Thought this might produce an interesting discussion for the New Year.

There is growing support for state-wide wild steelhead release (WSR), even at run sizes that traditionally supported harvest of wild steelhead. In the past WSR was a management tool that was used to provide access to hatchery fish when wild runs were below escapement goals. The current push for state-wide WSR seems to be advocating mandatory CnR of wild steelhead regardless of the run size. While this is a fair enough idea there remains some questions under which conditions such management should applied.

The first is should the use of mandatory wild steelhead CnR be limited by the wild fish run size? Which of the following best fits your ideas of when we should be allowed to target wild steelhead?

1) fishing at any run size
2) fishing only on runs at least 80% of MSY.
3) fishing only on runs at MSY.
4) fishing only on runs at least 80% of carrying capacity.
5) fishing only on runs at carrying capacity.

(I used the MSY escapement choice as that is what is used by the State and Federal Courts and carry capacity as a commonly proposed alternative to MSY as an escapement objective. Currently WDFW allows wild fish CnR fish at runs at 80% of the escapement goal).

How long into the spring (spawning season) should the wild steelhead CnR fishing be allowed?

1) Fishing only until the end of the hatchery run.
2) Fishing should end prior to the peak of the wild fish spawning.
3) Fishing all spring.

I would also be interested in how you support your choices.

May the New Year bring you willing fish and good times!

Tight lines
Smalma

WSR should be first implemented on rivers with 100% marking of hatchery fish. Secondly, rivers with no gillnetting. Otherwise it is somewhat of a joke. Before the bashers begin I might add that I have never kept a wild steelhead from any river.

I support C&R of wild steelhead on all runs all the time. I place a lot more value on the experience of catching a wild steelhead than on eating one.

C&R should cease prior to the prime spawing. I want to C&R in the future.

I have to second what granpa2 says here...until something is done about the gill netting, what's the point? Especially when "foregone opportunity" comes into play? I can release wild fish until I'm blue in the face and a gill net comes along and undoes it all in a heartbeat. There must be a way to harvest hatchery fish without dramatically endangering the wild runs...fish traps possibly. Something where the un-targeted fish can be released reasonably unharmed.

edit: OK, I never answered the question....
C&R until 100% escapement....Think about it....it we did this, there would be no need for a season length limitation at all.....but the trick would be to monitor that escapement remains at 100% or better. (Boy, am I dreamin'!)

Grandpa - Fun5Acres

I can’t buy your logic. I too abhor gillnets. I would ban them tomorrow IF I could. But they are there, so now let's work with what we have.

To my knowledge most gillnets are in the lower river. Most steelhead are hooked by sportsman above the gill nets. Which to me means that the fish has successfully made it past the gill nets. Why would you want to kill one of the survivors, just because his journey was mighty dangerous? Would you advocate shooting a rhino just because there are a lot of poachers doing so? If your friend jumped off a cliff . . . (Sorry about that cliff thing – just thought a bit of humor might help here.)

As far as allowing catch and kill on runs our game department declares healthy, I'm mighty skeptical. Aren’t these the same folks who "managed" more than half our runs into extinction of endangered status? I do not trust them to make the call. I do know that a healthy wild steelhead that has made it past the damn gillnets is a real treasure.

I also agree whit whomever it was who pointed out that C&R should be restricted near spawning time/ areas. I think the Thompson is a good example. Those few fish that get past the gill-netters in the Fraser. Sit in about a five-mile stretch of the Thompson for five months. They get bombarded every day. I have seen some whose mouth looks like a pincushion. They need protection.

I think people need to show some restraint before looking to the Goverment to legislate. How anyone can fish a depressed resource even C&R is beyond me. I walked away from our rivers 20 years ago until this past year. My 4 year old son loves to fish and has me back on the rivers teaching him how they work. I have questioned my judgement in fishing these rivers based on what I have seen since Aug.

AS for C&R being the answer look at the hit and miss success of artificals and C&R on trout streams in this state the last 25 years. A big Flopola IMHO. Nothing short of shutting things down for 6 years and then a limited entry draw system will help some of these now urban streams.

First, I would agree with Mr. Vedder relative to our management of these "finite" resources. IMO we have done a mediocre job protecting the wild Steelhead!
All you need to realize this is look back the last 30+ years...you know, the old hind sight thing.

I am all for Statewide MANDATORY CnR of all wild Steelhead stocks. However, in doing so are we subject to forgone Opp. and therefore the effect becomes moot???


