.
Don't let the old man in!

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#1060603 - 10/15/22 08:30 AM Re: Best place to catch a HATCHERY Humptulips coho? [Re: eyeFISH]
Salmo g. Offline
River Nutrients

Registered: 03/08/99
Posts: 13520
Swing,

Thanks for that info. Like RnG and others, I don't understand why the tidal reach of the river and the Harbor are open to fishing if there is a fish conservation issue.

Smalma,

I'm not positive, but I think the best clue as to why Humptulips wild coho can never make escapement is because of the QIN policy that defines hatchery and wild fish as the same despite the considerable biological evidence to the contrary. Consequently, from the QIN perspective, harvest rates can be set on the aggregate combination of hatchery and wild fish, meaning that the wild fish will perpetually be under-escaped. This is but one reason why I think the Grays Harbor basins salmon populations would be better off if no state-funded hatchery salmon were raised or released, forcing both co-managers to manage the wild populations for sustainable fishing.

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