Apparently it hasn’t been done but why haven’t all hatcheries converted to native stock? Not only that but once a native stock is established in a watershed the clipped fish should be thrown back while anglers bring in unclipped fish to the hatchery to keep genetics different. Some kind of cap could be applied to see if runs grow. Did the Snyder creek program use clipped or unclipped fish? Also maybe try spawning the fish as they come in rather than all at once so the timings are different? Just some questions/thoughts I have.

Native fish programs have been tried in various places. There are a variety of problems.

Getting fish to yearling smolt, which is the most economical, requires rapid growth which in the hatchery generally means warmer water, warmer incubation and so on. All things that select for maladaptations in the wild.

Wild steelhead do smolt as age-1 but this is in high productivity situations. Also, age-1 smolts (whether hatchery or wild) will return earlier in the year than age-2. So there will be a temporal separation on returns.

Although winter steelhead arrive at the stream more mature than summers, they still need to mature. In the streams I worked on, the wild fish spawned January-June but most was in April and May. Spawn time has been shown to be an inherited characteristic too.

Certainly the use of local stocks is better than an imported stock if the goal is to minimize genetic damage. But, the accumulated evidence is that any time in a hatchery produces steelhead that are not as successful spawning in the wild. Steelhead are apparently very sensitive to the myriad of differences between a hatchery environment and the wild environment.

In my opinion, based on what I have seen over the years, if we want to have hatchery steelhead programs we should do them in systems where the wild fish are written off due to dams, habitat degradation, or short run (like the Lyre). Wild or hatchery but not both in the system.

Why don’t hatcheries convert to native stock? Seems very odd to have fish from one system used as hatchery fish in another system. Maybe that has an affect on non-native stock not spawning successfully?

Hatcheries operate for a variety of reasons. A stock that has been cultured for a while is adapted to being cultured. They will perform better in the hatchery. Given the current levels of wild stocks, you would be mining them to get broodstock, you would have to go through generations of adaptation, and so on.

Starting with local stock would be the best idea, but that horse has left the barn.

A big question to be asked is why do we want to have a hatchery? If the system has reasonably good habitat, why not use what nature gives you? Hatcheries should be used in otherwise unusable systems.

I’m only asking because i’m thinking it’s possible to rebuild stocks while allowing fishing. By using out of basin stock is like using opposing magnets but in basin stocks would be like a magnet on metal. So then you increase the numbers of in basin fish and they will spawn with native fish. The whole point of the hatchery would be to increase numbers of native fish with a side affect of increased catches. If it works why not increase the load as much as possible every few years and see if the actual spawners increase too.

I always wondered the same thing. Although the Chambers stock was nice to have around in PS for early winter opportunities. Many new hatchery Steelhead programs in BC were exclusive in system native stock. Not sure about today. Even with that they seem to be having the same issues we are currently having. I haven't fished it for years but the Vedder R. was one that had really good success with there native stock program, and lots of stout fish to show for it.

BC steelhead are in worse shape than WA. The problem with rebuilding a wild run with hatchery fish is that hatchery fish, even the first generation, are less well-suited to live in the wild. So, you need more of them spawning to equal the wild fish. Say, for argument, 1.5 hatchery to 1 wild. So, the first thing you do is take a productive wild fish out of the run, put it in the hatchery, and make it less productive. Then, they come back. Since they are hatchery fish, we want to kill them. So we end up with less effective fish on the grounds.

I think the one type of situation where hatchery fish could work in recovery is to mass plant for 4 years (cover all broodlines), let them all spawn, and then leave the system alone while Darwin works overtime to week out the bad genes. Doesn't allow for much harvest, which would be the problem.

Society seem sto be demanding two things that are mutually exclusive right now; lots of fish to kill and lots of fish on the grounds.

With the very low marine survival rates for steelhead these days, the only justification for any new steelhead hatchery program would be to keep an imperiled population from going extinct. Producing more fish for recreational angling is a biological and ecological pipe dream at this time. At the rate things are going with marine survival, I won't be surprised to see more recovery programs, like the Hood Canal steelhead recovery efforts, being developed.

The fundamental problem with native wild steelhead broodstock hatchery programs is that they are detrimental, instead of beneficial, to the native wild steelhead population. C'man mentioned the basic issue above. Hatchery steelhead, even one generation removed from the wild, are less effective in reproduction in the natural environment.

Remember, Salmo, that WA legalized Mary-Jane. There is lots of mind-altering stuff in those pipes producing dreams.

Didn't the Snyder Creek hatchery produce positive results? I don't know much about it. I participated in the Satsop Broodstock program, and it seemed to work. Any hatchery project needs to be scrutinized, not just the same old business as usual, which I think WDFW does too much of.

Many years ago (1970's) the late great John Clayton had hatchery salmon practices on the Kalama that brought about terrific spring Chinook survival and return rates.

I suspect that many hatchery programs if they were scrutinized intensely would show dismal results and bring up the question of why are we continuing to do this. Even if the numbers show they are complete duds there will be demand and support for continuing them.

BTW, all the WA lower CR hatcheries were getting gang buster survivals and returns in the late 1970's and 80's.

Tug,

Snyder Creek produced results. However, in 25 years of doing the program, no one did any kind of monitoring that could conclude that those results were any greater than if the wild broodstock had just been left in the river to spawn naturally. IMO, the results were probably greater based on what I know about fish culture and hatchery and wild survival rates. But that is just an opinion. Same with the Satsop wild brood program. No monitoring. So no one can say definitively how productive the results were. We can say that they "seemed" to work because we saw adult returns from the effort. But that does not provide any quantitative evidence that the results are actually a positive benefit.

RE: John Clayton; after Kalama he moved to Marblemount on the Skagit system where he also conducted some innovative fish culture. Culturing spring Chinook there proved quite challenging, but the seed of the program he worked on there now consistently returns hatchery spring Chinook to this day, although the program remains quite small.

Darth,

I fear that if an objective economic audit were performed on the WDFW hatchery system with today's marine survival rates, the recommendation would be to shut down all salmon and steelhead hatchery production and just operate trout hatcheries that are demonstrated to return trout to the creel at a positive ROI. As a biologist I would want to continue hatchery programs for unique stocks in order to keep "something in the bank" in case things turn around in the SAR scene.

One of the problems with most wild steelhead brood stock programs most monitoring is not adequate to evaluate the success of such programs. The best info likely come from dam counts.

During the early years of the Snider Creek wild brood stock program WDFW was still conducting intense creel surveys which allowed the comparison of the contribution to the catch between the Snider Creek fish and the normal hatchery early winters. In that comparison the standard early winter hatchery fish preformed superior to the Snider Creek fish.

A goal of any wild winter brood stock program should be to select brood stock that is representative (run timing, spawn timing, age structure, etc.) of the donor wild population. Both the spawners and resulting smolts should be representative of the wild population. That can be much more difficult that it might appear and successful meeting that performance standard up to the smolt release can be pretty expensive.

The place that such programs might be most reasonably used is a true conservation program to supplement a wild population that is approaching that knife edge of extinction. That said with what is being learned about the interplay between the anadromous and resident life histories in anadromous streams I am becoming more convinced in that situation insuring that robust resident populations are maintained in the river might be a better strategy. That of course would require selective gear rules with total CnR of the trout any time the system is open for any fishing.

Curt

Oooh, look how all the native stocks have rebounded since cutting hatchery production! Looks like someones facts were off 20 years ago when i hollered over and over again what would happen.
Here you are still touting failed policy. Cleaning our house first and cutting hatcheries worked sooo well. Great job guys.
btw, yall sound sooo scientifical and stuff it must be true!

The problem with looking at how well shutting off hatcheries work, is that many people point to the Nisqually and the Puyallup. First thing to note, is that the South sound seems to be a death trap for most smolt. Reducing numbers probably did not help this problem at all. Second is that on the Nisqually, while there are tons of habitat projects going on and the commercials have raped the salmon runs in river. Sure, we could have good hatchery runs of salmon, but unless they are put back in the river it does no good. This likely has reduced the productivity at the same time the habitat was trying to increase it. Lastly, there is the problem of water draw downs.
Talking to a water specialist a few years ago, well levels were dropping for years, indicating a lowering of the water table. This dewatered a lot of small streams and reduced summer flows. They were going up last I heard, but I am not sure that the damage done can easily be fixed, especially with the all the other issues still not solved.

Friend of mine did lots of steelhead aging and management for the Nisqually. Long ago, like the 70s/80s, there were a lot of steelhead smolts that came out of Muck Creek. It was, then, warmer that the mainstream, lots of habitat, and productive. It has now gone intermittent, too warm, and weed-choked. He thinks, and I concur, that the Nisqually lost its most productive trib, and that is one reason for the crash and lack of response. Muck also suffers from excessive groundwater withdrawals.