Everyone would need to play by the same rules for there to be truely positive impact, otherwise it's the monkey and the football all over again.

Smalma,

Good topic to start conversation especially for those us at work counting empty offices.

I am going to limit myself to MSY talk as I just dont' see the Department using CC as a viable number plus I have never seen any numbers on what these numbers actually are.

I personally would support WSR on all Rivers Year round no exception. Of your choices and limiting only to your choices I think the first two are good options. I am not sure if allowing fishing at any run size is right but if you say 80% almost all rivers would be closed now starting first of December or so because if you say start at 80% the Sky and stilly don't meet that so they should be closed all together. There may be a different percentage to use. Especially with the fact the mortality rates at winter water temp with artificials is from everything I have read below 5%.

As for how late to fish in the season. Peak spawning timing seems to be a good start. But the departement is making a push for consistency so say maybe April 15th.

Now of course this is only for the wild winter fish. Those wild summer fish probably need protection starting Jan 1 and give them time to spawn unmolested. Dave brought up the thompson. It closes Dec 31st to allow those summer fish to have a chance to spawn unmolested. So not sure how many rivers in the state are managed for wild summer and winter runs.

Dave thank you for bring up the points about the nets. And I did get a chuckle out of the cliff comment as if you think aobut it it is ver true to this situation. We as sport fisherman need to have our house in order before we start pointing fingers at others.

Other things that I personally think would help our steelhead stocks
1) Keep rivers with the wild winter runs closed unitl June 15th to give the Kelts an extra two weeks to get out of the system and back to salt without being caught.
2) Ban bait in June-Sept 15 to limit impact on the wild parr. Mortality rates on parr are very high with bait. Still allowing others to use bait for fall salmon though so it might have to end August 31st.

You know in an ideal world we should be able to have year round fishery on all runs as people would self regulate themselves and we would have to worry about people abusing the resource but I don't see that in the world we live in.

JJ

Theking brought up an interesting subject that i have thought about for quite some time. That is; a limited entry drawing system to not only protect endangered runs but to create quality fisheries on rivers with healthy runs. There is a strong precidence for this from hunting seasons managed for quality hunts. This could be done with portions or the whole length of selected streams and rivers. So, any thoughts or should this be a thread of its own?

With that being said I would pay 10x for a permit /license to be assured it was being policed. Heck you pay more than that to go to waters in Alsaka and BC for the quality. You get what you pay for and we are getting a $30 opportunity.

Then comes the argument that it becomes a rich mans sport. IMHO steak cost more than burger and that is the duality of the free market we live in.

Smalma,

before putting up my opinions on this, I'll add a few more things (beyond the good stuff that's already posted) that I believe should be considered in this discussion.

1. history tells us that preseason run-size forecasts for wild steelhead are usually wrong; this situation isn't likely to change anytime soon

2. even the complete elimination of fishing can't guarantee that we'll bring depleted steelhead populations back from very low numbers, or keep our "healthy" stocks from dropping like most of the others. In the long run, eliminating fishing might even be the last straw for declining stocks because steelheaders are among the few special interest groups that (sometimes?) demand political protection for healthy rivers and ecosystems. And political protection is critical.

What we also know is that there is no doubt that fish that aren't harvested will very likely increase the number of spawners.

So, how to fit these and other considerations into a WSR management plan ... my feeling is that an improved management plan would allow for a lot of "slop" (prediction errors) in the system, and would focus on keeping harvest rates (either direct or indirect from CnR mortality) to no more than ~10% for each component of the run size. There's nothing magic about 10% other than it's a lot smaller number than the typical ~40% target for MSY management, and ~10% should be adequate to account for "indirect CnR harvest" while allowing ample fishing opportunities.

As for season timing for wild winter runs, spreading the impacts favors the highest "CnR harvest" during the times of the highest returns (March-April), rather than limiting the fishing and impacts to Nov-Feb to coincide with most hatchery returns. One consequence of past fishing practices has been very high harvest rates on the early returning wild fish, but much lower harvest rates on the March-April returns. This kind of fishing has surely reshaped the populations by squashing the relatively small-numbered early returners, and those early fish may be very important to the long-term health of the population.

