Wild chinook have declined even more precipitously than steelhead in washington rivers. If a blanket ban on keeping of wild steelhead is the right thing to do, shouldn't we have a chinook moratorium as well?

Depending on whose estimates you believe wild chinook abundance is between ~3% to 20% of historic levels in puget sound.

Answered Yes and No

Both species need a chance to survive.

I am guessing that the moritorium would be in fresh water?

i like an end to harvest of all wild salmonids..

i voted yes on 2 only because i don't fish for chinook.. both need protection but if i HAD to chose between the two i'd pick steelhead

I don't believe that a moretreum state-wide would work as of yet. I know of more than one river in which hatchery chinook are released and not clipped. In these said rivers, the returns can be phenominal. I am a transplant from the East-Side and it seems that the chinook stocks over here are in much more need of help. So anyways, I would be against any state-wide moretoreum on harvesting unclipped kings.

I'd support once significant and reliable fin-clipping was a reality, if it woudl apply to salt water, at least.

In a lot of fresh water areas, like the Wind River, all the springers are hatchery fish, or descendants of hatchery fish if some successfully spawned in the wild. They're put there only for harvest, and don't really even need a fin clip.

The issue would be, however, is that you'd have to release those fish if you caught them in the Big C, or out at Buoy 10, or Westport.

In PS I think it has to be that way after the ESA.

Fish on...

Todd

It seems like everyone just wants to give up this or give up that, while NETTING, pollution, over aboundence of sea lions, and my personal pet peve over aboundence of commorants (they eat there weight of fish each day, and the ones sitting on the rocks in your favorite river and not eating herring/candle fish they are eating smot)...Im not getting into the rights stuff but whats wrong with holding the state accountable for miss management, if you give up your fish for 2 years then the state well pat themselves on the back and declare what a great job they did bringing back the chinooks The NETTERS are happy and the fishermen didnt seem to care so lets shut down the chinooks forever. Just look at this months post on the release of uncliped hatchery steelhead and how the state was pleased with the increrase of "wild" steelhead in the same river system. if every one would write there concerns to the governer, and most of all ask the questions when the slimy political snakes are out in the public shaking hands and trying to get your vote. STAND UP AND BE NOTICED. One problem I see is the average fishermen does not make contributions to campains nor does each person have a lawyer/lobbiest to scream when they feel they have been wronged. but netters/commercial fishermen have both so use you vote/voice to get the point accross.

No Jerry,

I'm talking about a total wild chinook moratorium. Anything else doesn't make much sense for protecting wild puget sound chinook as their is very little take of wild chinooks in freshwater (at least inthe puget sound rivers by anglers--poachers is a whole different ball of wax). Allowing the folks out at La push or Neah bay to kill endangered stilliguamish chinooks doesn't make any sense if you want no harvest on those fish (which is why they close the river in the first place).

I agree that the hatchery chinook marking rate is terrible, and not improving very quickly due to the politics of fish. That doesn't stop one from allowing only marked fish to be killed and this would certainly force the issue on getting all hatchery chinook marked.

Also, allowing any wild blackmouth to be killed doesn't really help the endangered puget sound fish. Most if not all local blackmouth come from local rivers and a fraction of these are wild.

Although I didn't fish it, from most reports the hatchery fish only chinook fishery at seiku was workable (though certainly not perfect). I would propose that chinooks be opened everywhere in the sound under similar rules.

This would allow more fishing opportunity for chinooks while protecting the wild fish a lot more than the current regulation scheme.

I think if we as sportfishers can take the stance where we do everything possible to minimize our impacts on threatened or declining wild fish populations, then we can take the moral high road against tribal and commericial fishers exploitation of these threatened runs.

Otherwise, maybe we are just hypocrites fighting for a bigger piece of the fish pie.

I'm squarely with Todd on this one. Fin clip all hatchery chinook and we can release all unclipped fish. Such a big percentage are not clipped (see tribal threats post). Area 5 and 6 this summer had a CNR fishery for Chinook and I'm sure alot of the released fish with fins weree hatchery. A season was allowed wheree one did not exist so I'd say that was a bellweather for future chinook fisheries. I would say we will see more of these fisheries which provide good opportunites for sports fishers. Good idea in fresh water for sure.

I don't believe the issues are the same regarding wild steelhead and wild chinook. There may be other legal issues involved considering chinook are considered a comercial fishery. there are also the issues of fin clipping and ESA stuff as mentioned above.