An interesting aspect of groundwater is that lots of our groundwater is from septic tank recharge. When houses are connected to STPs that groundwater input ceases.

The Muck Creek Basin has a lot of issues. Most of the problem probably does have to do with well water drawn. There are, however, lots of areas that could be utilized to enhance recharge. Unfortunately I know of nothing being done on Muck Creek. It does run through the base, so perhaps something is going on.

The county has lots of resources, but for the most part is myopic in its view. In the Puyallup Basin, flood control and storm water departments are buying up quite a bit of land. This land, however, is just fenced off and left as-is, other than removing some of the structures. Much of it could be utilized for recreational uses, and if they teamed up with groups like duck unlimited, they could create some awesome wetlands and hunting areas for little to no money. . What they seem to do is wait for federal funds, then slowly spend millions doing small sections, leaving all of it closed off.

One tributary, clear creek, was one I fished on as a kid. They have some huge wetland projects going on it the lower section. The problem is, the stream has very little suitable spawning areas. In fact, flood control would come by and dig out the stream every few years when I was a kid, leaving a straight, mud lined ditch. The upper area, where spawning could occur, is blocked off by a private fish hatchery, that diverts most or all of the water for a small section. I have watched lots of fish come up and try to swim up the outflow pipe. In fact, about 40 years ago, at around 12 years old, I hooked into what I believe was a summer steelhead that was well over 40 inches in the hole created by the outflow ( it was the biggest hole on the street. It streaked across the hole and broke me off in about 5 seconds. I also caught the biggest cutthroat I ever saw out of the creek. Of course, now it is 100% off limits.

So now, millions are being spent in the lower areas, but miles of potential spawning habitat are shut off. A good sized, wooded canyon, with tons of woody debris, cascading holes, all shut off. I know of only a small, tiny creek chum utilize and per happens 10 to 30 feet of gravel on the main system. It might have changed recently, but I doubt it.

Some of those lower tributaries were likely overwinter rather than just spawning. Steelhead and coho move around a lot, especially in the fall. I saw a paper that looks at, I think, the Snohomish system and concluded that the diking, leveeing, filling, removal of beaver ponds and such in the lowlands lowered the basin coho smolt protential by 2/3. Probably knocked down steelhead too. And, might as Rivrguy what the Chahalis watershed would look like coho-wise if the lowlands were a complex of beaver ponds, sloughs, and such.

Oddly enough, in the late 70s my wife and I looked into buying a private hatchery in the Much Creek watershed. Might have been the one you know.

What’s a private hatchery? If native fish were used as broodstock and spawned with native fish would the smolts not overcome the weakness attributed to being spawned in a hatchery?

A private hatchery is one that raises fish for profit. A subgroup is the commercial net pens.

The problems (weakness) caused in hatchery fish tend to be genetic and tend to be lethal in the wild. They "overcome" the weakness by dieing. Probably the worst was some Chamber Creek winter steelhead that spawned in the wild and produced no smolts.

The overall problem with taking fish into hatcheries is that many of the changes are genetic; the fish genetically adapt to the hatchery. Unless the hatchery environment is EXACTLY the same as the wild in terms of temperature, flow velocity, available habitats (pool/riffle/run), unless the foods are the same and arrive the same way (in the water column, not all on the surface) and so on the fish will be changed. Some of the changes, which are "learned", can be overcome. The genetic ones tend to kill.

The BEST hatchery on the planet is a natural WILD river.

Can I get an "amen" for Doc?

AMEN!

Amen.

BTW how is it that WDFWx1 hasn't trolled this thread yet?

fb

Following up on C'man's post, no amount of raising fish in a hatchery, regardless of their genetic background, can overcome the weakness associated with hatchery rearing. It might help if you think about it in terms of heritable traits instead of the more mysterious concept of genetics. Just like other animals and organisms, fish inherit a lot of traits from their parents. Two of the most important traits are the instincts to forage for food and to seek cover from predators. When wild fish are spawned and their offspring raised in a hatchery, their instinct of foraging for food becomes "softened" because they don't have to search for food. It just magically falls on the water surface several times a day, every day, without fail. The foraging instinct becomes dulled because it goes unused until the fish are realeased as smolts to migrate to the ocean, so they aren't nearly as good at it as their wild counterparts who reared in the natural stream environment.

The second heritable trait or instinct, seeking cover from predators, is dulled even more than the instinct for foraging because their are no predators in the hatchery pond. This is an incredible instinct, because juvenile fish that have never seen a predator, have no idea what a predator is, somehow through inheritance, know that they better find cover to avoid becoming a meal for a predator.

In the natural environment, a juvenile fish constantly has to balance its use of time. Should I forage? If I don't, I won't grow and will starve. Or should I seek cover to avoid predation? If I do, I can't forage and grow, and if I don't, I get eaten and die. Life is constantly in the balance. In the hatchery, a juvenile fish simply eats when food appears, and doesn't have the slightest idea why it flinches when a bird flies overhead or the hatchery worker walks along the pond. Thinking about it, it's a wonder that hatchery fish retain enough key survival instincts for foraging and avoiding predation to ever survive the trip to the ocean and back.

There are other epi-genetic heritable traits that affect survival rates of wild and hatchery fish, but these two outlined above are the most significant ones that come to mind.

Another very significant genetic impact is with temperature. In cold-blooded animals, the chemical reactions are controlled by temperature and are inherited. As an example, in some fish (char) the muscles work just fine at low temps while in bass they don't. Incubating and rearing salmonids in warmer water selects for the chemicals that work in warm water. They just don't work in cold. That is likely one of the main reasons why Chambers Creek Winters performed so poorly as wild spawners. They had been, for decades, spawned, incubated, and reared in warm water. In the wild, the water was 15-20 degrees colder; they died.

There is another interesting piece about behavior and survival. In looking at the downstream, within stream, survival of smolting fish from acoustic tags the data I saw had similar mortality rates, per mile migrated, for hatchery and wild fish. I ascribed this to the fact that when the fish smolts it changes its behavior, position in the water, and probably even suite of predators going after them. So, there is a learning curve for all of them as they switch.

In some cases, the hatchery fish suffered less loss over the same distance because they were mass planted and overwhelmed the predators. Wild fish dribbled out.

Has the predator situation been addressed by any agency? In the livestock industry, if the losses to predators hits the tipping point, you thin out predators and resume operations, not just keep feeding the coyotes and wolves and wonder why production sucks. Has there been any studies to determine how many smolts are being consumed by predators?

There have been some studies on predation, with mixed results. If the only thing keeping the numbers down, predators might be a place to look. The predators don't have options for food. Humans do. Humans have options on how they develop the land, how the use water, and so on.

And, has been the case with many predator/livestock issues, the operator is required to make operational changes before, as a last resort, predators are removed.

I would be very interested to find out approximately what % of smolts are consumed by predators, I am sure it varies between watersheds, however, it might be one of the most impactful measures to bring more fish back.

I would suspect that most of the mortality suffered by smolts in FW and SW is due to predation. Something eats them. And has eaten them for millennia.

I can offer an observation I have witnessed on a couple of PS rivers and estuaries. Since the mid to late 80's there has been what I've seen as a huge increase in the cormorant population. Same down on the lower Columbia. They are smart. Every spring they stage at strategic locations set up for the outward migration of smolts. For some reason these locations on the Puyallup and Green are where large cables crossings are located. By the hundreds they come. On the Columbia it's thousands. They are very efficient diving hunters eating a dozen 4-10 inch, or larger fish daily. If you do the math it is evident there impact. The other huge proven impact are seals. One thing is for sure back in the 70's and early 80's less were around. I've often wondered why more study has not been done of the impact here in PS. They have been identified, hazed, trapped and killed on the Columbia for the impact there. One PS Steelhead study on migration had smolt implanted transmitters to see where they were going. Funny thing was very few made it to the Straits and another funny thing is some of the transmitters were found on shore amongst cormorant feces. IMO they need to be managed like everything else. That starts with delisting them as endangered. Offer hunting seasons and bounty's to manage the populations and there impact on endangered fish.

Maybe if recreational fishing was important we would manage the fish and habitat so that the wild runs could be large enough to support fisheries. And the rest of the ecosystem.

Absolutely ! That said it has to be a healthy river and ecosystem and as a man once said to me " we are 200 years and 4 million people late " . So in my mind both are correct and that is the issue as it does not appear we as a people have any intention of doing anything past window dressing different. I think sad but true.

Like most of the rivers of the OP?

Like none of the rivers on the OP, not until they have a large and consistent supply of marine derived nutrients.

Fish on...

Todd

Our fisheries are dying the death of a thousand cuts, however, removing predators to resemble a better balance seems like a slam dunk way of making a difference, because there are plenty of other things that we cannot control. How much is it costing tax payers to feed the socialist birds, Todd?

Too much. Those birds eat better than we do.

