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#1058298 - 12/07/21 03:06 PM Re: Steelhead Regulations 21-22? [Re: Makai]
WDFW X 1 = 0 Offline
My Area code makes me cooler than you

Registered: 01/27/15
Posts: 4549
Folks at WDFW are just collecting pensions.

Someone please tell the class what that actually do????

Close hatcheries and fish don't return.
Hhhhmmmm

Bug chuckers got their wild fish wet dream.

Congrats.

Top
#1058299 - 12/07/21 08:07 PM Re: Steelhead Regulations 21-22? [Re: Makai]
Tug 3 Offline
Returning Adult

Registered: 03/06/14
Posts: 260
Loc: Tumwater
I'm not sure I could even begin to say how disappointed I am in WDFW's years of failure in steelhead management. But first, I'm feeling a deep sense of loss for me personally. The last wild fish I took was in 1993, and I later released others even though I could have kept them. My last wild fish came on a memorable early spring day on the Satsop. Since then I've done everything that WDFW asked or dictated to save I was on the Steelhead Advisory Committee (very disappointing leadership from WDFW - when I advised we need to protect the wild fish, the employee said, "but I like to eat them". True story from the '90's. When organizations brought the-wild-fish- need -protection subject up it was ignored. I captured fish for the Satsop broodstock program that looked to me like it was working. Scientific papers from outside WDFW banged the drum about wild steelhead declines, but they were basically ignored, and now we know the long term result. I testified before the Commission about needed steelhead protections more than once. I've followed every new rule. I pinched the barbs, I quit removing fish from the water, I bought a knotless net, I quit using bait, etc. just like almost all of us did.

One of the problems is that the new fish managers have no institutional memory. I've fished the westside rivers for more than fifty four years, and now it's all done.

Terrible irreversible over harvest is the main issue. The Queets once had returns of up to fifty thousand steelhead! And its habitat is still pristine! We should have quit killing wild fish years ago, and most of us knew it. The tribes over harvested the resource years ago, and now they're paying the price. We had the legal means to limit their harvest when they were catching substantially much more than their fifty percent, and we ignored our statutory duty that would even have protected the tribes from this final result. The escapement goals were set politically, not biologically.

No one is in charge, and no one will be held accountable. In my previous career in fish and wildlife enforcement, if we made a serious mistake, we could be held accountable to the law, and even sued personally. But not neglectful fish managers who seem immune to any form of corrective action, even from upper level management.

As a good example of questionable management, why is it that The Peninsula rivers have total closures, and steelhead are not even listed?. But on the Columbia, you can buy a listed Chinook from a dealer for dinner? Who's running this department?

There were many prescriptive suggestions for helping preserve steelhead and steelhead fishing, and they were recklessly ignored. The whole debacle seems tragically similar to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, eighty years ago today. We had the warnings but failed to act. The loss of fishing on my favorite rivers, isn't killing thousands as the bombing did, but right now, in the home stretch of my life, I feel like it's killing me.

Top
#1058301 - 12/07/21 10:24 PM Re: Steelhead Regulations 21-22? [Re: Makai]
DrifterWA Offline
River Nutrients

Registered: 04/25/00
Posts: 5074
Loc: East of Aberdeen, West of Mont...
12/07/2021

Pearl Harbor Day, 12/07/1941.......Not many on PP, were born......I was, born 09/05/1940.

Many know my story, been in Aberdeen since 1968.....no Wynoochee Dam, No Bolt Decision, No gill nets in Humptulips river, no Cill nets during steelhead season in the Chehalis, Humptulips, Wynoochee, Satsop all had steelhead, many in the 25-30+ pound, late hook nose silvers Wynoochee and Satsop, Chehalis river during late November, December, January, many high teens, State Record Coho, at one time came off the Satsop.

During late 70's - early 80's there was a VERY active Chapter of North West Steelheaders.... I was club treasure for many years. Like Tug 3, I spent many hours brood stocking winter run steelhead on the Satsop, the program was working but like many fisheries, when the fish started to return.....the pressure on the river to "catch and kill" got to be more than the brood stocking could keep up with...