I am very much in support of adopting policies that protect and enhance our wild chinook runs, but we need to study the issue much more before we can make such a drastic decision as supporting a state wide mandatory release regulation.

In the mean time, I will continue to personally release wild chinook

SA

This should have been done years ago! Grays Harbor lost out on a king season to protect declining numbers of wild Upper Chehalis fall chinook. Mass marking of all hatchery chinook in the Chehalis Basin would have allowed a harvest fishery for them in Grays Harbor and its rivers during last year's phenomenal king run. Sportsmen are paying to have those fish produced for harvest.... funny how only one group was allowed to do the harvesting.

Since we are talking about chinook and the Wind river was mentioned i have some info from one of the guys at the carson hatchery..

1/3 i believe it was of the returning adults ( to the hatchery) had fishing gear in them by that i mean hooks and corkies in their sides, tails etc. One poor female had 3 rigs in her side. Now i have nothing against the boat fishery in the mouth of the river but the bank fishery in the wind river canyon is a complete sham. it's a wdfw created and maintained snag fishery. A friend of mine is a retired fish cop and he calls it a blood bath.. i see no redeeming value in this fishery and think it shoule be closed. it's not the snagging actions of a few, like the north lewis coho run the vast majority of the people are snagging...

Maybe I missed it, but what about Mid-Columbia URB'S? I agree that ALL hatchery fish should be marked, but there's no shortage of Hanford or Upper Columbia Falls kings ("wild"), but it's best to catch them low in the river when they're still good. I think a Columbia kill season for any king is OK, but the sound is another entity. What about BC though? Alot of our kings run right along the outside coast, so how do we limit that major fishery on the unmarked fish?

Come on Rob!!! You stated that you don't even fish for chinook, then you make a broad brushed statement that you want a MAJOR HATCHERY springer river closed to fishing because of some hatchery flunkie told you a contrived percentage????? Let's see the facts!!! Talk about anthropomorphism, "poor hen" give me a break, she's gonna get bonked in the head! If you haven't fish the wind, it's a small, FAST running river, where kings will spool you if you're not carefull. Yes, there's snaggers, but if WDFW would gett off the arses and write tickets that problem would get solved. How about the "poor wild steelhead" that gets harassed for 30-40 minuted by some dork with a 7wt rod, just to be let go and die of lactic acid build up????? I say, close all rivers that don't have a hatchery run, and all rivers after the hatchery run has arrived (arbitrary each year) so no "poor wild fish" are harmed!!!

BTW, it's obvious from the survey results that the second question is kind of silly. Kind of like asking which of your children you value more.

Wild kings and wild steelhead are both icons of the Pacific Northwest.... protect them all!

snit you obvioously know nothing about fly fishing i can land a steelhead on a 6wt as fast as I can with my 8-12 casting rod. when was the last time you even saw a fly fisher catch a fish??

anyway i am in favor of closing rivers with no hatchery run but well what do you know there aren't any!!!!!
I think all fisheries that have large problems with snagging should be closed.. maybe if the sport anglers would get off their own arses and turn in these scumbag poachers the problem wouldn't exsist..
your comments of it being a few people snagging is false it's the majority of the people taking part in the fishery!!!
WDFW enforcment is doing their job as best they can. What would solve the problem is if the ethical anglers were to not tolerate the snagging... Also if unintentional snaggin is common then there is something wrong with your method of fishing...
I still say move the production of spring chinok to another facility close the river above the boat ramp and plant the fish at the mouth and let the trollers have at them.. Then maybe we'd get some wild steelhead back in the wind river..

Close all snag fisheries!!

Well, Rob......I've probably never seen you fish, but to imply that I haven't seen a fly flicker land a fish recently really does show your ignorance!!!!! If you want, we can compare the hundreds of hours I spend fishing as compared to yours, but that would be futile. Maybe we could each tie a 15# fish to our rods and see who beaches it first? Unpractical. Maybe compare the number of punch cards issued, but that wouldn't be relevant, because you don't salmon fish, and you probably C&R most steelhead. Maybe just sheer numbers of steelhead, but we probably wouldn't trust each others numbers. Maybe all the pictures of the nates I've been releasing, but you probably don't expose the "poor wild" fish to that agony of photo ops.