Fish on...

Todd

Issue a mandate.
Problem solved.

Like a "Plant more fish!" mandate?

Fish on...

Todd

Make it mandatory that steelhead return to all rivers.
Not just the Chehalis.

Federal mandates will have this under control within a year.

Let's go Brandon!!!

Your level of intelligence is really illuminated in your last comment.

Congrats

I have never understood why the tribes have not taken the lead in predator removal. There are some issues with federal mandates vs. state, but that has not stopped the tribes from finding a way around issues in the past. My only thought is that they do not want to be the lead in killing seals. But for cormorants should not be an issue. I know one tribal member that said any seal in the reservation rivers is dead on arrival. They also can get a permit for salt water taking, but they are expected to eat it. Since they taste horrible, very few, if any, are taken for subsistence.

Ever notice that those with the least to complain about seem to complain the most...?

I have.

how is one to truly protect wild fish when the tribes are dumping hatchery fish in the upper river systems...

as well as WDFW?

The ones with the least to complain about are surely the minority.
If only the majority that had the most to complain about got on-board perhaps we would have fish.

Go Joe go!!

Truth be told, will none of you move to the Gulf of Mexico? Cause your toxicity might ruin that too, 20 years of grab assing while the fishing I grew up with went to hell. Just finger pointing and no results. Not sad just mad.


Yeah yeah, tribes, ocean, escapement, predation, boldt, science, we got it! [Bleeeeep!] or get off of the toilet.

12/30/2021


What is the current WDFW wild steelhead 2021-2022 plan?

1. Has anyone seen a WDFW comprehensive plan???

2. I've listened, video conferencing, read all the comments here and WDFW Web site. I can't even find if the closure 2020-2021 resulted in any change in the water sheds. Did it do any good????? Was there any documentation done during or after the season was over?????

3. Again, have lived in Grays Harbor since 1968......lot's of Wild steelhead, lot's of hatchery steelhead, everywhere. I know people on here worked, either still do or are retired, for WDW or WDF, it was on your "watch" that the declines started, why wasn't more done at those times?

At one time they wanted hatchery steelhead to be removed so there was limited chance for hatchery/wild spawning.

If we use the Wynoochee River as an example...reason, in my time here, a Dam was built, Bolt Decision, NT had 100% of the netting until after Bolt, they netted July - December, there were springers, there were seasons in the Wynoochee for Coho, Chinook, Chum, winter Wild and hatchery steelhead, and the 1977-78 summer run steelhead plants.

Spring chinook are gone, there is no legal chinook fishery, wild steelhead numbers are down. If wild and hatchery steelhead spawn together, you'd think there might be an increase of "un-marked" steelhead.....I'm not seeing any big numbers from the trap reports. Do hatchery steelhead spawn????? Well if we use the 60,000 smolt plants on the summer run steelhead, since 1977-2021, you'd think lots of unmarked summer run would show in the summer fishery......thats more than 40 years of plants....many of those summers fishing experiences far exceeded any winter steelhead season.

Lets see......seasons closed to protect Wild Steelhead, what the heck is the plan for all the hatchery steelhead coming back.......Wynoochee has the trap, some go to Lake Aberdeen hatchery for brood, all the rest are, Wild and hatchery, are trucked above the dam.......that includes all H/W steelhead and all Coho.

No answer here, all above my pay grade, but I'm not sure WDFW, QIN, has any answers.........pissed lots of great chances to have hatchery close to dam....I point finger at DWF and DWL back when dam was built..... grrrrrrrrrrrr

Nets, well we all know the results.....

To get up on my soapbox, I think the problem (at least one of the major ones) is nobody is will to explicitly say what they want, fish-wise. We use warm and fuzzy platitudes like "fishable numbers", "sustainable runs", and the like.

I believe that we know, in a general if not specific sense, what needs to be done. For example (ALL MADE UP), the Chehalis system needs X wild Chinook, Chum, and Coho spawners to produce the following quantified fisheries. Here, you list fishery and catch such as 200 Skookumchuck Springers in a Skookumchuck River sport fishery that runs from May 1 to July 31. That requires certain spawning and reading flows, water temperatures, clean gravels; all of which we know how to do. Just work all this out to the mouth of the Harbor. You need Q fish entering and we have the fishery. You need W habitat protections/zoning.

I believe that we don't want to quantify goals because it will require saying NO to somebody, whether it be open angler, BC Lodge, AK troller, Lewis County logger, or whatever.

How do yo have that in PS with the Puyallup and Green? River banks man made diked for flood control with the damns built. Freeway raceway flow habitat...habitat gone since 1930's. Green diked and damned in the 50's. Both lower river habitat is and has been gone for 70-90 yrs.. And yet both rivers still provided a viable steelhead recreational fishery into the 90's with wild and hatchery fish plentiful. The Steelhead adapted to that disruption until the predators numbers began to increase with there protections. IMO if you kill 10,000 cormorants and seals in PS. You will see an increase in all fish returns. The trouble is no one has the stomach or political will for it! Tribes time to answer with immunity!

Drifter,

1. WDFW produced a Wild Steelhead Management Plan in 2008. I don't think it has been updated since. In a nutshell, it says, among other things, when wild run sizes are less than established spawning escapement goals, there will be no fishing seasons on wild steelhead. Well, here we are. Wild run sizes are less than the escapement goals, so the rivers are closed to fishing. Just like the plan says.

2. I haven't seen any data or other results from 2020-2021 either. What likely resulted is that a few more wild steelhead survived to spawn because they didn't suffer incidental mortality from angling. If WDFW knows more than that, they likely aren't saying.

3. Do you seriously believe that the decline in wild steelhead abundance didn't begin before your arrival in 1968? Declining salmonid populations most likely began shortly after of white settlers and began commercial fishing, road and railroad development, logging, mills, farms, and towns - all the usual things that degrade fish habitat and reduce their populations. You appear to be another example of the "shifting baseline paradigm." As if the fish populations were never larger than when you arrived on the scene.

It would be more accurate to say that the declines continued under the watch of managers recently retired. And the declines continued for all those same reasons that have been mentioned over and over. WDFW and its predecessor agencies don't have and never have had the legal authority to protect fish habitat. Adequate habitat protection would require socially unacceptable restrictions on road building, logging, agriculture, flood protection, commercial fishing, and more. Heck, it took the threat of a federal lawsuit by treaty tribes just to get DNR to follow its own guidelines for culvert sizing on small streams just because larger culverts cost more money.

Spring Chinook are gone because all the suitable habitat for springers is gone. Gone due to clear-cutting and road building to the mountain tops of the Chehalis, Wynoochee, and Skookumchuck. All due to land use activities that WDFW has never had any control over. Do you think the USFS, DNR, and private timber owners were going to leave all that old growth timber in those upper watersheds to protect stream flows and water temperatures for a few thousand Spring Chinook (and a few other salmon and steelhead) so that a couple dozen Harbor gillnetters could kill most of them every spring and summer? Of course not. And they didn't. And the habitat was and remains trashed. It might recover somewhat in one or two hundred years, but we won't live to see it.

Now why do you think if wild and hatchery steelhead spawned together their might be an increase in unmarked steelhead? After everything that has been posted in this forum about why hatchery steelhead don't survive well in the natural environment, you should know a hell of a lot better. The utter lack of unmarked summer runs in the Wynoochee is about as clear of evidence as you can get that hatchery steelhead, even though they spawn in the natural envionment, utterly fail to produce subsequent returning wild adult fish. (There are a few cases of Skamania summer runs producing subsequent wild fish where there is suitable habitat; Chambers Ck spawners are statistically zero in that regard.)

I've said it before, if it's good steelhead fishing you want, buy a time machine and set it for 1968.

RunnGun,

The answer is that you don't get it in the Puyallup and Green with all that diking and flood control. Even before the recent nose dive in ocean survival these were marginal populations just barely making escapement (or slightly less, which is why they've been closed to fishing since the 90s). Those numbers weren't plentiful. They were just enough to allow CNR fishing, and have since become too low even for that.

SG you missed on the Nooch. Region 6 staff determined that they did not need protection or mitigation when the dam was built, just strays I believe was the rational. Thing is Nooch springers spawned mostly in the gorge which is now the lake. Never were a very large population but the old Grisdale guys hiked down to fish them and called them the " speckle backs ".

The original EIS for Wynoochee DAM can be downloaded from this site. Interesting reading about "benefits" and replacement of anadromous fish loss with hatchery trout.


https://usace.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16021coll7/id/10939/

The Puget Sound historical data base from WDFW's "Oncorhynchus mykiss: Assessment of Washington State's Steelhead Populations and Programs" provides some interesting information regarding Green River steelhead (the DOW escapement goal for the basin was 2,000).