I am also a firm believer that status quo approaches are not in the best interests of fishers or the fish. If regional trends in wild steelhead abundance (over the past 50 years) continue, it's seems like a safe bet that we're looking at statewide emergency closures due to low escapements in the very near future. We're only a few river systems away from that situation today, and so far we have a pretty poor track record for reversing steep declines in wild steelhead numbers. There are exceptions (Deer Creek comes to mind...), but not many, not yet at least.

The long term solution to turning the long-term downtrends around has to include agressive actions to restore and protect habitat in streams and estuaries, as well to change the hatchery and harvest practices that are shrinking the abundance and diversity of our wild fish populations. Reducing harvests is a quick but clearly limited start on what needs to be a much bigger effort.

I like the idea of alowing CnR on waters that are at or above 80% of carrying capacity (Native fish). 80% of carrying capacity would also be the number alowing tribal harvest. If the system isnt at 80% (Native fish) or above no fishing of any kind. If the system cant produce atleast 80% carrying capactiy on its own, (Native fish) due to whatever problems, hatchery supplimentation could be used to help it but no fishing untill it reaches 80% native capacity.

Also no comercial By-Catch aloud on un-healthy stocks to harvest healthy or hatchery stocks atleast no the reckless ways we alow it now.

Anything above the 80% can be split between the tribes and non tribal fishers the same as it is now. Non Tribal in Terminal areas would use their half for CnR oportunities.

As far as seasons go I like the idea of cutting it short to protect fish during peak spawning. This should be done on a system system basis. Like on the Quileute system I like the April 15th thing down below, but in the middle It should be March 31 and at the top March 15th.

I think 80% or above is much safer than MSY. If mistakes are made and a few to many fish are taken by the tribes or killed in CnR fisheries we would still have the safety nett of extra fish and diversity to rebuild without the danger of colapse.

The following is a quote:

"Dave thank you for bring up the points about the nets. And I did get a chuckle out of the cliff comment as if you think aobut it it is ver true to this situation. We as sport fisherman need to have our house in order before we start pointing fingers at others............."


Dave...Remember that I am for WSR. My house is in order. Pointing out some loopholes is not pointing fingers or killing Rhinos because poachers do....Far from it...I never said that BECAUSE gill netters harvest wild steelhead we should catch and kill wild steelhead to make things fair and square...What I am saying is that we should catch and release all wild fish but not sit on our laurels for doing the right thing but we need to push hard for a comprehensive policy that shuts down harvest of wild fish by EVERYONE...Sports people are the ones making constant sacrifices while the tribes and commercials have to be forced to. So force the *******s! Mark all hatchery fish...no exceptions. Get rid of this "forgone opportunity" crap if conservation is the reason to stop killing wild fish.

If I don't drive in the carpool lane by myself and watch many single drivers in the carpool lane doesn't mean I am going to jumpp in that lane until all the lawbreakers quit. What it does mean though is that I can be pi$$ed and turn them in. May not do a whole lot of good but I can still try to make it fair for all.

Grandpa,

Since it was my quote that you pulled. I will applogize for it. The way I read it was that you didn't support this until the nets were gone. I agree with you that we need to stop harvest of wild steelhead in all forms. We can't sit around and not push on others to do the same but what I was saying was that we as sports anglers have to push the state to make the change before we can ask the nets to make the change. I agree with your last posts. Sorry if I misunderstood your first post.

JJ

Grandpa: What Jeff said. I too thought you were advocating killing wild fish. Now that I understand your position I agree 100%. I was WRONG!

Bump

My biggest problem with mandatory WSR in the state is knowing how the WDFW works. Let's face it, rarely do sportsmen ever get something back. If anything, we conceed more. Once mandatory WSR goes into effect, I'll be large sums of money that in a few years, it'll be closed completely. After all, I think just about everyone would agree that sportsmen are not the problem. Does anyone seriously think run size will dramatically increase with mandatory C&R? Of course not. I have no doubt, that eventually, mandatory WSR will go into effect. However, that will not solve the problem. So what will the state do next? Eliminate commerical fisheries? Of course not! Cut back on tribal harvest? Heavens no! They'll just completely shut down C&R fishing. By restricting sports fishing, the state can claim they are making moves to improve the fish situation but it's just lip service because it will not do any good.

A few years ago, Puget Sound Rivers were open to C&R through the end of March. Then, they closed the Snohomish system at the end of February and the Green closed March 15. Now, last year, the Green closed the end of February as well. Pretty soon, they'll be closing mid Feb. The more sportsmen give up, the more the department will take.

