Caught two of my biggest MA9 Chinook ever on Saturday.

In unrelated news, MA9 closes tonight, 8/4, at midnight.

Fish on...

Todd

Been doing outstanding in 10 in various places. Nice grade of fish. Get while the getting's good!

I see that folks are upset about the B10 and area 11 chinook closure but no mention of area 10. According to the latest info on the WDFW web site area 10 closed with only 69% of the harvest quota reached but was closed because of 159% of the sublegal encounter limit happened. While chinook retention was open the majority of the sublegal chinook we hooked were probably jacks, mature fish of 18 inches up to near the 22 inch legal size. I don't think those are the fish the sublegal encounter limit is trying to protect. I also noticed that the Locks count of chinook entering Lake Washington Is over 10200 as of Wednesday.


There are still plenty of chinook in area 10. This morning in a lazy (8:00 to 10:00) trip near Meadow Point looking for a coho or pink all we hooked were two chinook, both hatchery fish probably 12+ pounds and the brightest, healthy, and strong chinnok we ever hooked in area 10.

The updated (thru 8/21) for MA 10 Chinook impacts are 95% of the harvest quota and 213% of the sub-legal encounters.

If the recreational fleet can not figure out how to reduce our sub-legal encounters we will continue to have a difficult time harvesting more of the available hatchery chinook.

Curt

Fish adults in the river. Completely avoids immatures, maximizes poundage caught, optimizes stock identification.

So, would that be above or below the commercials, and or the Tribes ?

At least in the South Sound Area (Puyallup and Nisqually) the tribes and the recs don't fish on the same days. The recs only fish on the days when the tribes are not netting.

Location would not matter. Allocation requires fish to be passed. If the NI commercials could fish selectively in the Bay (non-mixed stock) then they might go, but there would still be the bycatch issues.

CM -
I theory you suggestion sounds good but not sure that it holds up in the real world (at least for the recreational fishers).

Let's look at a real world example. For the Green river the 2021 hatchery Chinook forecast was 24,000 fish with a hatchery need of approximately 4,000 leaving 20,000 fish to split between the treaty and non-treaty fishers. For the hatchery coho the forecast was 75,000 with a hatchery need of 2,000 leaving 73,000 to split.

The tribe has demonstrated that given the opportunity they can catch their share; for the Chinook they would need to catch that 10,000 out 24,000. For a recreational fishery fishing behind that fishery it would be much more difficult.

The Green is a small river; typical August flow 311 cfs and September flow of 386 cfs. The hatchery is located about 34 miles from the river mouth with limited shore and boat access. The harsh reality is that when we see extreme shore fishing access quickly becomes limited. How would the recreational fisheries catch that share without taking the fish at the hatchery?

If we look at the exploitation rate (catch/(catch + escapement) needed in the recreational fishery on the Green to "get" their share they would need to catch 2/3 of the Chinook run and nearly 95% of the coho. A quick review of the 2019 information I found that for the Skagit hatchery spring Chinook the recreational exploitation rate was 13%. For the Skykomish hatchery summer Chinook it was 8.3% and for the Samish hatchery fall Chinook (the best I found) it was 37.7%. For coho the typically exploitation rates were 10% or less. It seems pretty clear to me that with traditional methods the recreational fishery just does not have the power to catch their share. Do we create a fishery without bag limits or method limitations at the hatchery rack? How would this fly with most anglers?

How does the table quality of a Green river Chinook caught in late July in MA 9 compare with one caught in late September at Soos Creek?

As always been the case if we wish equal catch sharing between treaty and non-treaty fishers the bulk of the non-treaty catch will have to taken by the commercial fisheries. The recreational have long lobby for the current recreational priority of PS non-treaty Chinook catch. Do they need to re-think that priority?

Somethings to consider.

Curt

Curt,
I don’t fish from a boat so my sun-legal and legal chinook encounters are minimal.

I’m not up to speed these days regarding all the different things folks use with downriggers, etc.
What would you suggest from a tackle equipment standpoint for boat anglers that would help reduce the sun-legal encounters?
Thanks
SF

Smalma

Those are very valid points. If we produce lots of hatchery-origin salmon we will have to fish mixed stock and with nets to take the harvestable. Unfortunately, that truth will destroy the wild stocks, as it has in the past and continues to.

I now that we disagree on this, but current wild fish escapement goals and recovery targets are (in my mind) criminally low. I lean towards at least 1 and ideal 2 kg/sq m of summer low flow spawning reaches as the goal for each species. Accommodating that level of spawners would necessarily reduce overall exploitation rate but would allow anglers access to a higher density of fish.

A question I have on "table quality" is that I know a silver-bright fish looks better, I know that as spawning approaches fat (and probably protein) is transferred to gametes so the flesh has less fat. But, on a purely food-based quality which one provides the most nutrition? I don't know. I do know that research in the 19-teens (by WDF's predecessor) found that spring chinook, taken in Columbia River hatcheries, were (their conclusion) of higher food quality than immatures taken in the ocean. This was at a time when WDF was trying to stop the ocean troll of immature salmon as being wasteful of a food product.

I have been reviewing some Russian salmon fisheries in Kamchatka and nearby areas. Their fisheries are basically traps for pink, chum, and sockeye with chinook and coho essentially reserved for recreational. Their view of MSY is escapements >1kg/sq m. Obviously, they don't have the human population and development. Yet. But they do have a whole lotta fish.

I'm just having trouble understanding how with over 200% of a sublegal quota, the Coho and Pink fisheries are allowed to continue as if sub legal encounters are not occuring in these fisheries, and with quota left on the table incidental chinook encounters with hatchery fish must be released....

You have to believe in the magic of modeling. WDFW had a model (Yay, Rivrguy) that showed that if you closed the NI commercial fishery in a Bay, that no additional fish would be caught by the in-river sporties. They also believed that a NI gill net fishery that started 12 hours ahead of, and downstream from, an Indian GN fishery would not impact the Indian catch.

Recs never get their quota and then the nets get the rest.

Area 10 should open Aug 1st and we should get the month to fish it when the fish are there in numbers. But nope deal was made a long time ago I suppose, so the Muk fleet will scoop the remainder of our share with no discretion as to hatchery vs. wild.

Just like they do every year it gets shut down just when it gets good. Oh we hit our quota, no matter what it will be no later than mid-August for 10 and 9 will be mid to late July. Followed by 11 if your lucky maybe the 4th week of Aug. and of course can't forget Westport and their weekday only fishing. But wait we are only at 50% so so lets open it 7 days a week and have two kings the next week just to say we did it and the recs had a shot.

Lessen the impact and make it a plug only fishery. Would be fun.

Pretty sure WDFW just makes up their numbers. Same BS every year.

In area 11, we knew two weeks before it closed what the closing date was going to be. What does that tell you?

That there is a vast dark conspiracy Lifter. . .
fb

fb, call it what you want. It happens every year, at least in 11. The closing dates don't vary much no matter the size of the king quota. Do you think the closing date is agreed upon between WDFW and the tribe(s) before the season even starts? WDFW published the closing date two weeks before it happened. Ask the sport fishing advisers. An advisor told me the closing date would be 8/25 tow weeks earlier. We didn't see a fish checker at Pt. D boathouse during those two weeks. I fish pretty much every day (mornings). And I keep in touch with a lot of guys who fish the evenings.

I can verify what Lifter99 is saying. The date was thrown around two weeks before by WDFW staff and the sport fishing advisors. I also noticed a decrease in fish checkers for the final few weeks of the season. This was also apparent a couple years ago and it was a similar situation. It isn’t adding up.


-Streamer

We don't need to check, the Model Says...