In the early 1980s (1980 to 1984) the average wild steelhead escapement was estimated to have been 1,710. Average wild steelhead run during the late 1980s (1985 to 1989 -the next generation) was 3,154 or about 1.8 recruits/spawner.

In the early 1990s the average escapement was 1,695. The average return in the late 1990s was 2,602 or about 1.5 recruits/spawners.

In early 2000s (2000 TO 2004) the average escapement was 1,674. The average return in the latter part of that decade (2005 to 2009) was 1,168 or about 0.80 recruits/spawner.

While the above is not a prefect run reconstruction, I think it is adequate to provide insight into the productivity trends of that population over time.

Take home message - In site of the degraded habitats in the Green as suggested by SG that reduced capacity was consistently able to produce harvestable steelhead until the marine (smolt to adult) survivals fell to current levels.

Curt

“ I've said it before, if it's good steelhead fishing you want, buy a time machine and set it for 1968. “

Yuppers, back when the true wild fish were at their peak returns allowing full up rec fishing for wilds from mid Jan, thru March in most PS rivers, and we had plenty of F&G hatchery support providing good fishable numbers of steelhead to catch from mid November thru the end of January.

So, now we have no early timed hatchery plants, or any plants for that matter, so no returns, and the wild fish are still here in our local PS rivers like they always were in February and March , but you cannot angle for them. Just take your float boats out in March and April, and please be careful of the spawning redds when you beach the boat....

Save the wild steel, mission completed....

One of the things that has happened in the Green, until at least 2010, was that the Green was significantly declining in tributary spawners. I think a lot of this was due to tributary development and habitat degradation. So, the EG set in earlier, which included tribs, may be too high. One of the few times when I can see a biological reason to lower a goal; if you aren't going to put fish in a habitat that shouldn't count against goal.

Also, in looking at R/S, in those very few places where you know the actual escapement (you count them through a trap) and have 100% age analysis I have yet to see any steelhead run with an R/S to first return that even reached 1.0. Need repeat spawners. Further, as shown by Keogh and supported by some WA streams, a stream produces (from the same habitat) more smolts if they are age-1 and the age-2 smolts are more abundant than age-3 (if that was all that was produced in a year). The R/S (theoretical) to get 1.0 was at an average smolt age of 1.5.

Another thing about the tributary spawners was a theory of Jeff Cederholm's, based on his long-time work in the Clearwater watershed. He believed that the earliest returning steelhead spawned primarily in the tributaries while the later retaining fish were more mainstream spawners. So, hammering the early returns that co-returned with the hatchery fish, turning off the nutrient delivery to make for older smolts leads to less productive runs. Steelhead are damn complex. And then, they switch to being resident when being anadromous doesn't work.

Lots of science talk and obvious excuses. Still no comments on predator control which Is over half of the current problem. All the best habitat, repeat spawners and best ocean conditions are not going to produce any more fish unless the predators that are eating them up are also managed appropriately. Happy New Year of very little Winter Steelhead opportunity!

And all of the predator control in the world is gonna do nothing with poor habitat, chang9ng oceans conditions, lack of food, and over harvest.

This is what I mentioned earlier, if the smolts are migrating into a massive wall of predators, all the habitat and ocean conditions mean squat. It sure seems like habitat and predators are something that we can manage to a certain degree, ocean nutrients and temps, probably not as much.

Wanna bet!

Rivrguy,

I'm no expert on the Nooch, and I likely miss a lot of things many places. I didn't mean to imply that the Wynoochee was some kind of mainstay of Spring Chinook production, only that the limited habitat capacity for producing springers was compromised and degraded by forest practices in the upper watershed, same as occurred in the upper Chehalis, Skookumchuck, and Newwaukum. None of the Chehalis basin has been prime spring Chinook habitat in the last 200 years. But parts of upper watershed reaches marginally provided the habitat conditions necessary for them to be there, so in those former times of salmonid abundance, spring Chinook occurred wherever the environmental conditions favored their existence, even if the total abundance was low.

Darth,

Now ya' got me curious; I'm going to take another look at that EIS. It's been decades for me. As naive as I was then, I didn't understand how WDF decided salmon mitigation beyond temperature regulation wasn't required and that WDG took a lump sum of $$ for steelhead mitigation. Those conclusions just don't pencil out over the prospective lifetime of a dam.

20 Gage,

What makes you think 1968 was "peak" returns? I think we have cumulative data suggesting that larger returns of wild steelhead occurred earlier than that. The 1968 - 1972 time period mainly reflects the peak combined harvests of hatchery and wild steelhead for many river systems, and not the peak abundance of wild steelhead.

RunnGun,

I'm sorry to see you use the term "excuses." I don't see anyone here trying to excuse anything. IMO we are making observations and trying to explain what has happened and why it has happened. That's not an excuse.

SG old WDG took the money set aside to rear a required number of Steelhead smolt but used a hunk of it to rebuild Aberdeen Lake Hatchery. They were allowed to do this by guaranteeing to produce the smolt regardless of funding for the life of the dam in writing.

Now WDFW has twice tried to get away from that but the in writing thing stopped them. It is the TCL funds in trust for further mitigation that have been setting for over 20 years.

I think you captured the rest of Springer thing about right on.

Factors dictating stock abundance are not easy to see.
Science says the two main factors are ocean conditions and spawning and rearing habitat carrying capacity.
Never ever read anything about predators being a deciding factor.

Ever hear of Herschel? For sure there a multiple factors involving predators, but there definitely is a connection. This article in the Encyclopedia of Puget Sound provides some insight in to predation and the fact that an increasing in other forage fish could solve the problem. Great example of the interplaying factors.

https://www.eopugetsound.org/magazine/ssec2018/marine-survival-3

That was a predator taking advantage of a man made obstacle.

As Krijack noted, if the forage fish were increased then the predators would switch off to them. It is my understanding that pinniped preferred lamprey to salmon; lots more fat and nutrients. If we want more salmon maybe, just maybe, we should lay off other species. And, in the short term, it may be necessary to control predators in specific locations where they take unnaturally concentrated smolts/adults like at dams.

The unfortunate thing about trying to recover anadromous salmonids is the myriad of factors crashing them, none of them responsible for the whole thing. Take out dams and don't change ocean fisheries (forage fish and the recovery species) and no recovery. Kill off predators and leave the ocean bereft of forage? No recovery.

The harbor seal diet studies (scat samples) from the late 1990s and early 2000s provides some interesting observations.

In Hood Canal during the fall 79% of the samples contained gadids (primarily hake), 30% herring and 26% adult salmon. During the spring 85% of the samples were gadids, herring 26% and anchovy 35%.

In South Sound 99% of the had gadids (hake and tomcod) herring 69%, midshipman 37% and various flatfish 33%.

Juvenile salmonids were consumed by the harbor seals with the heaviest rates in the spring but in terms of both numbers and biomass they are minor portion of the harbor seals diet though a small portion of an individual seal diet can add up to a significant number for the population as a whole.

Regarding the hake between 1980 and late 1990s there was a decline in abundance for the inland (Georgia straits and Puget Sound) Distinct Population Segment (DPS) and is currently listed as a federal species of concern. If the Puget Sound portion of the DPS was considered separately the status concerns would increase. In that period a decline in both size and average weight was noted in the hake.

A major hake historic PS spawning area was Port Susan WDFW monitoring of the spawning biomass for the period 1980 and 2000 showed an 85% decline.

The long trend in herring abundance is no more encouraging. Since the mid-1970s WDFW has been monitoring various spawning aggregations annual (estimating the spawning biomass). WDFW produces a status report on the population trends every 4 years. As part of that evaluation stocks that fall below 25% of the running 25-year average are giving status rating of critical. In 1996 none of the 17 populations monitored given a critical. In the most recent report (2016 - the 2020 report should be available soon) of the 18 populations rated 9 (50%) were rated as critical.

The question we all quickly jump to is whether these as well as Chinook, coho and steelhead smolt survivals declines are all due to seal pinniped predation or some other large ecosystem problem is unknown and can't be known without more holistic evaluation of the PS ecosystem.

curt

Looks like salmon and steelhead habitat has been traded for something else.

https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/protecting-critical-value-nearshore-habitat


More than 95 percent of the most valuable nearshore habitat in Puget Sound is gone and is especially scarce in the south Sound, according to an analysis by the Puget Sound Nearshore Ecosystem Restoration Project. Scientists described it as a “dramatic change in the historic occurrence [of] these once-prominent nearshore ecosystems.”

Fewer than one percent of Puget Sound Chinook salmon juveniles that migrate to the ocean each year survive to return as adults. That means that already imperiled populations continue to decline. There are also repercussions for other species such as endangered Southern Resident killer whales that depend on them for food.

Nice cut and past job there, Hank, I mean illahee. Good read being the only difference though.