I do not advocate the killing of wild steelhead either. I have never killed one, nor do I plan on it. I'm perfectly happy releasing native fish, however, I don't want to lose opportunity to fish and I have no faith at all in the department.

Jacob, I would not be so quick to say that the sportsfishermen have nothing to do with the decline in wild steelhead. I'm not saying that we are the primary reason, but without question we have an impact. I would recommend that you look at what happened to the great late winter run on the Nisqually. In that case, I don't think that there is much doubt that the sports pressure was the main impact on the decline of wild steelhead.

The other issue that has been brought up here is one of credibility. If we, as a sportsfishing community, say that we have no responsibility for the recovery, how can we expect the other user groups to make effort for recovery?

Thought this would have generated more discussion!.

Why do you think the management of the steelhed resource should be any different that salmon or other trout management?

NM raises an interesting point. The pre-season forecast are often wrong because survivals vary so much. How do you think that variability should be incorporated into the management (see comments on the Escapement goals and WSR discussion post by FishnPhysician)?

Jacob - regarding your concern about shorter seasons. One of the early hatchry/wild issues recognized was the spawning of hatchery fish with wild fish. To reduce the likely hood of that occurring WDFW over that last 20 years or so has reduced the latest portion of the hatchery spawning until today the early-timed hatchery females have completed spawning by the end of the February - 20 years ago they spawned through most of March. This change has greatly reduced the spawning between the early-timed hatchery and wild steelhead. Most would view this a postive step.

A result is that the hatchery run is done by the end of February. Thus in rivers where the fishery is targeting hatchery fish only there is no need to have a longer season to access the hatchery fish. If the wild fish are going to be underescapement and there are no hatchery fish would you adovate continuing to fish on and impacting the wild fish?

Tight lines
Smalma

Is there not some mandate for periodic review at a fixed interval, with readustment of the escapement goal if the best science indicates that is appropriate?

This is a scary concept. As survival conditions get worse (ie ongoing habitat degradation brought on by "progress") the MSY escapement decreases. Sounds like a vicious circle to me... with this philosophy, over time, we just keep justifying greater harvests so we don't overescape the MSY capacity of the habitat.

Run-size projections are just that... projections, with plenty of room for imprecision. If in fact they are shooting for a mid-point escapement ( as in your Skykomish chinook example), that at least helps to compensate for some of that imprecision. But how universal is it that the runs are managed for the "average" MSY escapement from one system to the next?


This works in theory if angling effort is a fixed constant. In practice, however, when the run sucks, people hear about it and angling effort diminishes.... a lot of folks just won't bother with fishing if they think there is a low likelihood of success. Exploitation rates plummet. On the flip side, if the run is exceptionally strong, everyone hears about it, angling effort skyrockets, and exploitation is much higher than anticipated.

So where am I going with all this? Not really sure. I guess my biggest concern is that there's such an emphasis on making sure we harvest every last "surplus" fish so as not to "overescape" the river, when in fact that overescapement concern is just artificially created by fish mangers keeping escapement goals at ridiculously low levels. All the forces at work here, both political and biological, seem to conspire to make sure those escapement goals stay that way!

I was once told that the entire Quillayute system is managed for an annual steelhead escapement of only 5500 fish (someone please step in to correct me if this is a gross misrepresentation). There are much smaller river systems in Alaska that get more than 5500 fish in one tide! Can there be that much difference in what constitutes a healthy escapement in one system and not the other?

OOPS! That last long-winded reply was meant for another thread.... escapement goals and WSR. I'll see if TRBO can fix it for me.

posted a response on the other thread

Tight lines
Smalma

I share Jacob's pessimism but Hey I'm a pessimistic sort from the get go. Every stake holder has sacrificed more and more each year and I think the WDFW plays a juggling act trying to keep all of them happy . Not an easy task.

I'm sure a catch and kill season has some impact, not enough to really have an effect though. Look at the Skykomish and the Snoqualmie. They went to C&R years ago and the runs still and are still declining. That's why they had to shorten our C&R season to the end of February. I ask again, what's the next thing that can be done to improve the wild runs? The state won't do anything that impeeds commerical or tribal fishing so the only thing left would be to limit sportsmen even more. Once the sportsmen can't fish at all and the runs continue to dwindle to non-existance, then what?

I would advocate a C&R fishery on the wild fish because the impact would be minimal to none. Let's face it, even if a river only had 50 returning wild steelhead, the odds of actually hooking one would go way down. The river would get very little fishing presure. If a person was able to land a fish, the odds of it being killed during the realising process is almost non existant.