WDFW....after the 1994-95 merger of Dept. of Wild Life and Dept. of Salmon, steelhead took a back seat to salmon, WDFW was run by many UW people with lots of emphasis the commercial salmon bit.....steelhead took a back seat and to this day still do.....Salmon was where the $$$$$$$ were/are --- Willapa Bay, Columbia River, Puget Sound gill nets got way to much time....NOF, ugh some input but all about killing fish.......NEVER any WDFW lead meetings on how to protect steelhead, didn't want to stir the Bolt Decision 50/50 bit, afraid of the tribe, still are....tribes for sure took wild steelhead, even netted December to March/May

So here I sit, 82 in December and can't even fish salmon above Fuller Bridge, hell of a way to spend the latter part of my life....can't walk, balance problems or I'd be on rivers to the South, bank fishing..... Thanks WDFW for not doing your jobs 30-40 years ago....go ahead backup to the pay window, then tell everyone what a great job you're doing..............I think not, why not run a poll, only license people can vote..... 1 question, Is WDFW doing a good job???? Yes or No....

I vented.....now bed, only to face, another home day, with a paid for license that won't even give me "opportunity",,,,,,grrrrrrrrrr


Edited by DrifterWA (12/07/21 10:27 PM)
_________________________
"Worse day sport fishing, still better than the best day working"

"I thought growing older, would take longer"

Top
#1058302 - 12/08/21 05:38 AM Re: Steelhead Regulations 21-22? [Re: Todd]
Get Bent Offline
Juvenile at Sea

Registered: 05/13/03
Posts: 232
Loc: Vashon/Grayland
A broad brushed comment like that is not totally accurate. Hatchery fish like wild are effected by the same environmental variables. Some years are better than others; many coastal hatchery programs are fairly successful. PS and south Puget sound hatcheries have mostly tanked and should be abandoned as you noted are a total waste of money and limited resources. The Wynoochie is a good example of tossing in the towel to the wild fish and creating a hatchery management zone. Unless it’s totally shut down indefinitely the wilds don’t stand a chance given the drift boat choo choo train that crick sees from December to March. Cowlitz is another one, good user access and a pre existing facility to produce large quantities of fish efficiently. (If there is such a thing). Hatchery management zone would also have great positive impact on the last few healthy pockets of wild fish by reducing pressure on those rivers. Let face it if humans had been around a few thousand years ago we may still have a few triceratops around……in a zoo!

Top
#1058305 - 12/08/21 09:28 AM Re: Steelhead Regulations 21-22? [Re: Tug 3]
WDFW X 1 = 0 Offline
My Area code makes me cooler than you

Registered: 01/27/15
Posts: 4549
Originally Posted By: Tug 3
I'm not sure I could even begin to say how disappointed I am in WDFW's years of failure in steelhead management. But first, I'm feeling a deep sense of loss for me personally. The last wild fish I took was in 1993, and I later released others even though I could have kept them. My last wild fish came on a memorable early spring day on the Satsop. Since then I've done everything that WDFW asked or dictated to save I was on the Steelhead Advisory Committee (very disappointing leadership from WDFW - when I advised we need to protect the wild fish, the employee said, "but I like to eat them". True story from the '90's. When organizations brought the-wild-fish- need -protection subject up it was ignored. I captured fish for the Satsop broodstock program that looked to me like it was working. Scientific papers from outside WDFW banged the drum about wild steelhead declines, but they were basically ignored, and now we know the long term result. I testified before the Commission about needed steelhead protections more than once. I've followed every new rule. I pinched the barbs, I quit removing fish from the water, I bought a knotless net, I quit using bait, etc. just like almost all of us did.

One of the problems is that the new fish managers have no institutional memory. I've fished the westside rivers for more than fifty four years, and now it's all done.

Terrible irreversible over harvest is the main issue. The Queets once had returns of up to fifty thousand steelhead! And its habitat is still pristine! We should have quit killing wild fish years ago, and most of us knew it. The tribes over harvested the resource years ago, and now they're paying the price. We had the legal means to limit their harvest when they were catching substantially much more than their fifty percent, and we ignored our statutory duty that would even have protected the tribes from this final result. The escapement goals were set politically, not biologically.

No one is in charge, and no one will be held accountable. In my previous career in fish and wildlife enforcement, if we made a serious mistake, we could be held accountable to the law, and even sued personally. But not neglectful fish managers who seem immune to any form of corrective action, even from upper level management.

As a good example of questionable management, why is it that The Peninsula rivers have total closures, and steelhead are not even listed?. But on the Columbia, you can buy a listed Chinook from a dealer for dinner? Who's running this department?

There were many prescriptive suggestions for helping preserve steelhead and steelhead fishing, and they were recklessly ignored. The whole debacle seems tragically similar to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, eighty years ago today. We had the warnings but failed to act. The loss of fishing on my favorite rivers, isn't killing thousands as the bombing did, but right now, in the home stretch of my life, I feel like it's killing me.




Jim,
This could not be more true and I feel for you.
It's complete BS.
At least you saw the good years.