It’s a death by a thousand cuts, however the most limiting of factors by far is habitat. While predation does it’s damage, taking predator control measures (removing cormorants or pinnipeds) may allow a few more fish to survive in the immediate, but won’t translate into any sustained increase in numbers over time. It hinges on what the given habitat is capable of providing and holding (carrying capacity) at that time.

It’s the same reason why “just plant more fish” won’t work either. But there seems to be no shortage of people who struggle to understand this as well.


Steamy

How many rivers/waterways with man made obstacles need to be listed before understanding that is part of the problem to the benefit of the predator? Whether it's the power dams on the Columbia, The Hood Canal brdg. the flood control dams on PS and GH rivers and the straightening dikes below them that came with. All contribute to a significant increase of salmonid predation.

All I have been saying if we could start NOW with some region wide predator control/management, we WILL see an increase in overall numbers, to at least give the fish a fighting chance during all the other negative current environmental issues facing them. Everything else said, it WOULD achieve the quickest results. Whether the law makers and the public have the stomach for it is another question.

My point is until fisheries science does a 180 and and starts listing predation as a limiting factor for stock abundance demanding we control predators is just whistling in the wind.
Why not address the issues they do list?

Water quality

Large woody debris

Stream complexity

Back channel alcove over wintering habitat

Folks have been talking about salmomid predation for decades and in fact the predation of steelhead is listed as one of the factors in the NMFS approved PS steelhead recovery plan. The problem that no one has been able to get around is the lack of public will to address the issue.

Other issues to consider would be altered hydrographs whether from hydro production, land use practices or climate change.

Stream channel instability

excessive sedimentation

curt

This discussion and the other related ones them past month (years) all have the common theme of making steelhead and salmon ecosystems the way they used to be, restoration. Ecosystems are dynamic, they are always changing and no management scheme can force an ecosystem into a previous state. The three broad categories of ecosystems are freshwater, ocean water, and terrestrial. North Pacific salmonids depend on all three and over a large section pf the earth. These systems are changing and at a rapid pace. Human activities causing climate change, and the introduction of persistent organic pollutants (POP’s) and plastics into the environment are drivers for the rapid pace of change.

Using steelhead as an example climate change in the freshwater environment is causing flooding and river changes on a large scale. Attempts to prevent damage from flooding does nothing to improve steelhead habitat. In the marine environment most steelhead smolts migrate directly offshore to regions of the Pacific of a particular temperature range. There is a warm water line that defines their southern range. As ocean waters warm that line move northward and a glance at a globe will show that as the southern boundary move north the total area of suitable marine habitat shrinks. Steelhead are a minor salmonid species. As their marine habitat decreases they have to compete more with pink and chum salmon and they are at a handicap.

Concerning pollution and plastics, they are everywhere in the environment. POP’s are endocrine disrupters, they can limit reproductive success and cause genetic damage. In the marine environment they are at low levels but plastics concentrate them on their surface as much as a million fold. As all of the plastics in the ocean are broken down to micro particles the surface area increases as the size of the particle decreases. The micro particles and the pollution they concentrate become part of the food chain. When we talk about marine derived nutrients cross out nutrients and substitute pollutants, not good.

We can discuss management failures, better manage schemes, or any number of other ideas but until the real cause of the change is understood little will happen. Climate change, POP’s, and plastics are all a product of the fossil fuel industry and that is going to be with us for some time.

I'll take flooding as an example. If the rivers had a functional floodplain capable of handling a 150 year "naturally" then floods wouldn't be a problem. If we watersheds capable of retaining rain and snow rather than running it off fast, the fish would be happy. We know what the fish need in the ecosystem; we just don't intend to provide it as there is money to be made.

WN1A . A very insightful post that expands the conversation. It's almost like the West Coast Steelhead are the canary in the coal mine for the salmonid system as a whole. We have fd up it's environment all the way around to a point of where we are now. POP's and PFAS and all the other plastic/chemicals man has introduced to what we thought an ocean environment that couldn't be affected are now catching up to us. Since the second industrial revolution in the early 20th century all the crap has caught to us. What's the future?

https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/chemistry/age-plastic-parkesine-pollution#:~:text=The%2020th%20century%20saw%20a,fully%20synthetic%20plastic%20in%201907.

I would hope that we still could still have an available opportunity to in river fish CnR statewide, whether hatchery or wild, that's in my DNA. I don't want to kill and eat them anyway. I think we have come to the point of the rest of the worlds approach to managing the experience. Permit limiting fishing only. It's inevitable from a management perspective. Not a happy discussion for the rest of society that believe, "I have a right to fish public land if I buy a license". Truth of the matter is, the fish can't support that anymore. With all the crap that's in the ocean it makes one wonder if any fish is "Healthy" to eat any more.

I truly believe that in 10yrs there will be next to zero viable steelhead fisheries left in Washington State. If you want to catch steelhead go to Oregon, Idaho, NorCal, or Great Lakes. We all know we are past the tipping point, although if society made a huge effort to get habitat back in balance and manage predators, we could potentially turn the tide, alas, that ship has sailed, SO..... could DFW or the tribes pen raise steelhead innthe salt and release them in rivers for sport? Sounds good to me!

My prediction is that steelhead fishing will be severely limited on rivers where wild fish are the main draw (Sol Duc, Hoh, even the Nooch) with very liberal seasons (no boat or bait restrictions) on the banner hatchery rivers. (Cowlitz, lower Bogie, maybe even the Hump.)

Still shocked that we ended up with a season at all on the coast. Really miss my beloved Nooch, however.

Seeing some positive Steelhead reports from Oregon. Talk is more fish around early than past seasons. Maybe it may not be as bad as first thought. My coast trip was cancelled from the cold, so I know little that has been going on. There was a good group of fish that came in with all the early high water at the Bogy hatchery, but don't have any reports since everything dropped in.

What's the evaluation of the broodstock program on the Quinault? I think those fish are raised in pens on the lake, right? Do the ones not caught come back to the lake and just mill around?

I'm assuming the fear is they mingle with wild spawning fish - both in the lower river and upper forks - but was curious what research has shown on it.

Or maybe an issue is that there hasn't been a ton of research done on it.

That has been done...if I remember correctly, back in the 90s they determined that 40% to 50% of the spawners in the entire Quinault basin were hatchery fish...and that the genetics of the wild fish above the lake had been significanly compromised.

Fish on...

Todd

Gotcha. So theoretically you have a wild stock in which a significant portion of the fish aren't as resilient as they could be - maybe more susceptible to predators, maybe not as good at finding food in the ocean, maybe not as skilled at getting into the upper reaches of the watershed.

So, besides the obvious value of preserving a pure wild strain (take a utilitarian approach for a minute), wouldn't a resource manager want to weigh how many more steelhead a broodstock program puts into the Quinault vs. how many it takes out due to compromising the genes of wild fish and subsequently causing them to die before spawning?

Well,yes...it's literally the only metric that matters, and one that to my knowledge has never once been measured.

The most significant "measure" of how effective they are tend to be anecdotal stories from guides who participate in the broodstock collection and take clients fishing for the clipped ones...and while I value whatever information they can bring to the table, this information is worthless so far as an actual measuring tool.

Fish on...

Todd

The Quinault do not raise steelhead in pens on the lake. Only salmon, (sockeye and kings).

Weird, I just received a note from the Quinault Inn folks asking if I would book a trip with their guide as the river is open to steelheading by NI rec fishing with the tribal guides.

And here we thought all would be closed down...

No More Ice Fishin,

The Quinault raise hatchery steelhead from wild brood, then subsequent generations from those returning offspring. They selectively breed for 3-salt, or larger fish, and the fish culture folks are very proud of their program. The thing is, no quantitative measure of the program's success has been shared with the non-tribal community, if any reports even exist. We know the program returns hatchery fish, as do all the other wild broodstock programs that have been done. But none provide any quantitative conclusions comparing the benefits of those programs to just leaving the wild broodstock to spawn naturally in their respective river systems. I think they produce more fish than the natural spawners would, but that is my opinion and not necessarily a fact.

Returning adults that are not caught do migrate up the river and spawn, as Todd mentions. It likely results in a mix of hatchery origin fish spawning with wild fish. The Quinault Tribe performs the spawning surveys, and by policy, the Tribe decided that hatchery and wild fish are the same, so they've made no attempt to distinguish the difference on the spawning grounds.

Most resource managers would want to know the relative benefits and merits, or lack of, of any fish program they run. However, when you use policy decisions in place of science, you decide not to look so you never have to answer those questions.

Bobrr,

It's been a few years since I toured the Lake Quinault hatchery facility, but they were raising both Chinook and steelhead in the lake net pens. They once raised sockeye, but I think that was long ago discontinued. Sockeye are difficult to raise in a hatchery environment due to IHN disease issues.

20 Gage,

That part of the Quinault under WDFW jurisdiction is closed.