Now, before someone makes the claim about people who drag fish on rocks and kick them back into the water, I don't buy it. In a situation like the one I am describing, only a hardcore angler who actually cares about wild fish would even bother fishing. The people who do not care about fish only go to places where they can expect to catch lots of fish.

Jacob, I must disagree. Here are the facts (as reported by WDFW in punchcard counts) for the Nisqually.

1980 1414 killed
1981 1349
1982 1374
1983 1263
1984 1916
1985 1960
1986 I don't have the data
1987 2346
1988 1273

These are not insignificant numbers. Keep in mind these were all wild steelhead. I can't remember when the Nisko was closed, and I don't have easily accessed data for other years, but I think you get the idea.

But how many wild fish were killed in nets? Now, I could be wrong here, I don't have the data handy, but, for example, let's say that during those years you mentioned, would the run size have still declined albeit at a slower pace had there been full C&R? That's what it boils down to. What's the point of going full C&R, limiting sportsmen even more, if the run size is still going to decline? Going full C&R for wild steelhead obviously didn't help on the Snohomish system, which is why we are now reduced to a fishery that ends the end of February. I just don't want to lose opportunity when the end result is going to be almost nil. The bottom line is that you can close down every river in this state to sport fishing year round and the runs will still decline because the state and feds refuse to recognize the cause of the problem.

Jacob ... Your observations bring us to the point that many of us have been trying to make all along!

What is "healthy"??

Is it possible that steelhead stocks reach a point where they're just not going to rebound overnight?

Perhaps our data there was skewed and we fished these runs down to a point of essentially no return?

Obviously there's lots of questions and not many clear-cut answers. Frnakly, I don't buy into the oceanic conditions thing that state managers often bring up due the fact that some runs are hangin' in there ... they all go to the same ocean don't they??

The whole point is, there is no clear-cut answer and why not err on the safe side and take precautonary steps to keep those rivers that still have some fish in them that way?

Each year, more and more streams with sustainable runs of fish (I'm avoid to avoid the "H" word) go bye-bye. It's time for the sporties to at least take a step in the right direction before we get to a point where the run is either totally gone or in such sad shape that no one has any business fishing for them!

That is the almost the cold truth. I'm pretty positive the cause of the problems have been recognized, just not acted on.

Unfortunately, I think it will be a cold day in hell when we see the end of tribal netting, commercial fishing, and the end of hatchery raised fish. Not to mention a *real* effort to restore our rivers, waterways and estuaries.

Oh sure, I'll happily "take that step in the right direction" and support a state-wide C&R, but I'm afraid that if we take any more steps forward, we're all gonna fall off of Vedder's Cliff while the "other half" laugh all the way to the bank.

Jacob, I don't disagree with your conclusion, I disagree that sports fishers are not contributing to the problem. The 4 H's really sum it up for me and I will try to order them in the priority that I feel is correct (although really they are equally important).

Habitat - It's pretty easy to see the challenges here, one only needs to look at the population increases to see this one.

Harvest - Here is where we as Sports Fishers contribute to the problem. For the year spanning 5/1/1999 - 4/30/2000 (the last year I can find data) here is the breakdown:

Tribal catch: 43025
Sport catch: 77986

The sport catch total included 6,802 wild (unmarked) fish. We do not know how many wild fish were caught and released to even make an approximation of mortality. Now there is a legitimate arguement to be made on the accuracy of these figures and clearly the tribal catch is not broken down by wild & hatchery but to say that we are not part of the problem makes us, as a community, look silly. We must own up to our part of the problem before we can credibly ask anyone else to do anything.

Hydro - Clearly a huge factor on the Columbia/Snake system.

Hatcheries - We need to get a handle on this part of the equation as well. I believe that well run hatchery programs can contribute to succesful recovery of our fish, however, there are not enough well run hatchery programs to point to. I would recommend that you look at Long Live the Kings as a possible blueprint for success.

So, that is my position. If we point to one part of the Harvest situation as being a "magic bullet", I believe we are kidding ourselves. And I would say that CnR falls into this category of not being a magic bullet equally with Tribal Harvest restrictions. All 4 H's have significant challenges associated with them. Do we as a citizenry have the will to tackle all of them? Some days I doubt it, other days make me feel confident. Time will tell....

Does any one have an idea of how many wild fish make up the 43,025?

