02/23/2022

State announces full closure to coastal steelhead fishing to support conservation following indications of lower-than-expected returns

OLYMPIA – In an effort to meet management objectives and provide necessary protection for dwindling wild steelhead populations, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) today announced a full closure to all sport fishing throughout the Washington Coast and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The full closure will take effect Tuesday, March 1.

The closure follows the review of preliminary data that suggests the forecasted returns are likely coming back as low as 30 percent of what fishery managers expected, foreshadowing perhaps the lowest return ever recorded in some rivers. Based on historic return timing, most hatchery steelhead runs have ended and the wild steelhead returns are more than one-third of the way complete.

“Throughout our conversations with anglers and the broader coastal community, we’ve been upfront about our commitment to designing fisheries that meet our conservation objectives,” said Kelly Cunningham, WDFW fish program director. “With this preliminary data in hand that now suggests coastal steelhead returns are significantly lower than we expected, we need to take bold, swift actions for the future of these runs.”

Last week, WDFW fishery managers also kicked off a long-term planning process for coastal steelhead management with the first meeting of the Ad-hoc Coastal Steelhead Advisory Group. The group will be helping to inform the development of a long-term management plan to protect native and hatchery-produced steelhead for each river system of Grays Harbor, Willapa Bay, and coastal Olympic Peninsula, as required by the Washington Legislature in the 2021-23 budget.

WDFW will submit the ensuing plan to the Legislature by the end of 2022. For more information about the group, including meeting summary information and details of upcoming meetings, visit WDFW’s Ad-Hoc Coastal Steelhead Advisory Group web page.

WDFW continues to operate under its Statewide Steelhead Management Plan, which requires the Department to prioritize the sustainability of wild coastal steelhead runs by focusing on healthy levels of abundance, productivity, diversity, and distribution.

Tribal governments along the coast are closely monitoring their coastal steelhead fisheries and considering in-season management steps to continue to support conservation.

To help support future, more robust in-season freshwater monitoring for coastal steelhead and other fisheries, WDFW is requesting $2.6 million in new state funding this legislative session. To learn more about the budget request, visit WDFW's budget information web page.

For more information about coastal steelhead management, visit wdfw.wa.gov/coastal-steelhead.

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife works to preserve, protect and perpetuate fish, wildlife and ecosystems while providing sustainable fish and wildlife recreational and commercial opportunities.

02/23/2022

Money, money, money.......grrrrrrrrrr

"To help support future, more robust in-season freshwater monitoring for coastal steelhead and other fisheries, WDFW is requesting $2.6 million in new state funding this legislative session. To learn more about the budget request, visit WDFW's budget information web page."

Instead of asking tax payers for additional monies, lets get creative.

1. decide how many persons it would take to do the monitoring.

2. Have current WDFW personnel, do the monitoring....... Do current job, 4 days a week, 1 day a week "hands on time, in the field, doing the monitoring."

Tax payers are pushed to the limit, food, gas, property taxes, etc. Many on fixed income, while some increases to SS, 1 or 2 tanks of gas, increase gone...

"Tribal governments along the coast are closely monitoring their coastal steelhead fisheries and considering in-season management steps to continue to support conservation. "


Sounds like the selective fishery is shut down, while the consumption fishery continues. Makes perfect sense.

I fail to see how the state can call something an emergency and state an immediate closure in necessary, but not take the allowed steps to actually stop all harvest, which would be allowed through the courts and Boldt. And yes, they could go to court with the data and force the tribes to stop. If, that is, the data is as solid as they tell us it is.

just lack of any effort by WDFW on this or really anything is S show.
request new management.

"Sounds like the selective fishery is shut down, while the consumption fishery continues. Makes perfect sense."

The irony is the elephant in the room.

Here is some speculation on my part…..

In the past whenever stocks were low, WDFW closed the fishery for that specific stock (e.g., steelhead). That is, retention was zero. But recreational anglers could still go fishing in those same waters. They could focus on other species, or they could just C&R (steelhead or whatever). The Tribes expressed concerns since whenever they close a fishery (for the same reasons), they cannot fish for anything. They’re not on the water at all (due, in part, to their non-selective gear). The Tribes see this as unfair. That is, recreational anglers are fishing (C&R) but they're not.