Top
#1058306 - 12/08/21 09:35 AM Re: Steelhead Regulations 21-22? [Re: Makai]
Carcassman Offline
River Nutrients

Registered: 11/21/07
Posts: 7412
Loc: Olema,California,Planet Earth
To add to Tug's comments, pre-merger WDW had 14 dedicated steelhead/anadromous CT positions. Post merger there were zero as all were absorbed in salmon duties.

My personal view is that WDFW prefers marine mixed-stock salmon fisheries with ocean and outer Straits being the highest priority. They will trade pretty much everything else to maximize those fisheries.

May have mentioned it before but at one of the old Steelhead/Cuttrhoat Advisory Group meetings Phil A (pre-Director years) was asked why recs could not have a C&R steelhead fishery the last half of April on the Hoh. Harvestable fish remained in the share. Phil's answer was that the fishery currently in place was "What we wanted" but never identified who we was or why less than 50% was satisfactory.

Top
#1058307 - 12/08/21 09:49 AM Re: Steelhead Regulations 21-22? [Re: Carcassman]
Todd Offline
Dick Nipples

Registered: 03/08/99
Posts: 28170
Loc: Seattle, Washington USA
Originally Posted By: Carcassman
To add to Tug's comments, pre-merger WDW had 14 dedicated steelhead/anadromous CT positions. Post merger there were zero as all were absorbed in salmon duties.

My personal view is that WDFW prefers marine mixed-stock salmon fisheries with ocean and outer Straits being the highest priority. They will trade pretty much everything else to maximize those fisheries.

May have mentioned it before but at one of the old Steelhead/Cuttrhoat Advisory Group meetings Phil A (pre-Director years) was asked why recs could not have a C&R steelhead fishery the last half of April on the Hoh. Harvestable fish remained in the share. Phil's answer was that the fishery currently in place was "What we wanted" but never identified who we was or why less than 50% was satisfactory.


When I was on that advisory panel it seemed that all we did was warn about what was coming...it wasn't a secret, or hard to see...and here it is.

Fish on...

Todd
_________________________


Team Flying Super Ditch Pickle


Top
#1058308 - 12/08/21 09:59 AM Re: Steelhead Regulations 21-22? [Re: Makai]
Carcassman Offline
River Nutrients

Registered: 11/21/07
Posts: 7412
Loc: Olema,California,Planet Earth
Well, yes Todd. The future (?) of steelhead and wild salmon has been been clear for decades and getting clearer.

I have an editorial cartoon from the Seattle Times (Alan Pratt, I think) from the 70s. It depicts a father showing his son a stuff salmon "Oncorhynchus longgone" and dad says "One abundant, disappeared a half at a time".

Top
#1058310 - 12/08/21 10:15 AM Re: Steelhead Regulations 21-22? [Re: Carcassman]
Rivrguy Offline
River Nutrients

Registered: 03/03/09
Posts: 4393
Loc: Somewhere on the planet,I hope
When the agencies were joined or as a WDG staffer once proclaimed at a training exercise " when WDF ate the WDG " , the only thing that I remember WDG dominated was amazingly enough accounts receivable or book keeping if you choose that description. That made sense though as WDF had and has serous difficulty complying to financial matters, "budget". The interesting part was when the new WDFW (old WDG ) staff set out applying WDG terminologies to past WDF contracts. I clearly remember that ladies name and attitude which was less than warm and fuzzy.

Senator Snyder once said that in creating one agency all that the agency did was was rearrange the chairs, give themselves new tittles and a raise, and destroy programs designed the average citizen. ( WDG programs ) I was hard pressed to argue differently then or now.

note: Ah CM I have so many not kind memories of JB and contracts!
_________________________
Dazed and confused.............the fog is closing in

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#1058313 - 12/08/21 10:46 AM Re: Steelhead Regulations 21-22? [Re: Makai]
Carcassman Offline
River Nutrients

Registered: 11/21/07
Posts: 7412
Loc: Olema,California,Planet Earth
I was in the hatcheries world at merger. Mr. Peck, maybe alone amongst all the managers in both agencies, actually planned for the merger. It gave him the opportunity to blow up both systems, create a new one, and significantly rewrite the job specs so that workers now were above food stamp pay. I liked the idea of throwing out both agency's way off doing things and coming up with a new way. I think most of the rest of the folks just sat back and let the waves wash over them.

It was, if one looked closely, a difficult operation. WDW believed that, for the most part, they worked for the license holder while WDF worked for the resource. WDW almost always worked on the cheap, as money was tight. I think that merger of the two enforcement arms was difficult (and Tug should be able to comment) because the WDW officers did lots more than enforce laws. They were quasi-biologists inn doing a lot of the stock assessment (big game), creel checks, and so on. They were much more than enforcement and they dealt with a significantly different clientele.

