C-Man,

You are exactly right about the "wild run" in the Deschutes! What an insane position for the dept. What about the wild run in the Nisqually? I remember Ron Warren stating in a Commission meeting "We don't want any unmarked fish in So.Sound." McIsaac said "I thought we were working to have unmarked fish". What upsets me most is the killing of an ecosystem that has been there for nearly 70 years. Cutthroat, bears, eagles, mink, etc. Why not let the male Chinook upstream for the ecosystem health and to provide some sport?

Not only that, in ‘09 they shut down capital lake due to “mud snail” concerns. There has been no fishery there since.

I lived downtown back then and while the fish were usually pretty dark by that point, fishing right out in front of the parking lot at Tumwater falls park was great way to waste a half hour and build up the egg supply.

It wasn't the Department that caved; it was the consequences of ESA and Squaxin wouldn't stand for it. WDF actually tried to see if the Chinook would naturally reproduce in the Deschutes and the result were that so few unmarked fish came back that they were either "wild" or "drops" from the marking of hatchery fish.

Last I had heard, and this in the early 00s, was that Nisqually was trying to have both a hatchery program and a wild run. That required, as modeling showed, a rack in the river. That was done but the wilds still didn't respond. Don't know what happened.

I do know, though, that Feds set "recovery exploitation rates" for a number of WA Chinook stocks that were higher than MSY. Which means they were really "recovery extinction rates" but since they ran the show that's what was going on. My somewhat fuzz memory is that to recover the SS Chinook one needed to reign in Alaska and NOAA was not about to do that.

The current fight over trawl bycatch up there shows that conservation is not a NOAA value.

Per OncyT's reference to PS Chinook minimum size limit, my memory is hazy as I had little interest in saltwater fishing. But I had an acquaintance in Mt Vernon who was really into and heavily invested in that fishery, especially for blackmouth. I think the min. size limit was 12" because he would tell stories of catching limits of Chinook that were like 14 or 15". I could not understand the possible enjoyment of trolling 6# downrigger weights to catch salmon that were little larger than bait.

Yes, as to why WDFW stopped letting Chinook spawn naturally upstream of Tumwater Falls. The ESA treated natural spawning as wild fish regardless of origin. Successful natural spawners in the Deschutes would create a harvest management nightmare and possibly lead to the termination of that fairly successful hatchery program, or at least a severe reduction in production. I do think they made the right call. Not because I'm opposed to wild salmon populations, but because the Deschutes contains nanophytes, a ******(can't think of the word at the moment) that is mostly fatal to Chinook (and steelhead). It is abundantly present at McAllister Creek and is why WDFW ended the Chinook program there. The upshot is that no matter how many surplus hatchery Chinook were sent upstream of Tumwater, they would never be able to establish a self sustaining natural population. But logical explanations like that never sway the ESA enforcers, so it was better to stop allowing upstream passage. I'll just add that the native cutthroat in the Deschutes co-evolved with nanophytes in the river basin, and they seem to do well there where no other salmonid does.

As for the fate of the hatchery at Pioneer Park, who knows? It makes sense from the standpoint that the program at Tumwater should not be dependent on hauling eggs and fry back and forth from George Adams at Shelton (and in Hood Canal, if that matters). On the other hand, I'd like an audit showing the cost of putting one Tumwater Chinook in the recreational creel, or are the benefits just going to BC and commercial catches at taxpayer expense? As for the treaty fishery, the Squaxins can't claim the Tumwater Chinook are replacement for the lost natural production of Chinook in the Deschutes River that historically had no anadromous fish.

From looking a the way the state has been handling coho here, it appears they are trying to establish a wild run. Each year they release the small number that return. I am assuming they are allowing them up stream. No fish appear to have ever returned from these releases. The rules specifically ban any retention of coho. So this year they supposedly released almost 1700. There was no change in the rules, so I would think that would indicate a desire to establish the run. If nothing returns, I think it would be safe to say they should just allow retention. I suppose I should call the department to verify the actual numbers, as they just as likely are wrong.

I can remember early in my salmon fishing career (1950s) the minimum size for Chinook was 12 inches. A few years later there was no minimum size limit but a size limit reinstated a couple years later. I do vividly remember a boat return to Bellingham in the mid-1970s with a 9 Chinook limit placed in a 5-gallon bucket with the heads down headfirst and the tails of the larger fish were only a couple of inches above the rim of the bucket.

Regarding the Elliot Bay net pen releases being nearly all unclipped. The same holds for the tribal produced fish released in the Green. But what is especially interesting is as far as I can tell those are the only hatchery coho being released from Puget Sound hatcheries (State, Federal or tribal) that the vast majority are not clipped.

Curt

Muckleshoot is the PS tribe most strongly opposed to mass marking and, consequently, the implementation of mark selective fisheries. They won't mass mark the fish they raise.

The state has been passing coho above T-Falls since the beginning. In the 80s, and probably 90s, the wild coho were one of the indicator wild stocks based on trapping and cwt results. Something happened to the run and it crashed. But at one time the wild run was doing very well.

Salmo g.: Nanophyetus salmincola is the critter. It is very abundant is much of S. Sound, including McAllister Creek, but also the Nisqually River proper. While its abundance was certainly part of the lack of survival and subsequent fishery contribution from the McAllister Creek hatchery, I suspect the real reason that WDFW finally ended that program was because of the HSRG's recommendation to close the facility. While they made recommendations on most hatchery programs,they rarely pointed to the failure of an entire facility as they did there. It was hard to argue anything else once some coded wire tags were finally placed on the fish so survival could be evaluated. Again, the assumption at that time was that all hatchery programs were or would be successful, so if you never actually evaluated them, you could always make that argument. (The WDFW version of "Don't ask, don't tell.")

As you have pointed out, there are currently a number of winter steelhead programs where the same arguments are being made.

Pens, farms, clipped, no clipped, one entity is good the other isn’t , release the wild, kill the hatchry fish, play the stupid fishing games that’s been created at the expense of fishing licenses, punch cards, and poor project management with excuses - what a sad joke, and the jokes on us all.

OTOH, we all have clams to dig, once in a while.

Things may have changed since I left but one thing WDFW could depend on is that the Leg would fund hatcheries. Need money? Threaten to close a facility and that money would be added, freeing up money for some other pet project.