I can site the many fly caught steelhead I witnessed this fall on the Methow that were probably "killed" by bug tossers because the fisherman didn't know what he was doing by fishting the fish for 30+ minutes, then you'll site the mortality numbers of gear fisherman. I can tell you about the 8 dead steelhead in the bottom of one run that I walked down to one day, but we don't know who (bug or gear)killed them? Then you can site all the "snaggers" who flock to hatchery rivers, and even if they happen to "snag" a fish and let it go, you want the river closed because there was so many fish in run the hook bumped a fish and the fisherman set the hook, but I guess he should be using different techniques.

BTW, as of last year my cell phone didn't work in the Wind River Canyon! And WDFW is doing such a bang up job, by keeping the poachers/snaggers from doing there dasterdly deeds, that's why they hide on the Wind River Islands in the Columbia and write up all the criminals who inadvertently cross the boundary line!!! Now, they're really saving some fish there. They're to damn lazy to walk up the canyon and make the state some money.

You say close all snag fisheries! I'm offended by your "holier than thou" opinion! Just because I fish the canyon a couple of times, (and I've never snagged a fish in there), and some dork is trying to snag a fish in the same river you want me to police it? I'm not a fish cop, and I'm not going to get shot over a friggin' fish (hatchery, to boot!) by telling some dude to not snag.

No hatchery run rivers, eh? Just shut down a hatchery or two then. Also, last time I checked all the native winter runs in Washington (except Snyder Creek, that I know of) show up after the hatchery fish. So close the damn rivers now! That way, no wild fish will be harmed! The hatchery runs are generally thanksgiving through the end of January. After that, the mass majority of the returning fish are wild, so just close the fishing. What's wrong with that? So no sacred wild fish are harassed or harmed. Being a purist like you are, I would think that would be the pinnacle of success is if all retunring wild steelhead were totally unmolested.

Think about it....wherevere there's alot of fish congregated, and it's legal to fish, you'll have fish being snagged both intentionally and inadvertently. If it's in the Wind River Canyon, or if all the fish would only return to the mouth, then you'd have a pile of 15-30K fish balled up with guys pulling wiggle warts and spinners through them. Fish would still be snagged?!?!?! How do you avoid this? Maybe make everybody use a floating line and a dry fly? I just don't' understand.

Lets just close fishing everywhere were someone doesnt agree with how they are taken. The wind river snag fest has its purpose Rob. They are surplus hatchery fish! would you really like to see the state close that down so all them snaggers can go snag some wild fish somewhere?

This is getting ridicules! I sure am glad I have diversified in the species of fish I like to catch. with these holyier than thou attitudes It aint gonna be long before the fish are gone and are privlage to fish for them is gone. DANG peta could not get rid of us fishermen any faster then we are.

"That poor female had three rigs in her side" dam dude it just a hatchery fish. Not the end of the world. Didnt you want the hatcheries all closed anyways? I seem to remember you stating that here more then once.

You want the hatcheries closed and you want fishing for all native fish closed! What the hell does that leave? On the other thread you defended yourself by saying you love to fish and this and that. I actually believed you but now I just cant figure it out. Just what do you fish for? Poggies?

I am a fisherman I love to fish, I live to fish, I eat so I can fish, I work so I can fish, I sleep so I can fish, and I keep a roof over my head so I have a place to keep my fishing tackle.

It is not to my benifit if the fish are gone and it is also not to my benifit that It becomes illegal to fish for HARVESTABLE fish. Can you see why after the things you have posted here the last year we just are never going to get along.
I have stated in the past your intentions may be good but now I dont think that anymore. That also goes for anybody else who lets there personal agendas or feelings fog the actuall problems effecting our fish runs and actually do irepairable damage to are resource through supporting laws that do not address the number one causes of the decline of native fish.

Tossing salt at the fire aint going to put it out its only going to chap the hands of the tossers.

Micro, I have head the same thing before, I dont think snaggers just stay in one place, if they figure out how to snag and its easier then getting one to bite. then when they are fishing a different river and cant get a bite the snagger well come out of them no matter where they are.

Among those of you that don't support a wild chinoook moratorium (~35%). Do any of you support wild steelhead release. If so can you explain why your opinion differs on chinook and steelhead.


Thanks,

Geoduck

So snit,

I agree that big C wild kings can probably support some harvest (at least the hanford reach fish). But its also pretty clear that some OP rivers could support some wild steelhead harvest many years. Yet most seem to believe a wild steelhead moratorium was merited. Using the same logic you'd have to protect the wild kings in the big C.

