Ok I read a lot on this board advocating state wide catch and release of native steelhead. Can some of you inform me of why you want to do this.

• I understand C&R of native fish in rivers with hatcheries were they are attempting to rebuild native populations. But I do not understand the logic behind going to C&R on rivers with a viable native population where retention of native fish is allowed.

• I also do not understand why advocates of C&R believe they should be allowed special areas that are C&R only, as opposed to practicing C&R in the area's where harvest is allowed.

• If protecting and rebuilding the native runs in certain watersheds it the goal. Why not just close those waters to angling and give the fish a chance to rebuild without the harassment caused by C&R? Because no matter how careful you are, there is still mortality among fish in C&R.

I am not trying to ruffle anyones feathers here with my first post. I'm just trying to understand the reasoning behind this thinking. I do practice C&R where required as well as releasing hatchery fish when I do not want to take one home. Thanks for your replies. MetalHead

Here's how I see it, put incredibly simply:
1. Wild steelhead should be released according to an ethic or value which I have and share with many. This doesn't fly when you get down and dirty, I realize that.
2. However, no river in WA supports the wild runs it once did and the fishing opportunities they once provided. While some may be "viable" they are being choked off as we speak by overharvest, according to the science I choose to believe. Should that science be incorrect, a big if in my book, I am of the opinion that a resource should be managed conservatively anyway. With that in mind, why on earth should we risk a recreational resource for everyone in the name of those fishermen who are after the meat? That's what the brats are for.
3. As we all know, tribal harvest is a great threat to wild runs. But I don't believe the state or any of the sportsmen it represents can condemn the tribes when we kill fish as well. It's hypocritical. Therefore, I don't believe we've played our best cards in negotiating with the tribes until we practice statewide C&R. Symbolically, this is an important issue.
That's my 2 cents. I could go on and on, though. Thanks for broaching the issue carefully, we need more of that attitude. I'm guilty myself at times. But I hope this all makes sense and is persuasive toward practicing C&R of natives.

I totally agree with the statewide Native catch and release rule, But you need to look at a few other issues concerning this.

1. Alot of sportsman believe that why should they have to release the fish when the indians on that same system are killing every fish that swims into there nets.

2. How are you going to enforce this, enforcement in this state is already a joke, until you alocate more money for this there will still be hillbillies out there wacking everything they catch.

3. How are you going to get the indians to the table, At gun point, that is the only way you could get them there to discuss any of this.

4. Then you have a number of sportsmans groups that cannot get on the same page, for instance you have the wildcat steelhead club guys that kill everything they get to the beach, then you have the radical left wing washington flyfishers that want bait and hook restrictions on every piece of water in the state which is totally ridiculous. So it is basically like a gang turf war. Which makes it real easy for the tribes and the politicians to pass over the sportsmen because they know that most of the groups will not be able to get organized to pose any kind of threat to them.

just a few things that I believe have to be solved before anything can be changed.
Peace Superfly

Superfly,
Points well taken. Here's a little more to consider with regard to them.
1. That attitude of "if them, why not I" is childish. It comes back to ethics and logic. I believe just as many sportsmen are aware that the tribes are killing so many fish and are therefore that much more inclined to release their natives. Also, I believe, if C&R regs went into effect, these indignant fishermen will forget about who's keeping the meat and begin considering who's killing the fish. This could translate into increased pressure on the tribes to stop, more than has ever been mounted on them.
2. Enforcement takes place, in large part, every time one of us goes fishing. Fishermen know the rules and I'm not sure poaching is such a problem when C&R fishermen are walking the banks. When C&R guys are not out there (i.e. when catch-and-kill fisheries mandate a complete closure) that's when the poachers have a field day.
3. Tribes have indeed been stubborn with regard to negotiation. But at the very least they will be forced to pay attention to us when they're the sole culprits. We don't know what the results will be because we've always been whack-em-and-stack-em in our philosophy. Therefore, we have no precedent.
4. This rule is as much of a compromise between groups as we're going to find. It doesn't entail gear restrictions, that's separate. And the brats are free for anyone to whack. Sure, this will be tough for many to swallow, but what other proposal will consolidate sportsmen, especially considering the growing number of us who are in favor of Native C&R?
Just talkin'

First of all none of our states rivers should be considdered healthy while the numbers are on the way down. I dont know of any river system in our state that supports historical numbers of wild steelhead. Therfore none of our rivers are in a healthy status.

The Quileute river system is currently considdered the healthiest in the continental united states and possibly in the world. If this is the healthiest one than we are in bigger trouble than anybody could imagine. The Quileute system should be at endangered status! Now people are gonna call me crazy.