Please tell me that information is recorded down by an impartial observer.

I'd really like to see some compiled data of yearly harvested wild fish totals by river.

Of the X-percent being wild fish, what rivers are they coming off of? Who's getting hit the hardest and why?

If that information is *not* available, why?

How do we even begin to manage a fishery where we can't even get basic information from all the participants?

I have to punch my fish and record down if it's marked or not. Do the tribes have to do such a thing for every one of their fish? If not, they should be.

Smalma,
one way to deal with "imperfect" pre-season forecasts is to simply set our sights lower than an MSH harvest plan. For an "ideal" case (average productivity) the target MSH harvest rate is ~40% of the total run size. If the target harvest impact was lowered to something like 10%, it would incorporate a lot more wiggle room than currently exists. Such an approach would have avoided the overfishing that occured on the Hoh last winter/spring.

With regard to "overescapement", it apparently did no harm to salmonids for something like 2-3 million years. The overescapement concept is only valid in the MSH worldview -- it's only a "problem" if you equate optimal management success with the maximum number of fish harvested. For wild steelhead that perspective simply doesn't hold up in any economic or scientific assessment I've seen, and I doubt it would hold up to a popular vote of steelhead anglers or the general public.

Lots of spawners is probably a good thing for many reasons. One of the key components of a healthy wild fish population is its diversity, where there are lots of fish using lots of different habitat. As others have noted on this board, diverse habitats force a diversity in the behaviors of salmonids through natural selection. The MSH approach is all about numbers, giving zero regard for how natural variability (in climate, stream and ocean habitat) influences the evolution of diversity in wild animal populations. MSH would be a great idea if it worked, but it simply doesn't account for the complexity of the real world.

It seems to me that if we don't take significant steps in a more positive direction soon the cliff is going to crumble beneath our feet. There is some good news around the region about real habitat restoration and at least some very promising talk about significant hatchery reforms. I know that a lot of the folks that read and write on these pages are already on board and are helping it happen, but there is plenty more room for people to get involved ...there are already mountains of papers written about the causes for the declines. The real mystery in all this has to do with why fish-advocates (sports, tribal and commercial) fail to speak with a single loud voice to get our local, state, and federal governments (they represent "we the people", right?) to do the right thing.

Parker, here is the link to the report that I cited: http://www.wdfw.wa.gov/fish/harvest/99-00/harvest99-00.pdf

Tribal harvest is broken out on pages 36-38. It is an interesting read. Biggest single month of harvest is September and mainly comes out of the Columbia - not surprising this is probably bycatch from salmon fishing. If we look at WR only what we see is this:

November total catch 1452
Westside 1000
Columbia 452

December total catch 9123
Westside 8903
Columbia 220

January total catch 6629 (no Columbia R. fish in this total)

February total catch 2325 (again no Columbia fish)

March total catch 2682 (once again no Columbia fish)

April total catch 770
Westside 367
Columbia 403

So, as you have correctly pointed out, no reporting of wild vs. hatchery, but we can probably make some assumptions (here is where I probably get myself in a lot of trouble )

If I look at the total tribal catch of WR SH by the tribes as 22981, I will assume that 10% of the November, December, & January fish are wild, the balance hatchery. February 50/50, March and April 90% Wild, 10% hatchery. Here is how the numbers break out.

Total WR catch 22981
Hatchery 16,990 0r 74%
Wild 5,991 Or 26%

Contrast this with the Sports catch from the same report.

Total WR catch 33,304
Hatchery 27857 Or 84%
Wild 5447 Or 16%

Now, my assumptions may be very faulty, if so, go ahead and get the flamethrowers warmed up. However, using my assumptions it looks like to me that we as sports fishers have close to the same impact on the wild SH as do the tribes. It is even closer when we factor in the mortality on released wild fish.

Once again, I do not disagree with all the valid points that you make Parker. I also know that you spend a fair amount of time fishing with members of the Quinault tribe so I'm fairly certain you do not have a knee jerk reaction to this issue. I'm saying that it is always hardest to look in the mirror and admit that I'm part of the problem rather than point the finger of blame at someone else. And I don't believe that I carry any credibility if I only point that finger of blame.

I wish that we could have more confidence in the raw data, but once again, I think that is a double edge sword. There are plenty of folks that I know that will not report their sport catch. Don't ask me why, never could understand it, but there you have it.

Peace.