My wife and I have never seen steelhead raised in the pens , we've been fishing this lake for 18 years, have spoken with Skip (don't know last name) who runs the net pen hatchery and some of the tribal workers from time to time. Maybe they tried it before then, I know most of the hatchery steelhead are raised on the river hatchery. They are def. raising sockeye in the pens as their major effort, the sockeye are their most important salmon from a cultural point of view. We sometimes snag and also have them attack spoons not much smaller then they are. The amount of predation by these fish is the reason for larger limits then the state allows, and much lower numbers of fisherfolk keeps numbers high. Hell, we've pulled 10 inch trout out of larger Dollies! while trolling near bait balls, there are large schools of 5 inch sockeye that we spot on sonar. We never see king smolts though. They are not having much success with sockeye from numbers returning. They have shifted releases by towing pens to the outflow of the lake to avoid predation by the Dolly Vardens and cutts which thrive there. We see lots of cutthroat and esp. sockeye in the stomachs of the Dollies and Cutts we catch there. We are not allowed to keep salmon or steelhead (any rainbows over 16 inches) and do not catch any numbers of either rainbow trout or steelhead, I think we've released one steelhead and caught less then 3 or 4 rainbows in all that time. We've caught and released some nice salmon over the years, but only one or two every three years or so. We tend to troll spoons that match the fish we find in the stomachs of what we catch.

Salmo,

So, what part do they control ? Nothing below the lake, or the lake as I understand. Above is the national park, so does that come under WDFW management ?

And, doesn’t Mr. Johnstone run the steelhead hatchery operation at the lake pens ?

Gage, If you look at the QIN website, the sport winter steelhead season (with an indian guide) is from Dec.1 -January 31 with a two fish/day limit. The tribe owns the river below the lake and the lake itself. The park service has jurisdiction inside the park. I am not sure about the portion of the river from the national park down to the entrance to the upper end of the lake.

WDFW sets regs from the mouth at the top
of the lake up to the ONP boundary.
SF

WDFW, I would think, control that part of the river from the upper end of the lake to the park boundary.

It has been a long time since I was around the QIN program ( back to the Manny days ) but it does seem to work. I have noticed that most other programs be it wild or hatchery managed by the state do not work. So how I look at it is simple enough, where in Washington can you go catch Steelhead in reasonable numbers that has a wild run other than the Quinault River? That the program likely has altered the wild run genetics has to be true but it is still there and if you stopped the program in a few generations the fish will sort themselves out to the environmental conditions.

So the Nation has developed a management that allows harvest with out destroying the wild run. I doubt any solution I have seen in this thread comes close to matching its success. To the purest again, your 4 million people and 200 years late.

The Quinault started there brood stock program by catching Steelhead alive in a gill net strung from shore out on Lake Quinault. I'm not sure when they started the program but back in 2014 I was fortunate to hang out for an afternoon and witness how it worked. My nephew was friends with one of the members. During daylight hours the net would be strung out from shore and an employed tribal watchman would keep an I on the floats of the net from the 2nd story window from the holding facility building. Floats bob, rush down to boat and race out. Boat had 55g drum with water. Pull and untangle fish. If 15# or bigger, dump in barrel. If smaller release back into the lake. Then race back to shore and dump in a bag and run it up to the holding tank and dump in. Crude but effective. Like I said they only kept big fish to breed. The holding tank had 15-20 in it at that time. Many of the fish from that breeding returned big. Many pushn 20# and over. The return numbers were really good up until around 2017-18. Then numbers dropped significantly on par with what is going on everywhere now. Hence the fishing restrictions implemented the last few years. Don't know there operations now but one things for sure. Big fish breed big fish!

I recall that WDG tried something similar with Summers. Down at Skamania they spawned the 3-salt summers exclusively, intending to produce a bigger returning fish. It worked well, since saltwater age has a strong genetic component. Problem was that the returns were insufficient to replace the brood; the extra year in the ocean had too much mortality. The same will happen in Quinault; in years of low enough survival, there won't be enough making it back.

Unless you are paying to play in the hatchery creek, the Quinault fishery has taken a schit just like the rest. I can regale you with stories of how it used to be, just like all the rest above, but they would just be the same stories...used to be great, now it's not.

Fish on...

Todd

Todd please regale us, we need some great steelhead catching stories to cheer us up on this depressing pre-river-scouring raining day. Oh wait, maybe you’re not old enuff yet to really regale. One needs to be really old to regale tales of the olden daze ya know.

Not sure how old is old enough...but I caught my first steelhead in the Sammamish River in 1977...plenty of stories from there as a kid, but alas, no steelhead there any more.

Upper Quinault was not often much of a numbers game...three or four a day was a good day, but the percentage of 20+ fish in the mix was the best anywhere...the last few years that I fished it consistently the percentage of big fish hadn't changed, but catching more than a fish a day was a struggle, and there were a lot of blank days.

As per the National Park Service when they closed the area of the upper Quinault to match the WDFW closure dates...

"The 2021-22 forecast for wild steelhead in the Quinault River system is expected to be 1,756 wild steelhead, which would be among the lowest return on record. These regulation changes are being implemented in cooperation with Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife."

That's the entire Quinault system, less than 1800 wild fish.

Fish on...

Todd

Back when I was starting out, the WDG managers thought that 1 pair of steelhead per mile of stream was "enough". Maybe a few more per mile in a river. I worked on a small creek with a 7 mile anadromous zone. 14 steelhead was "adequate"?? And this was late 70s. That 1800 in the Quinault sounds like catastrophic overescapoment. Must have been. Look what higher escapements gave us.

CM has it exactly right. Just a year to two before Todd was catching his first steelhead the three legs of Washington steelhead was a fish was a fish (hatchery and wild fish were the same), sport fishing was incapable of overfishing steelhead and escapement needs were only a redd/mile. Just 5 short years after Todd had caught that first steelhead a cadre of young fisheries biologist (nearly all coming to the agency in the 1970s) had changed that management paradigm in significant was: The first hatchery/wild steelhead studies were under way (Kalama River), basic wild steelhead studies underway on Snow Creek (the creek CM referred to); basic steelhead inventories under way in key basins, large scale creel surveys to sample the recreational steelhead catch, estimate angler effort, etc. were under way, mark selective fishing (folks remember those dread "fin cards") was being implemented, hatchery spawning protocols were being altered to reduce potential hatchery/wild interactions, spawning escapement goals being established, basin wide spawning surveys were under way to measure the escapement and management was adjusted to assure that meeting those spawning objectives were being met with wild steelhead spawners all the while generally meeting the newly federal mandated catch sharing.

Many of that cadre of young biologist were certifiable steelhead nuts, most not afraid to work long hours (60-hour weeks not uncommon) many willing to donate their weekends (and fishing) to assure those tasks dedicated by the above changes were being full filled. All this was accomplished with little public support including the steelheaders themselves. Remember many hotly contested public meetings discussing such things like mark selective fishing, escapement goals, etc. that would be heavily attended with few "friendly faces" in the crowd. I remember well (and probably still have some of the well-earned scars obtained at these meetings) discussing the implementation of those previously mentioned fin cards on the Snohomish system that was attended by more than 300 folks where I could have easily counted the idea supporters on my two hands.

Of that cadre of young biologists that are still with us are now all retired drawing their "rocking chair" money now. Without a doubt there were many mistakes made; they after all were inventing a new paradigm but there can be no denying their passion and the positive steelhead responses to those changes. Clearly my bias shows but my opinion is they collective advanced the science of steelhead management and significantly improved the status of the resource. Further it remains my opinion is we the society not those biologists that failed the resource. Collective society as a whole has been unable or perhaps incapable to protect the needed fresh and marine waters ecosystems essential to support the 1980s steelhead abundance levels. It was and remains the responsibility of society not those biologists to provide that habitat protection.

End of the rant; not sorry about it.

Curt

damn good rant!

Double Damn Good Rant!

OK... fair enough, but I'm NOT buying all of it. It could have been done better. The necessary tasks required for meaningful steelhead conservation are simply too fragmented among too many agencies.

The diffusion of responsibility for protecting the viability of the species has been both a blessing and a curse. A blessing in that no single agency/entity could be expected to shoulder the breadth, depth, and complexity of habitat protection, hatchery production, AND harvest management... so the load of responsibility is split among multiple disciplines of expertise.

At the same time, it's a curse in that without a single authority to accountably coordinate these activities everywhere steelhead live, their meaningful execution becomes mission impossible. The same can be said for the rest of the salmonid family.

Biggest failure by far is on the habitat protection side of the equation... far too many uncoordinated cooks with their hands in the broth, too often at odds with one another. Human encroachment and overpopulation, particularly in Puget Sound, has "reclaimed" and altered habitat for human conveniences at the expense of the wild creatures that depend on the same real estate and the waters flowing thru it. Abundant populations of anadromous salmonids are simply incapable of co-existing with the environmental assault of millions of people.