Heres why. The early winter run is almost nonexistant as well as the wild summerrun. The wild chinook are gonna be gone in no time at all.

When the healthiest river in the lower united states is in trouble then that should be the time when the state wakes up and we wake up.

There is not an excess of wild steelhead anywhere in our state. The only sport fishery should be C&R or nothing at all.

Every time I hear somone call the Quileute system healthy I can hardly help myself from throwing up. That is the biggest bunch of propiganda I have ever heard. How can you say a river is healthy when large parts of the run are almost gone?

There are not enough fish anywhere in our state for wild steelhead harvest! Anybody who thinks so is a couple rocks short of a gravel pit or just greedy.

Rich G, I think that's a bunch of crap. All you guys talk about how bad the fishing is out on the coast these days, yet I've had a couple of my best days in 35 years of steelhead fishing this season on the coast. In the old days when my Dad was a young guy, nobody went steelhead fishing until January, because on most rivers there weren't any fish around until then. The state took Chambers Creek stock, an early stock and planted it all over, and then people started fishing in December. The early part of the wild runs were always a small segment of the overall run. Go back and read some of Enos Bradner's books. You guys who are religious about catch and release want it so bad you'll make the runs look bad just to get there. The end justifies the means. Now I support catch and release of wild steelhead in almost every instance, but when a run is strong there's is nothing unethical about killing a fish now and then. For christ's sake its the healthiest protein on earth and its part of the way people have been living for millenia. Do you think the Game Department is just lying about all the redds they count on the Sol Duc and Calawah? I wish the tribes would ease up on the netting so we could have even better fishing, but they are't wiping out any runs. You guys need to lighten up and be more tolerant of what other people think. And I've never hooked a winter steelhead deep on bait, and every one I've let go I was confident would survive. No go have a coniption fit...

Salmonbelly, yeah it may be great healthy protine but thats what the state spemds millions of dollars on hatcheries for! Kill all the hatchery fish you want and leave the wild ones alone. The reason you caught more this winter than you did 30 years ago is because todays methods and tackle are more sophisticated and effective.
My feeling is that there are so many hatchery fish why not just keep a bunch of them and put the wild fish back. There is not one angler in the state who needs to kill wild fish for him or his family to survive. Killing wild fish is an act of greed an nothing else. There is no way to sugar coat it. Until a stream is meeting what should be it's maximum spawner demsity noone should be intentionally killing them for any reason. Especially sport anglers! I'll say it one more time there are hundreds of thousands of hatchery for anglers to catch and eat. Killing wild fish is an act of greed even where legal!

You know, I've always liked keeping fish. If I could find a way to justify it to myself I'd even bonk natives. I don't buy into the whole idea that "This Fish is such a nobel fish... I'm going to release it so that it can live to fight another day. I want to eat him! Unfortunately, our native runs are on a downward spiral, and I know that if we don't band together and practice a little conservation, then there is a good chance that someday we may have no native fish left at all. Sure, I'd love to bonk them and take them home.... But I Know that the right thing to do is release them, so I let ALL my natives go. Not so much for my sake, but so that when my kids get old enough to steelhead fish I can take them to the same stream that I"ve been fishing for the last twenty years ( A stream that is 100% native ) and still pull native fish.

Nonsense robertallen3, I fish the same way I always have, with eggs and bobbers. And you can talk all you want about maximum spawner density, if there's 14,000 wild fish spawning in the Sol Duc, you can't tell me taking one now and then is going to be detrimental. I don't subscribe to your religion and greed has nothing to do with it.

And the truth lies somewhere between Rich and Salmonbelly as I see it. SB ... you're dead wrong on the early run stuff, there was a pretty fair number of them.

Even if it was only 1% of the run, is the system healthy if you remove that early component?? I think you even have enough sense to answer that one.

We're trying to screw with Mother Nature intended ... and that's where the problems lie. Problems with the size of the fish, problems with the timing, problems with repeat spawners ... all from human harvest, both tribal and sport.

Strong ... what does that mean? Does that mean in the middle of May you have x number of beds in a few sections of river?

According to who, the state biologists? Well, they have a pretty stellar track record around Washington don't they?

Ever wonder why more anadramous runs are being managed on models with higher escpement goals everywhere else?

It appears that you say they're strong because the state says they are.

Yes, there has been some good fishing this year. Our best day was upwards 30 fish hooked, and we've hooked probably somewhere around 75 in the past week or so ... but, there are also miles and miles of good spawning grounds around without a redd in sight.

Tell me, have you ever fished Kodiak Island, or how 'bout the Situk, perhaps the Kamchatka streams? Maybe something a little closer to home, the Skeena watershed? It's frightening to see the numbers of fish in these streams compared to what we have here ... that's what Mother Nature intended!


