Everybody thinks the Quinalt river management which produces huge amounts of fish should be the model to follow.

Well I dont think so. Ive read some stuff that says the Quinalt has the most degraded wild stocks on the coast. It is thought that they system no longer has any pure strains of the true wild stocks left. This is due to poor hatchery practices and massive stocking to support the tribal fishery.

Take away the hatcherys and the bazillion fish of all species they stock and its nothin. to put it in a nutt shell its another Cowlits. But not quite as bad. Dosent have the dams so some fish still get to spawn in the upper river. Stock the amount of fish in any river that the Quinalts do in the Quinalt and you have the same thing.

The Quinalt system is a false representation of a healthy system.

The reason why im writeing this is because im upset. Look what has happened to the Humtulips ,who do you think did it and still is. what happened to the robust wild fish runs? Exploit other systems then call your own the model to follow when its artificial. Have you ever seen the Queets plugged off at the 101 bridge? who do you think is doing that? How many days a week through the peak of wild steelhead runs?

Say what you whant about what I just read but its the truth.

I don't know enough about the hatchery program protection of indigenous genetics in the Quinalt to have a strong opinion about that - yet. But particularly the nets are a super unfortunate scenario Rich. If not for the regular netting in the beautiful outer Olympic Peninsula rivers, they would be very much like the scenery and big runs of trophy fish in the rivers of the B.C. coastal ranges - such as the Bella Coola and the Dean rivers (except for a few more sportfishermen). A real shame!!!

Ill tell ya what there are still some unbelievably big Native Steelies and Kings that make it too the upper reaches but over time it has defenately dwindled with the current guide, net and sportfishing practices. The limits are huge on the res and the guides on the upper for the most part are Trophy (KILL) fisherman. Its not there fault really cause the state lets it all go down! But your right Rich once the genes are mixed and or gone it will be another Cowlitz!

On a good note! The upper (in the park) will always be closed! This is were alot of the True Big nates spawn (Kings and Steelies) and not many Hatchery fish go past the lake. So if we dont wait too long we will still have pure genes in the river. They must still run the gauntlit, but the ones that are making it are the ones we want! But if we dont watch it those will be gone and all we'll have is another Cow! Too bad it will take the Federal Goverment to really do anything! Buy then it will be too late!

Bob D

Rich G,
I fished the Quinalt once and am one of those who
felt the run was pretty healthy, but if, like you say, they have poor hatchery practices, which I don`t know what you mean by that, (if they raise sickly fish or just have a high mortality rate or whatever) but if they have a high mortality rate, and I don`t if they do or don`t because I just flat out don`t know much about it, but where do they get the fish for the massive stocking you refered to?

RichG -It's no secret the Quinaults have a huge hatchery program and huge hatchery fish (selective breeding)

However, there is a month difference from the last of the hatchery spawning to the start of the wild spawning. The runs are seperate.

Both the Queets and the Quinault had double the WDFW escapemant goal last year. Both fisheries reduce days as the run becomes less hatchery.

If your upset with the Humptulips fish runs why don't you also include factors such as logging and historical sport catches of 3 fish limits. Could it be that you just want to look in one direction?

Salmo G,

I read it in a costal steelhead stock status NMFS report that gave a status off all systems from AK to Mexico.

Yes I am upset but I mostly wrote this to find out some opinions.