Top
#1058323 - 12/08/21 06:48 PM Re: Steelhead Regulations 21-22? [Re: Makai]
Lifter99 Offline
Returning Adult

Registered: 12/01/18
Posts: 386
Am I missing something or is Washington State the only state (or province) which is curtailing or closing winter steelhead fishing? I haven't seen that California, Oregon or BC have closed steelhead fishing. Seems a little strange if WA is the only one closing it.

Top
#1058324 - 12/08/21 07:57 PM Re: Steelhead Regulations 21-22? [Re: Lifter99]
deadly Offline
Fry

Registered: 04/15/12
Posts: 34
Skeena system shut down early this year.

Top
#1058325 - 12/08/21 11:23 PM Re: Steelhead Regulations 21-22? [Re: Lifter99]
Illahee Offline
River Nutrients

Registered: 05/22/05
Posts: 3781
Originally Posted By: Lifter99
Am I missing something or is Washington State the only state (or province) which is curtailing or closing winter steelhead fishing? I haven't seen that California, Oregon or BC have closed steelhead fishing. Seems a little strange if WA is the only one closing it.


https://www.dfw.state.or.us/news/2021/08_Aug/082721b.asp

Top
#1058326 - 12/09/21 06:47 AM Re: Steelhead Regulations 21-22? [Re: Makai]
Carcassman Offline
River Nutrients

Registered: 11/21/07
Posts: 7412
Loc: Olema,California,Planet Earth
You're missing a lot. There is a steelhead disaster up in BC that, numbers-wise, makes WA look monitor-league.

Top
#1058328 - 12/09/21 07:31 AM Re: Steelhead Regulations 21-22? [Re: Makai]
TedR Offline
Returning Adult

Registered: 10/26/09
Posts: 466
Loc: South Sound
I'm reading Haig-Brown's Fisherman's Fall right now and dang if this whole thing isn't a giant broken record. He, I think, identified many of these problems almost 60 years ago! Back when fish runs were abundant by today's standard he was cautioning about lower fish runs, that people would ignore the problem and what the results of our apathy would be.

Prophetic and sad but yet, reading it is therapeutic.
_________________________
FEAR THE BEARD

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#1058330 - 12/09/21 07:44 AM Re: Steelhead Regulations 21-22? [Re: Makai]
Lifter99 Offline
Returning Adult

Registered: 12/01/18
Posts: 386
Thanks for the info. The article that Illahee refers to pertains to low wild summer steelhead returns. We will see if this closure extends through the winter season. One would think so.

Top
#1058346 - 12/09/21 07:50 PM Re: Steelhead Regulations 21-22? [Re: Illahee]
Streamer Offline
No Stars for You!

Registered: 11/08/06
Posts: 2271
Loc: T-Town
Originally Posted By: Illahee
Originally Posted By: Lifter99
Am I missing something or is Washington State the only state (or province) which is curtailing or closing winter steelhead fishing? I haven't seen that California, Oregon or BC have closed steelhead fishing. Seems a little strange if WA is the only one closing it.


https://www.dfw.state.or.us/news/2021/08_Aug/082721b.asp


Glad to see you are still alive, shillster.


-Steamy
_________________________
Space Available! Say something idiotic today!

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#1058350 - 12/09/21 09:50 PM Re: Steelhead Regulations 21-22? [Re: Makai]
Lifter99 Offline
Returning Adult

Registered: 12/01/18
Posts: 386
I am still alive, Steamy. But nothing to fish for.

Top
#1058351 - 12/10/21 08:05 AM Re: Steelhead Regulations 21-22? [Re: Carcassman]
RUNnGUN Offline
Repeat Spawner

Registered: 12/06/07
Posts: 1382
Originally Posted By: Carcassman
You're missing a lot. There is a steelhead disaster up in BC that, numbers-wise, makes WA look monitor-league.


Wonder if that would include the Dean R. BC? A system totally wild, isolated and strictly managed to a limited number of Fly Fishers only.
_________________________
"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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#1058352 - 12/10/21 10:13 AM Re: Steelhead Regulations 21-22? [Re: Makai]
Todd Offline
Dick Nipples

Registered: 03/08/99
Posts: 28170
Loc: Seattle, Washington USA
https://www.ginkandgasoline.com/fly-fishing-news/dean-river-steelhead-in-crisis/

According to that article the Dean suffers the same issues as the Fraser and Skeena...steelhead bycatch in the salmon net fisheries.

Fish on...

Todd
_________________________


Team Flying Super Ditch Pickle


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