And for the points / questions that Metalhead brings up:

1) Viable population ... I think I addressed that with all of the above, what is "viable"??

2)Don't hink this is the case with many anglers, although you may perhaps see some of this fro those looking for "fly-only" waters. While I regularly fish selective fishery waters, over the course of the season, close to half my fishing days are spent in C&K waters. Why is my favorite run in a selective fishery piece ... it's my home water that was my favorite before it became selective fishery water and it also sees less traffic as many people don't have the confidence to fish something other than bait.

3)If the stocks are that depressed, then by all means, close it. The coastal rivers aren't going to collapse tomorrow, but they may five or ten years down the road if things don't change. Remember that steelhead have very diffrent life histories . cycles than salmon, and with the harvest of a wild steelhead, you don't really know what sort of impact you're having on the run ...

I see a new one now from SDB came up while I wrote this, so I'll add some more:

We could only wish there are 14,000 wild fish spawning in the Sol Duc, the goal is about 1/6th of that.
In addition, was that fish a repeat spawner or not? Was it a 2/2, 3/1, 1/3 fresh / salt fish?? You can't be sure ... the need to keep the natural genetic makeup is critical to the long term health of the stocks ... that's why removing that fish could be detrimental.

[ 04-02-2001: Message edited by: Bob ]

Bob that's all subjective mumbo jumbo. You weren't here in the old days, so how the hell do you know there were plenty of early fish? I have fished the Kispiox and the Thompson and you know what? I've caught more fish here. Wild fish in most B.C. rivers are in poor shape, even though they've had C&R for years. Yeah, 14,000 fish is way more than the escapement goal, but that's what the state guys tell me have spawned in there in recent yers, and I believe them, despite their track record. I'm going to say again, I release almost all the wild fish I catch even where its legal to whack them, as a conscientious decision on what's best for the resource and me at the time. You weren't around, but I fished these rivers in the 70s and early 80s, and I'm going to tell you they're in far better shape now than then. I fully expect you now to load me up now with more condescending comments. But you're not the last word on squat, even though it's your site. Speaking of that, where the hell did spell check go?

I may have been on the extreme side but I was trying to get a point accross. When people say there are harvestable wild fish out here it makes my blood presure go up!

Sure we/you may have had some good days fishin out here this year. But we had our share of bad stretches too. I think the fish were a little easier to find this year in the lower flows and if you have some skill you can still catch em. There were less fish around then there should have been. And the good fishin we have had has been very inconsistant.

I will say again as I always have that I have no problem with statewide c&r on wild steelhead year round. I will add though that if the run in a particular river/stream is depressed then there should not be a c&r season targeting wild fish. Once the hatchery component is done for the season then thats it. The river is closed. Period! If the run is depressed then no way in the world can a targeted fishery be justified! I know that is not a popular position but that is my position none the less.

This may not be the answer or the problem but why not conserve what little we have now rather then I will worry about it when the time comes. No one can make any one release wild fish if it is legal to keep it but why not make a start. If you don'k keep wild fish then it is a start. Others might follow. Or at least make them think twice about bonking a wild fish.

Salmonbelly,

Bob might not have been here 30 years ago but my dad was. I can tell you from his expierience through the 60's and 70's of living on the peninsula and fishing 200+ days a year on the coastal rivers that he yousto catch more wild fish in Nov/Dec then then I catch wild fish Feb,March,April now. And he used the old crappy gear of that era compared to the stuff I use now.

He remembers multiple 30 fish days during the week of Christmas and yes theese were all wild fish and not Chambers Brats.

So it seems you are mis-informed.

Rich, I'm not going to question your Dad, but Chambers Creek stock has been in the Quillayute system since the late 60s, and they weren't marked until the 80s. And in the 70s, they had huge returns, up to 30 percent of smolts planted, of that stock. Think what you want of my opinions, and I admit sometimes I'm wrong, but believe you me, I am not ill-informed. Anyway, thanks for the healthy discussion. I hope I didn't piss you off.

A good freind of mine who unfortunatly passed away a couple years ago lived in Forks during the 70's where he was the football coach. He told me stories about how the fishing used to be and was no longer. Regardless of how many fish there were this year there were more hostorically and that population was much more diverse! During the 70's the Southwest Washington streams were at the same crossroads that the OP rivers are at now. The state decided not to end the harvest and as a result the wild fish crashed. now we only get token runs of wild fish. last year 200 for the Kalama and less for the Washougal,Wind and East lewis. What a person says doesn't show what they believe it's their actions that do the real talking. Anyone who kills a wild steelhead from the state of Washiongton by their actions doesn't care about the future of the resource.

