As far as I know, the only driver of management that WDFW doesn't want users to be aware of is that the treaty tribes are now managing non-treaty recreational fishing. WDFW caves to the treaty demands during those "closed door" NOF meetings so that WDFW can claim plausible deniability. WDFW claims the management action is "necessary" for conservation - usually for wild Chinook. But look how the entire Quilayute system is closed to make hatchery Chinook escapement on the Sol Duc even though no one is going to be out looking to collect hatchery broodstock on all those other tributaries that are now closed. And now the same with the Snohomish system, all closed to protect Chinook except for the short reach between Hwy 2 bridge and the forks upstream of Reiter Ponds hatchery steelhead rearing site. The basin could be left open to fishing for game fish species with restrictions on methods that target Chinook along with non-retention of any Chinook hooked incidentally.

boom. The head of that nail was hit so square, my eyes are crossed now.

As far as the hatchery chinook not being clipped during the Covid year, if the hatchery workers were told to stay home then they wouldn't have access to the automatic fin clipping machines to do the work. Another thought is that maybe the majority of the larger chinook (4 year olds?) were not clipped so that more of the larger fish would not be harvested by the rec anglers and would available to the SRKW. Maybe more than one reason for the non clipping.
It would be nice to be a fly on the wall and see what goes on and is discussed in the director and managers offices down in Olympia.

Tin foil hat time again...
Too bad PP is such a [Bleeeeep!] website for trying to post data or screen shots.

Looking up Chinook releases into Puget Sound region by state, tribal, feds on the coastwide hatchery release data base www.rmpc.org shows a ad clip mark rate of the brood years contributing to this years adults (2018-2020 broods) of 85% which is exactly the same as the mark rate of the three broods prior to 2018-2020.

Are you sure those clip rate figures are the truth? if they are true then someone (WDFW?) needs to explain the very high unclipped to clip ratio in the sport catch. There ain't that many wild fish in the rivers. The wild chinook runs are very low and in some cases endangered. Somebody did not clip the hatchery chinook. The two year old chinook are highly clipped the older three and four year old clipped chinook are at a much smaller clipped rate from my observations and those of the recs I know in Area 11.

For this to be true, it would require the department to be truthful and honest to begin with. It is hard to know what is true anymore since there is a track record of WDFW not representing the interests of recreational fishermen and allowing the tribes to dictate fisheries.

My wild/hatchery catch ratio has steadily increased within the last 5 years. This would most likely suggest that either A. Wild chinook are recovering and or B. Adipose clip mark rate is decreasing. Either way, this benefits the tribes.


Streamer

Anyone can go to www.RMPC.org and look up the releases on their own. The database is very detailed and contains salmonid releases from all agencies on the entire west coast going back decades. These are detailed release records from all state, fed, and tribal hatcheries.

Makes sense.
Thanks for the link.

You forgot option "C". The adipose marking rate of the hatchery fish remains high but the abundance/survival of hatchery fish is declining bringing the overall mark rate of your encounters downward.

That's a very good point Darth. We assume that hatchery and wild fish will survive in the wild at reasonably the same rate. If one stock declines so does the other. There are so many variables that could affct smolts from the same river that change overall survivals. Also for whatever reason, we also assume that they will all return at the same time. Maybe the wilds are early and the hatcheries late. Maybe more wilds stayed in the Sound while the hatcheries went to the ocean.

In an ideal world we would be monitoring the age and stock composition of the catch in real time and plugging it into timing/abundance models.

While management is not Brain Surgery or Rocket Science it is better when it occurs in a data rich environment.

I believe the undersize encounters are due to the jacks. More hatchery production makes more jacks. An increased encounter rate should be applied to the LOAF.

DFW should be able to extrapolate the increased hatchery production of jacks and increase the allowable handling.

Or downsize the length of returning "adult" chinook in the marine area?

Well in the glass half broken world, the folks up at Edmonds have been doing well with coho of late. Limits early in the am.

They must not be in ma 11 or they could care less about encounters with whale food.

Darth,


Option “C” is certainly a possibility but my guess would be that “A” or “B” would be more likely. One indication of option “C” being the case would be looking at hatchery escapements. The biggest hatchery influences for area 11 would be Nisqually, Minter, Puyallup, and Tumwater with confounding variables of straying into 11 from Soos Creek or George Adams.

Just a quick look at the escapement reports from 2016-2022 for Minter, Tumwater, and Voights Creek combined would show a range anywhere from a low of 14,652 adult chinook to as high as 45,756 with median numbers of between 22,000 and 27,000 adult hatchery chinook consistently. Nisqually escapement was unaccounted for since I didn’t have the data handy. Assuming plants have stayed consistent through this time period, it seems that survival for hatchery chinook hasn’t dropped much in recent years? I could be wrong on this but my initial guess would be that it hasn’t. I also don’t believe straying from hood canal hatcheries or northern hatcheries provide much influence, either.

It seems that numbers of fish returning to the hatcheries have remained consistent the last few years, and that wild chinook are more prevalent in the catch possibly suggesting they have rebounded slightly. That would be my theory at this point, or that marked numbers have decreased (but not on paper) but I would be open to other theories that present stronger evidence.


Streamer

It will be interesting to see if they open area 11 any time soon for coho/pink fishing. To me that would only reiterate my theory of the true reasoning behind why it was shut down to begin with. It had nothing to do with sublegal encounters. There will undoubtedly be sublegal encounters during coho/pink fisheries, so if sublegal encounters are the concern, it wouldn’t make sense to open any salmon fishery in area 11.


Streamer

The stated reason for closing MA11 was to preserve opportunity in August. Sublegal encounters were still below goal so reopening it is not inconsitent with the goal.

When WDFW closed Area 11 on July 14 less than 3% of the sublegal quota was left. So, it looks like chinook fishing in Area 11 is closed for the year. They will probably open for pink and coho (no date has been set) and will leave the the remaining small sublegal quota as incidental in that fishery.

If sub legal take is an issue, they could still open commencement bay zone for all of August. I do not believe there is much of a feeding area there, so there should not be a lot of sub legals. I could not get the data to come up, but my guess is that the un clipped numbers are coming from a tribal hatchery. Given the option, there really is a disincentive for them to clip any thing.

Yes, they were below the goal but they were also at 83% of the quota in just a few weeks. If they anticipate similar rates of encounters on sublegals, anything re-opening within the first couple of weeks in August would likely exceed 100% of the quota. But, that is okay for them at that point because it will be closed for chinook retention which was always the objective. Sublegal encounters was only the perceived mechanism to achieve that and likely not the real reason it was closed. Less adult chinook in the rec boats of area 11 means more chinook for the Puyallup tribe. It actually is that simple.


Streamer

That is a too reasonable of a suggestion. The problem is that it would mean more chinook in the boats of area 11 anglers and fewer for the Puyallup tribe. So reason must be thrown out the window.


Streamer