So now WDFW has decided that, okay, if the stocks are low, and we want zero effort on those fish, we need to shut down ALL fishing, regardless of the target species or C&R. So that’s what they did. Now, they’re seeing if the Tribes reciprocate. Will the Tribes take the same action? We’ll see. Hopefully they will, given the precarious state of the steelhead stocks in NW Washington.

It's a little more complicated than that. If I recall Hoh v. Baldridge correctly, the State, which used to close all fisheries for conservation, could not close Tribal fisheries unless that State's fisheries were closed. This grew out of the State over harvesting weak salmon stocks in the marine mixed stock fisheries (where the weak stocks were a minor component) and then justifying closing the terminal tribal fisheries to protect the fish. So, even C&R does kill fish. I know it gets ridiculous when you are protecting 1 C&R'd fish, but one would need the huevos to actually fight instead of roll over.

But, if steelhead, or any species, is totally closed to NI take it seems that if there is a conservation (and not allocation) concern then H v. B should run both ways.

We'll see.

We will see how concerned they are when outgoing and late return steelhead are mixed with incomng Quillayute River summer chinook.

In the past, the state closed the Nisqually Chum fishing to recreational fishing, while the tribe stayed open. Historically, a full season resulted in around 300 total sports catch, but likely would be much less, as the lower runs resulted in much lower effort and catch. The year in question the tribe was projected to take approx. 5000 chum. I questioned the reason we were shut out and was told the state felt there was no wiggle room and that every fish was needed. This is a very late run and I do not believe there is any commercial NI take.

The NI "share" of the Nisqually Chum was taken in the normally-timed chum fishery. This was, actually, an agreement amongst the state and all the tribes. I later years, some chum were added to the NI side for the rec fishery. But, essentially, the Nisqually Tribe took 100% of the harvestable chum and it was all within the parameters of Boldt's 50:50.

Steelhead were another matter as they were managed by a different entity (WDG) and the net fishery was obviously non-selective and steelhead made up a fraction (small) of the net catch.

The Nisqually fishery is very perplexing. In response to questions, I was told "For winter chum, greater than 90% of the non-treaty harvest takes place in freshwater so our objective for the sportfishing community is not to achieve 50% of the harvest but rather secure meaningful opportunity on a sustainable fishery. In other words, I see the currency as “days on the water”.

So it does seem that the fishery is now at least partially divided in to a normal timed fishery and a late fishery. In any case, the year I was talking about was a closure of a timed fishery.

The statement for the reason the closure was stated as follows

"In low forecasts, with a tribal net fishery in the water I am not confident that we will meet escapement and have suggested that we not take part in a fishery. So far we have had support from the public to be conservative. Unfortunately I cannot control the tribes decision to fish on winter chum.
You asked why we do not use the tools we have to estimate runsize. We do. The two, co manager agreed-to tools we have is yelm live creek and tribal catch which acts as a good predictor of runsize in week 51. That’s next week. At this point all indicators we have suggest a small runsize adding confidence to our decision to not partake in a fishery on a small run of Chum. "

In the end, escapement was barely met, with the Tribe taking a between 6,000 and 7,000. Again, it should be noted that the sports take was 368 for 2014 and 243 fish for 2015, which were bigger runs.

Another interesting factor is that the escapement was 17000 in 2017 and 27,000 in 2018. I assume that may be related to the pink run, but it seems to be a fairly large difference.

My point behind this is that the State believes there is nothing they can do to stop the Tribe from fishing, which is clearly not true. Rather they just sit back and let the tribe do what they want.

Unless they agreed to something different, the NI gets their share of Nisqually Chum during the fishery for Fall chum. They get Fall fish , the Nisquallies get winters. Some amount is held back for the FW sport but the numbers should balance per the Courts.

The Tribe has shown a strong willingness to fish for the Winters regardless of forecast. The State has shown a string willingness to let them. And, as seems to also be the case in BC, steelhead are simply a nuisance fish that gets in the way of salmon harvest.