You didnt piss me off at all. I like a good agruement.

MetalHead,

The reasoning? Philosophy, religion, science, ethics, and caution come to mind as plausible reasons. The responses your post elicited certainly demonstrate that not all BB members agree with WDFW’s assessment of the health of OP steelhead runs, let alone the north Puget Sound rivers. The state’s assessment is that on average, more than twice as many spawners escape to the Quillayute system as are required to seed the available rearing habitat to capacity. Given that assessment, they feel compelled under the agency’s legislative mandate to allow a recreational harvest. WDFW policy doesn’t require that the full population diversity be represented in the spawning escapement, so they are satisfied with fishery management that basically extirpates early returning native steelhead in the interest of fully harvesting the hatchery winter runs. Managers I’ve spoken with believe this management style is sustainable. It may be, but the truth is no one really knows.

We do know that when the state believed a recreational fishery couldn’t over-harvest a wild steelhead population, they allowed recreational over-harvest in Puget Sound and southwest WA rivers. It resulted in extensive closures in the north Sound area over several years and only re-opened under C&R regulations and then a small kill season was also allowed. Some anglers believe even that is not sustainable. For this season at least, they are correct.

Here’s my observation and opinion. WDFW has demonstrated that it will manage in ways that wipe out native steelhead on Puget Sound rivers, nearly all southwest WA rivers, and all tributaries above Bonneville on the Columbia. The coastal rivers are “the last best place” for native steelhead. Should WDFW use the same models, attitudes, and lack of measurement and statistical precision that gave us depressed steelhead stocks everywhere else be used to manage the coastal rivers? What confidence should I have that the same depressed stock status that characterizes the rest of the state’s steelhead won’t occur on the coastal rivers as well? The habitat? Sure, the OP rivers headwaters are in the national park, and that counts for a lot. And it usually rains like hell, and that counts too. Those lend toward higher productivity, but they don’t prevent overfishing.

Another reason is you and me. Not that long ago, there were only 2.5 million folks here in WA. Now there are 5.8 million, and more than twice as many miles of roads (many along rivers), 10 times more drift boats, 100 times more jet boats, more trails, more access of every type. There’s not many places for steelhead sanctuary these days. We could have a harvest fishery on wild steelhead, and when the harvestable number has been taken (assuming we could know this information) close the river(s). Give it an historical context. Puget Sound used to be open year round. The ocean season opened April 1 and closed when the weather got too snotty to go out. Over the years, seasons, both commercial and recreational, have become shorter and shorter. Some commercial openings have been for like 4 or 6 hours. Conceivably, we could eventually see sport fisheries with regulations like that, because a longer opening would be projected to result in over-harvest.

Or, there’s another scenario. We know that C&R fisheries have the lowest adverse impact to a fish population this side of a complete fishing closure. C&R mortality estimates range from 1 to as high as 10%. Nothing else comes close, unless we have a kill season measured in hours, rather than weeks. C&R seasons mean there are more fish in the river on any given day than the same river under C&K regulations. Curt Kreamer explained how a C&R regulation doesn’t necessarily result in more fishing opportunity (the Skagit plunkers who expend many days in C&K, but pack up and go home during C&R). However, C&R increases the opportunity to actually catch a fish, because that fish is still in the river instead of having been caught and removed from the population the day or week before. C&R makes for better fishing for those anglers who desire the opportunity to fish and have a high expectation for catching a fish, even though they would have to release it, since there will be more fish in the river. C&R makes for worse fishing for those who choose not to participate.

C&R also provides a buffer against imprecise fisheries management statistics. The fundamentals of probability suggest managers would underestimate runsizes just as often as they overestimate them. Historical runsize records indicate, however, that runsizes are overestimated more often than underestimated. I think that suggests a flaw in the model and or an important variable that isn’t accounted for. Sort of an historical footnote: it’s called “harvest management”, not conservation management. The Department has its legacy in harvest. Managing harvest only came about in the first place due to overharvest. The notion of managing for something else really isn’t on WDFW’s radar screen in any official capacity. The quality lakes and rivers regulations are still outliers in the overall scheme of fisheries management in WA state. The Department’s legislative mandate for management dates to about 1935, and it was outdated then. Given the population growth and development in our state since then, the growth projections for the next 20 and 50 years, it’s patently silly, if not embarrassingly foolish, to contemplate harvest fisheries on wild fish like the good old days. Having the “good ole’ days” would mean serving eviction notices to 3.3 million residents.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

salmonbelly,

Did Bob claim to be the ultimate authority on all fish-related issues, or are you just looking for a pissing match?

Better fishing here than in northern B.C.? Pardon me if I don't take anything you say seriously now.