The collective "WE" is the ultimate enemy.

'Bout covers it, Smalma. Tried to change the world.

Remember, to make sure it was gonna be extra hard the state decided that TWO sperate departments was the way to go in management...which of course had opposing viewpoints on a multitude of issues from harvest to..well, a S ton of things. Wildlife running steelhead and fisheries running the rest? It was doomed from the get go.

It was not "The State" that decided two separate agencies were needed; it was the voters who did so by Initiative. They created two agencies. Essentially one for sport on one for commercial. "The State" had created a single agency. If memory serves, it was the Sporties who drove the change.

An initiative sponsored by sportsman in 1932 separated the food fish (managed by the Department of fisheries whose director was appointed by the Governor) and game fish (managed by department of game with the director appointed by a 6 member commission).

In 1987 the Department of Game the Department of Wildlife formalizing an increased focus on non-game critters.

In 1994 things swung full circle with the two agencies being replaced by a single agency - today's Department of fish and wildlife. The two component agencies have two very different cultures with Fisheries with a heavy centralized structure and Game a much more regional/local structure. In regard to the anadromous salmonids the two agencies also have very different philosophies.

Curt

Those fish biologists from the 1970’s were doing the best they could under the circumstances they found themselves in. But one thing I’ve learned over that same time span is that we don’t need to manage these fish for them to survive. We need to manage the people and their impacts on the landscape.

These fish have been around for thousands of years. They don’t need us to ‘manage’ them to survive. In fact, they will do quite well without us. They just need us to get out of their way. They’ll be fine if we do that. But it seems like we just can’t.

My undergraduate eddication was not in WA, so I may have learned some different stuff. But my fish management prof, who also happened to be running CDFG's Inland Fish program, emphasized that resource management was people management first and foremost. That may have been the ultimate disconnect; agencies never educated the public as to what the resources needs were (exploitation, habitat, the whole enchilada) and the public was not all too clear about what it wanted (jobs, dead fish in the boat, McMansions).

Management of most everything has done a good job of siloing tasks so that they don't communicate amongst themselves.

Give that man a GOLD star.

This is the inescapable reality of bureaucratic diffusion of responsibility. Spreading the burden of accountability ultimately diminishes ANY accountability at all. Just encourages finger-pointing between the "siloed" agencies.... and nothing of meaningful benefit ever gets accomplished.

Thanks for all the great information and historical perspective on here. It's super interesting.

I haven't looked at the plants or returns for the Skykomish lately, but my understanding is that the lack of plants from the Wild Fish Conservancy lawsuits would no longer be impacting this. Not sure if that info is right or not...but I thought I've seen talk of the SAR being abysmal all over Washington (including the Sky buy also on the OP). Meaning it's not just a Puget Sound thing or greater metro area development within watersheds or a tribal harvest thing...but that something is happening out in the ocean as the common denominator. I know, death by a thousand cuts, but interested in more details around the deepest cuts.

I was looking at escarpment reports today and noticed it's business as usual for returns on Puget sound systems with fish on hand numbering 50-300 per hatchery facility, but what caught my attention was the Bogachiel had collected over 2,000 fish. Plant numbers were around 100k for the Bogey and the Sky, yet the coastal fish are doing better. The main obstacle being Puget sound and why folks here are basically saying it doesn't matter how many you plant, nothing will return. Perhaps we're better off planting more on the coast where the fish have a better chance at survival and eliminating hatchery fish in Puget sound?

What's the return ratio for the Sky these days compared to just a decade ago?

Was happy to see that. Water/weather conditions so far made it tough to capitalize on it though. I'm sure those that caught the windows of opportunity did well.

As far as PS returns, keep in mind the Sky is the only system with any decent plant numbers and, correct me if I'm wrong, the only PS river with a completed HGMP that allows those planted numbers. The reason for poor survival has been IMO predation. I think the largest culprit, but hardly emphasized as a PS problem by anyone. I'll say it again, it's the easiest/quickest problem to change but the public and government does not have the stomach for it!

Agree RnG on the predators. They planted around 100k for the Sky(numbers similar to the Bogey).

One of the surprises from the steelhead information collected in the 1980s was that Puget Sound hatchery steelhead consistently returned at less than 1/2 of the rates seen on the coast (same stocks). At the same time Puget Sound coho were returning at least 3 times the rate seen on coast coho.

Different fish preform differently in different habitats.

Curt

I think that the PS cutties had better "marine" survivals than the ocean-run stocks. So true, Smalma, how the species and stocks do the same thing differently.

The 80's was at the beginning of the increase in predator populations. i.e. cormorants and seals. Especially in PS. Over the years to today those population increases are in direct proportion to the decline in salmonid returns. The one factor that favors fish and fluctuates return success is turbid water conditions during inward or outward migration. Those predators have to see to hunt. The fish don't to migrate.


The ability is here now to at least tackle the cormorant issue. It's a fairly new ruling out since last Feb.

https://www.federalregister.gov/document...sted-cormorants

Since this ruling. Michigan has already begun to implement cormorant removal for the protection of their fishery stocks and benefit of the sportsman.

https://mucc.org/lethal-cormorant-contro...ement-strategy/

If the State won't, maybe the Tribes will make it happen!

You might get some level of predator control if the results were eaten. But kill and waste will be a public relations nightmare not only amongst the non-hunters/fishers but within those groups, too.

Yep. But maybe there is recipe for cormorant under glass? I can't imagine eating a fish eating bird. Yuck!

Kill the predator s and distribute the carcasses in the upper watersheds.

👆 Now there is. A thought! 🤔

I used to hunt various sea ducks. Breasted them out, brined the breasts in a "fish (salmon) brine" and smoked them in the Little Chief. Were very popular. They taste like fish, treat them like fish. I know that on the East Coast, especially New England, that sea duck hunting (Eiders, Scoters, etc.) is popular and they probably have good recipes.

You guys ever read any of Pat Neal's columns (fishing guide out in Oil City) in the Port Angeles paper? He is really critical of the amount of money that is spent on habitat work on the coastal OP rivers. I think his point is that all that work and money haven't resulted in an increase in returning fish. And that those resources would be better used to replicate the hatchery/broodstock efforts of the past.

So what do you think? Does he have a point? Or would hatchery dollars also be down the drain because the SAR is abysmal anyway?

I'm not trying to attack him or his argument, just curious what others think of it.

They're both wrong. The habitat won't recover until massive, ecosystem levels of salmon escapement occur annually. The 1-2 kg/sq m for each species of salmon will significantly raise the productivity of the streams. The massive number of spawners will clean the gravel, thereby increasing egg-fry survival.

I do support, though, that when habitat projects are proposed an funded, and this includes dam rivals, barrier removals and such, that they are accompanied by a minimum defined benefit. For example, take out X dam in 10 years there will be a Chinook, B coho, and C chum spawning above the dam site. If those numbers aren't met at 10 years, the proponents pay the funders 25% of the cost of the project. Similar goalposts are set every succeeding 5 years (all set before the project starts) with a 25% payback until either we get the benefits or the project is paid back. Consequences.

Agreed with everything but the last part.

Why would anyone want to make habitat restoration PUNITIVE? Makes NO SENSE.

What does make sense is that a habitat project (esp an access/fish passage project) once approved, should have a well defined benefit attached to its completion.

Example: The habitat folks take out barrier X freeing up more habitat for Y number of coho... and then hang the obligation of increasing the escapement by Y coho on the harvest managers.

This is the path to meaningful recovery.

Right now we do these multi-million dollar habitat projects to open up blockages for the fish to gain access to new spawning/rearing habitats, or improve degraded habitats with LWD to make them better for rearing juveniles.... but make ZERO provision for more fish to use the new/improved habitat. The often-ancient escapement goal remains the same despite the increased capacity for natural production.

Any increases in production are just snarfed up by the harvesters when the fish come back home, resulting in NO NET GAIN for that particular reach of spawning or rearing habitat.

ALL pain with no gain is simply unfair to the locals shouldering the burden of conservation. Say for example the 14 million dollar Wildcat Creek bridge project... to get more salmon up that trib. Lets say completing it should have opened up access to allow an additional 250 coho. The escapement goal should immediately be raised by 250 fish, and the harvest folks would have to hold up their end to make sure the creek gets its 250 coho.

But no... the e-goal was NOT adjusted.... which really beg the question, "What was the point of doing the project in the first place?"

My point is that habitat projects need to be documented to produce fish. Look at all the hoo-ha for removing Snake Rover dams and saving SRKWs, Fine, take out the dams but is 10 years there better be X more SRKWs. Otherwise, we will continually use "Save the warm and fuzzies" to justify projects, pay for the projects, and get nothing. I want to see lots more salmon, lots more SRKWs, and we aren't doing that because there is nobody holding the managers' feet top the fire to actually accomplish recovery.