Bob -
Have to agree that blaming the recent poor steelhead returns in much of Puget Sound and lower BC appears to be a cope out. However if not poor marine conditions then what is the root casue.

Consider the following information from the Snohomish system. In the later half of the 1990s the return of wild steelhead to the system has been only a third of what it was in the 1980s. This is in spite of escapements that had been more or less constant at about the escapement goal of 6,500. Recent returns from those escapements has been less than 3,000 fish.

At the same time the return of the hatchery winter steelhead from the Snohomish has fallen about the same. The smolt plants have remained relatively constant. During the 1980s the average catch (sport + tribal) of hatchery fish in the system was about 12,500 fish a year. In the late 1990s the catch fell to only 4,300 fish a year.

Whatever has happened to the Snohomish winter steelhead seems to be affect both the hatchery and wild fish. It must be occurring at or after the smolt stage.

Also consider the situation with summer steelhead in the same basin (Snohomish). Again the hatchery program has been relatively constant. The average annual catch of summer fish in the 1980s was 3,900 fish. In the late 1990s it was 3,800. In addition the wild summer population has appeared to have remained constant or increased during the 1990s (based on Sunset Falls counts and spawning surveys on the South Fork Tolt).

Since the summer and winter smolt migrate from the system at the same time it is hard to image something (a predator) that would be impacting winter smolts and not the summer fish. Therefore it seems likely that whatever is hammering the winter fish is outside of the river and its estuary. We do know that the summer and winter steelhead migrate through the ocean at different times and places.

While my knoweldge is limited after considerable thought I have been forced to conclude that the ocean is less than a constant environment and the summer fish going to areas with better survival conditions than the winter fish. Since the Washington coast fish and the West side of Vancouver Island steelhead have continued to survival at high levels while the Puget Sound fish and those on the East side of Vancouver are doing very poorly it would also appear that nor only where the fish are going to feed but the timing of when they go are very important.

Am I missing something?

Tight lines
Smalma

AMEN BROTHER AMEN!

NM --
regarding "over-escapement" being a problem. What I said in the other discussion was
"5) Regarding over-escapements - In the past it was common to consider that managment of a run that had escapements larger than its goal to be considered to be a management failure. Genreally today that is not the case. Most would consider goals to targets to match of exceed."
I for one don't view any "over-escapement" as a problem.

I would certainly concur with your statements regarding the need for protecting diversity of the populations. However you did mention that current management does not account for the complexity of the real world. In reality fising is one a small part of the assault on our steelhead's productivity and diversity. Water withdrawls, power generation, forestry, agriculture, and fishing all are taking a piece of the resource.

To totally reduce any impacts on the diversity or productivity of the steelhead populations from fishing really means no fishing! Even a CnR fishery has some impact on the resource so that ultimately management is a question of risk assessment. Are the risks from fishing worth the potential benefits - man days of fishing/ #s of flesh etc. Those of issues for each of us to wrestle with and decide for ourselves.

My purpose in starting this thread was not to adovcate a position but rather raise some of the complexities of these issues for our collective thought and discussion.

Tight lines
Smalma

Thanks for jumpstarting this discussion. We are all learning a lot from these posts as well as the ones in the parallel thread. Great input one and all!

Was my analysis so incredibly convincing that no one can offer a comment? Hey, I put a lot of work into that - someone tell me I'm nuts or something.

It's possible to be nuts and still be right Eddie.

Jerry, You have no idea how comforting that is!!

It comforts me too

Jerry/Eddie
Since we are all steelheaders by definition we are nuts.

In fact since we endless debate the nuances of that passion we call steelheading it is probable that most of us have a short circuit or two in our neurological systems.

Isn't it grand?!

Eddie -
Your mental exercise in estimating the tribal catch of wild steelhead appears to be good enough to define the relative magnitude of tht catch.

As you point out there sports community has an additional impact (resulting in dead fish) on the wild resource from hooking mortality of the released fish. There are about 80,000 steelheaders in Washington and if each of us released 1 wild fish per year and the hooking mortality is 5% that would mean an additional 4,000 dead steelhead. I would not be surprised if the number of wild steelhead released by the readers on this site didn't approached 10,000 fish a year.

