Thanks to both of you for the fry plant info.
SF

Baker lake was producing fry for Lake Washington in the 80’s? Or were those native fish?

Baker eggs were planted, by the Feds, in the 30s (I believe) all over the state, including Lake WA. By the 60s that stocking had grown into a rather large run primarily spawning in the Cedar River with some also spawning in the lake itself. To my knowledge, Baker fish haven't been moved around since the Fed hatchery up there closed a long time ago.

The hatchery on the Cedar is using fish that return to the Cedar River. They aren't native to the system, but they are the wild fish that have evolved in the system for about 80-90 years. Which is long enough, as has been shown through research, to have diverged quite a bit genetically from Baker.

04/28/2022

When I take a look at the historical counts at the Ballard Locks, it is really depressing to see the numbers, in general, decrease like they have.....

https://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/reports/counts/lake-washington#sockeye-annual

If you scroll down, the counts go back to 1972, many of the early numbers were 6 figure.

Has there been a active NT or tribal fishery since 2007 to 2020 ??????? NT net fishery in the salt water and Tribal above the locks.

The sockeye numbers are depressing because it has occurred in our memories and we have "data". All species of Pacific salmon and steelhead have shown a similar drop; we are functioning at 5-10% but because that happened "a long time ago" we pretty much discount those losses when we look at recovery.

In the 1970s WDF set escapement goals for PS Chinook. In the document they admitted that the goals would not utilize the available habitat. And, it wasn't reasonable to try to fill it. In another document the were describing the problems they had with achieving goals in some streams. The solution was to lower the goals, after which congratulations were spread around for hitting the goal.

But, we kept fishing.

There are no NT net fisheries that harvest Lake WA sockeye. There has not been a directed fishery on the run since 2006. The tribes do take a representative sample of fish from the ladder at the locks, use them for ceremonial food and WDFW samples them for thermal marks - otolith marks from incubation at the hatchery - for run reconstruction.

I should say no NT net fisheries that target Lake WA sockeye, I'm sure a handful get picked up when the U.S. Fraser fishery is going.

04/29/2022

JustBecause:

Thanks for answering..... I don't follow all the NT fishing schedules, up that way, have more than enough to worry about in Grays Harbor and Willapa.

Some LW sockeye are caught in the Fraser sockeye test fisheries. They arrive earlier than the bulk of Fraser stocks, generally with the Early Stuart component that is (was) generally unfished due to conservation concerns. In the 80s, the NI fishery for Fraser stocks was moved to Areas 7 and 7A (sport 7, the San Juans and north) so even when they fished the NI nets took very few LW sockeye. Tribal fisheries in the Straits would get some but in recent years Fraser sockeye has been in such a hole that few fisheries are occurring on them.