From what I have seen "habitat restoration" seldom have a cost benefit ratio but rather more about perception than results. The cost of the Wildcat bridges will never pencil out as a gain for the fish, frankly I am sure that that money could have been spent on blockages with much more return ( fish ) on investment. Another the monies spent on Wynoochee habitat this past summer, is it a good thing? Absolutely but will it result in a healthier river, it cannot hurt but it is doubtful any quantifiable gain will result.

Restore seems to mean any gains will go to restoring harvest not healthy ecosystems. We need to preserve good habitat, address and limit over harvest which must include the marine fisheries, then target streams where recovery is possible. What we have now is PC BS of smoke and mirrors on habitat restoration as the fish continue to suffer.

In most cases, attaching an increment of numbers of species X produced to a particular habitat project is pure dart board stuff. Opening up blocked habitat is probably the easiest and that isn't all that easy because you dont know the capacity of the unblocked habitat to produce more fish. Expecting the numbers to be achieved in 10 years (2, may be 3 generations) is way too optimistic.

I am not suggesting the whole recovery in a decade. I want to see some significant improvement rather than, as Rivrguy suggests, simply the perception of improvement.

Similar to what you are saying, eyeFISH, there should definitely be a written out and agreed upon GOAL when commencing these projects.

On a recent planting on a Hood Canal stream where a culvert was replaced with a small bridge, I was doing a quick mental talley of the number of Chum carcasses in that one stretch of creek above and below the new bridge. While anecdotal, a family friend of mine who owns property a couple river miles above the new bridge mentioned this was the most Chum and Coho he’d seen on his creekside property in years. Apparently he remembers hundreds of spawning fish up through the 90s, but recently it’s only been a couple pairs, with none some years. While this was a strong year across the northwest, this was more than just a 10-30% jump.

I asked one of the Bios working the planting if he knew of any efforts by the organization or WDFW to do redd or outmigration counts. To my surprise, (and he could have just been unaware,) he said no.

Not sure how long we can continue doing these multimillion dollar fixes without clear evidence that they’re making a difference.

All of these projects help... but you need to let the fish thru in order for them to bear fruit.

So far the harvest managers are doing NOTHING to allow that to happen.

They just go about business as usual for maximum kill and keep crafting seasons to snarf up any of the additional productivity.

The smallest gesture they can make is an incremental increase in the spawner goal each time one of these projects is completed. If they won't even make the commitment to try, what's the point in doing ANY habitat projects?

That's my point, Doc. We spend the money, we should see fish, or whales, or whatever it is we're "saving"

Thing is this, you get rid of a blockage and fish will utilize almost immediately but they are fish already existing in the available habitat. So they use the newly available habitat, both juveniles and adults, and will prosper to some degree with a higher survival but it does not mean substantial numbers of additional adults because you have to STOP KILLING THE ADULTS to get more spawners. Habitat work is the thing most beneficial to fish but it has to be linked with super glue to harvest reform. If that does not happen it is simply a very expensive feel good exercise in futility.

Doc has it right !

Removing dams would be beneficial for the fish in high water. As everyone knows when the rain hits those fish go straight up, dams do not help in this instance. I can only imagine an undamned Columbia in flood stage in the middle of salmon season. Fish would be going up to bc in a week or less.

Edited for grammar/punctuation... and also for more exposure so it sticks. Thanks for the support, Rivrguy.

The last few years I worked my boss was doing a lot of culvert work to limit siltation and blockages. The one than stands out in my memory was on a tributary of Vesta Creek. It was the usual plunge pool thing on the culvert outlet and while not a major fish habitat issue it certainly was a blockage for about any aquatic species. So in goes the new culvert with all the bells and whistles and the work was simply excellent. If I recall correctly after the work had been completed he went back to take pictures and as luck would have it I was working near by. The long and short of it was he was amazed as in the creek was a parade of crawdads headed right through the culvert up stream to a wetland right along with fish ranging from bullheads to fry of some sort. This is not unusual I am told and I have seen the same thing on culvert repairs on other streams.

One should keep in mind that creeks and rivers are the home for many creatures that utilize them and not necessarily only fish. It is a web of life that creates and maintains a streams health be it a large stream or small stream. You need an healthy environment for salmonids to spawn in and utilize for rearing. Perfect environment no adults means no adults. Adults with vastly depleted or limited access to spawning and rearing areas means few adults. The fishes needs are completely dependent on the quality off their environment which is interlocked with a vast variety of aquatic life that all contribute to a healthy stream.

I will hop off the stump now.

Spot on Rivrguy. We do tend to be so salmon-centric as if that was the only fish out there. Sculpins, at least some species here in the PNW, migrate downstream to spawn, often in the estuary, and then head back up. A fall/blockage of a couple of inches can block the return of juveniles. There are more than a few records were permanent fish traps, like I worked on, essentially wiped out the stream's sculpins in a few years.

Working on traps, especially those that catch the small beasties, is a real eye-opener as to what is moving up and down a stream and just how many there are.

After a reread of my post this. Doc's thoughts on harvest are right on and in many ways most important. Salmon need access to good habitat to prosper and what many miss is in the PNW good habitat needs salmon! They by the act of returning and dying are the fertilizer that powers and ecosystem that a huge number of creatures depend on. I am reminded what Harry Senn once taught me by a simple question. What is the most valuable fish to a watershed ? I said Coho and nope not a chance! It is the lowly Chum that takes almost nothing from the watershed and by returning and spawning and dying provide nutrients on a scale no other can match !

The salmon also clean the gravel. The (former) large sockeye escapements in the Fraser were responsible for more than half the sediment movement. We know that increased fines decreases egg-fry survival. We know salmon spawning removes them. What else are we doing to clean the gravel? Hoping to will clean itself?

Wanted to provide an update on an earlier posting I made. Talked to another Biologist within the organization heading up the culvert replacement. He filled me in on the efforts that ARE in fact being undertaken to determine numbers of spawners, redds, outmigrating fry, etc, both before and after the culvert replacement with a bridge.

Excellent point regarding opening up more of the river to creatures other than salmon, as well as the point about the importance of Chum. Talk about a quick turnaround between entering the river and the outmigrating of the fry. Just a couple months!

Chums and pinks are the foundation for a strong salmon producing ecosystem. But, large numbers of all species are required in order to ensure the whole anadromous zone of a watershed receives the ecosystem services the spawners bring.

The importance of these species as a foundation for a strong salmon producing ecosystem diminishes to to nil southward from the Willapa.

Not historically. Oregon had, and probably still has, strong chum runs. There are pinks as far south as the Russian, but not in such numbers as we have. The base rock further south is more fertile, meaning less need for as many salmon. But, as you go south, the number of Chinook increased. They are actually close being just piscivorous chum, and they really excavate the stream bed to clean it out.

Archeologist studying the historic tribal settlements found evidence that the Chum range has moved up and down the Pacific coast. It is about the weather and during times like the Little Ice Age the range goes well South but in warmer times the range moves North. The creature is rather adaptable to its environment.

Well, there were steelhead in Tijuana (the fish, not the fishermen). I am sure the range moves with changes in climate, that is how the ice-covered Puget Sound got fish back. And why Pacific salmon are now moving east in the High Arctic. Maybe west, too, but I haven't heard about Siberia.

Anyone see many Chum on the Satsop this year? Seemed like a lower than average kind of year while being an above average Coho year. Granted, almost all of November was blown out, this was the first year I didn’t catch a single Chum. Saw a pre-spawn dead one in late October, and saw a few others jumping, but never caught one this year. Seems like they usually come in after the A run Coho which is when the rivers really started blowing out.

Don't forget the Chinook now populating South America, ie. Chile. Even though they were introduced from our Columbia R. Chinook stock, they have expanded and proliferated in multiple river systems since. Might be the next AK in the future if the environment stays clean and commercials keep out.

And they destroy the local ecosystem. There are also Chinook in New Zealand.

Seabeck, I saw a few carcasses in the Satsop but not a lot. I live in the South Sound and the chum run here was huge . Minter stopped counting in November and they had over 33,000 in the hatchery. That didn't include all the chum the flossers caught in there. The State opened up commercial fishing in the Tacoma area for the purse seiners and I know one seiner who caught 70,000 lbs of chum in one set near Vashon Island! Hoodsport had over 20,000 chum in that hatchery. the State was way off on their chum forecast for the South Sound because the recs could not keep a chum if you caught in Area 11 in the saltwater.

Yeah, I saw that other areas had some huge returns. Just the Chehalis tribs I was wondering about. Maybe just a down year for whatever reason. Guess I could look at the escapement numbers vs last year.

You could also look at the Tribal and NI gillnet catches of chum for the last couple of years in the Chehalis.

Where can I find these online? Just did a Google search for QIN tribal catch and can’t find what I’m looking for? Would appreciate a link!

Appreciate it