Tight lines
Smalma

Smalma, from the range of issues covered in this thread, I think your quest for complexity succeeded. And I agree with the points in your last 2 posts (all off our rockers). I also believe that the WSR debate needs to be put into the context of the full range of issues on the table. As you say, we know how to eliminate fishing impacts, just close all fishing. But there are potentially huge costs to cutting fish-constituents out of the equation, especially given all the political opponents to restoring and protecting habitat, and keeping water in and pollution out of our rivers. If those habitat issues are much larger than the harvest/Cnr impacts, you might make a strong case for keeping people fishing.
So it is about risk assessment, or cost/benefit analysis, whichever you like to call it.

Eddie- I like what you did with those numbers. Thanks for going to the trouble of digging them out and making some sense out of them.

Smalma & NM, thank you for your unbiased assessment on my sanity and your kind words. I would say that 80,000 steelhead caught and released would be an extraordinarly high number. I could see 10 to 20 thousand wild fish released and that does have some impact. My point remains the same - we as a sportsfishing community have an impact on the wild SH. We better be prepared to accept that and act upon it if we want to have any credibility in the discussion.

Eddie you ARE nuts.....But that's ok...

For clarification, I don't believe that sportsmen have absolutely no impact at all, I'm just uncertain as to whether the impact sportsmen have is actually noticeable. First, I would like to know how the department came up with the 5% mortality figure. In the years I've been steelheading, I've never seen a native steelhead released where I questioned whether or not it would survive. I'm not just talking about the fish I personally have caught, but all the ones I have actually seen. None of them were bleeding, none of them were handled roughly, all were released as quickly as possible, etc. I probably haven't seen as many released as the majority of you, but I believe it's safe to say that of all the steelhead I've seen released, there is a 0% mortality factor.

Now, back to impact. Obviously, if even one fish is killed, there's an impact. Whether or not it's actually meaningful is something else. I think we need to distinquish between impact and meaningful impact. Obviously, if only one fish in a river dies, the impact will not be meaningful because even if there are only 100 fish in the river, there will still be enough to spawn and propogate the run. When I say sportsmen don't have an impact, I mean we don't have a meaningful impact. Like I stated before. Remove sportsmen completely out of the picture and the runs will still decline. By my definition, that's not meaningful. Obviously we all have our own definitions though.

Jacob, let's look at it this way.

Totally hypothetical #'s here:

Total run size in our state possible for wild SH - 150,000

Reduction due to habitat damage - 60,000 - new possible run size is 90,000

Reduction due to hydro - 30,000 - new possible run size is 60,000

Reduction due to negative hatchery impact - 20,000 - new possible run size is 40,000

The tribes and sportsmen harvest (including mortality rate on released fish) - 12,000 - new possible run size is 28,000.

Now, the 6,000 that the sportsmen harvest is about 4% of the original maximum carrying capacity. Not terribly meaningful. However, 6,000 of the 28,000 is 21%. Coupled with tribal harvest we reach 42%. Quite meaningful. And clearly not sustainable. Not nearly as meaningful as the cumulative effect of habitat loss, hydro, and negative hatchery impact, but I'm not seeing a great deal done to mitigate those impacts. So, you are right - sport fishers releasing all wild steelhead only delay the inevitable. But maybe that delay will give us the will to tackle the big problems.

I would really appreciate if one of the smart fisheries people would look at the numbers to see if once again my insanity is showing or if the basic tenets are somewhat accurate.

Jacob -
Some of the best hooking mortality informtion comes from wild brood stock collections. Probably the best information comes from Vacouver Island where under the direction of Bob Hooten the survival of fish caught for brood stock purposes was track through spawning. As I recall (don't have the info in front of me) over a number of years they monitored the survival 3,300 fish with mortalities varied from about 3 to 7% depending on the year, river and whether summers or winters. Other brood stock captures while not as large in terms of the number of fish handled have found similar mortalities. Bottom line there is mortality associated with catching the fish. Most of the mortality occurred within 24 hours of capture though some deaths occurred later (typically wihtin 72 hours)

What has been learned is that most mortality is associated with the fish is hooked in what has been determined to be "critical" areas. These are areas where substantial bleeding occurs. Those areas include the gills, eye, back of the tongue and the esophagus. When comparing various fishing methods (bait verus non-bait) the differences in the per cent of fish hooked in a critical area will give you a rough idea of the relative diffrences in potnetial mortalities.

If you wish more detailed information do a search on this site as there has been a number of discuusion that have covered this topic in depth.

You should be thankful that you haven't had to experience the agony of watch a release native from your catching it. Beleive me it leaves a sinking feeling.

Tight lines
Smalma