As for canadian harvest of puget sound kings off vancouver Island that's probably a topic for another discussion, but I think it has to do with politics.

Washington commerical fishers and tribes take lots of Fraser sockeye in the straits and san juans, so the candaians take lots of our chinook and coho off vancouver island to repay the favor. I think this might be outlined in the last candaian/us fishing treaty. Basically the upshot is the american sportsmen get screwed. The candians catch all our catchable PS chinook (and usually the lions share of coho), while the netters get the compensation by catching Fraser sockeye. Sportsfishers pay the price and the tribes and commercials reap the benefits, what a crock.

I've been told by biologists that the reason the coho fishing has been so good the past few years is that the candians haven't been able to fish for coho off vancouver Island because they've fished their resident coho into oblivion, so to let them recover they quit most of their commercial troll fishery for coho. Thus we get most of our coho back from the ocean instead of the usual 50% loss after the candian trollers take their cut.

At any rate, I think the next time the US/Canda salmon treaty is up for negotiation we as a group need to be in attendence to make sure we don't get the shaft again (or at least to the same degeree). This BS of trading Washington endangered chinook for fraser sockeye needs to be ended.

I definately support the mortorium on wild steelhead. Why I wouldn't support one, "statewide", for Chinook is for the reason Todd mentioned. Mass-marking of hatchery-origin Chinook is not happening yet.
If way more hatchery chinook are marked, then yes, I'd support one.
Chinook, by definition, are a food fish. Steelhead get the distiction, by the state regulations, as a gamefish.
Since most of the salmon I harvest come from the ocean (specifically MA 3-4, not puget sound), I know there is a possibility that I might put an "ESA listed" fish in the box. But those chances really are quite slim. The oppurtinity we have there, with the guidelines and such, is mainly because of the imense runs of fall Chinook headed for the Columbia. (As well as some other prominent chinook producing watersheds.) And the vast majority of those fish are of hatchery origin, adipose intact or not.
Sekiu was mentioned above. The selective fishery for chinook there, I think, is a good idea since that MA (5) is within the path of migratory puget sound wild/native chinook. Until 2002, the strait portion of MA 4 didn't have any chinook fishery for years.
Imo, the state is playing the percentages to provide fishing oportunity, while attempting to minimize the impact of protected runs of chinook.
With the quality of chinook fishing that I have experienced the last 3 years (in the ocean), and the ratio of marked vs. unmarked fish; and the quideline system that is in place on the ocean chinook fishery, I would not support a statewide mororium on chinooks. Not yet anyway.

J.D.

snit-

Number one 'enforcement fallacy'...

" but if WDFW would gett off the arses and write tickets that problem would get solved."

I seem to remember last years snagger bust on the Wind making both the KWGN and NWCN channels....tv cameras, pictures of the offenders went out over the air. Tickets were issued, arrests were made....it was as ugly for snaggers as it possibly could have been that day....

When I talked to one of the gamies down there he said the snagging pressure actually got worse, as if the tv publicity had planted this seed in the head of a hundred hillbillies...'Well, maybe I could snag one down on the Wind?'

You want to fix the problem on the wind quit blaming enforcement. If the Feds weren't dumping in hundreds of thousands of artificially produced salmon into that river, the snaggers wouldn't be there. Period. Have them frickin police the damn thing, after all its their hatchery. Sick and tired of hearing people blaming lack of enforcement for the snagging problem.

Mass mark all hatchery Nooks and I am solidly behind a wild chinook moratorium.

forget it just don't snag and take your damn garbage out of the canyon with you. unlike most of the people who utilize that stupid fishery...

catch and release wild steelhead forever....

i won't support a moratorium on steelhead or salmon at all. just plain idiotic in my view

these resources should be managed by river/system, not as a statewide blanket closure.

34....16....11... KNow what thoes three numbers represent???

34 the number of rivers where wild steelhead runs were healthy 10 years ago

16 is the same statistic 2 years ago.

11 is the number of healthy steelhead populations in the state of Washington right now...

everyone needs to get in now that the health of our steelhead runs statewide are IN DECLINE!!!!!!! Keeping wild steelhead anywhere in the state of Washington at the present time is wrong, stupid and selfish.
I fully support the end of wild steelhead harveest FOREVER.. Even id wild runs rebound to historic levels and all hatcheries are closed...