Luke:

Can you say hatchery fish? The facts are that some wild fish are doing a bit better due to ocean conditions, but by far the vast majority of the fish we are getting back are hatchery fish.

There are those like the current Alaska governor who say that a hatchery fish is the same as a wild fish. I do not buy that.

To have healthy runs of hatchery fish we need a healthy environment, adequate flows and for the foreseeable future serious limitations on commercial, and sport catch. It really doesn’t mater how good the ocean conditions are if the returning fish can’t get to the spawning grounds, if the estuary is toxic, or if the netters kill them all.

If you want to count only hatchery fish, things are great. If you take a serious look at wild fish populations you will see that many, like the Puget Sound chinook, are endangered and many more are threatened. A recent study by a prominent fisheries expert found that roughly 75% of all naturally occurring salmon and steelhead runs in the Northwest are extinct or threatened with extinction. That is not a function of ocean conditions!

Luke,

You also have to define what "Record Numbers" means! You can twist data around to suit what you want and the politicians are very aware of that. Thus they say we have record numbers of fish coming back. Well yeah the numbers are "recorded" but they aren't what they should be. They just want it to look like everything is hunky dory so they look good. If you really believe that our fish are rebounding try reading "Salmon Without Rivers" by Jim Lichatowich. It'll really open your eyes to how bad fish management has been in the north west for the past 150 years (no that's not a typo!).

The problem has to do with the way we manage the "resource". We manage it such that we end up with the minimum number of adults left in the river to "Sustain" a run. That is bull. All it takes is a slight mis-calculation or environmental problem and the run becomes too weak to make it the next cycle.

My grandfather used to tell stories about how he used to "fish" the creek that became the Ballard Locks. He said there were so many kings in the creek you could walk across their backs. These were big kings with weights upwards of 100lbs! He told me when he was 16 he gaffed a king in that creek that was over 100 lbs. That was the way they fished for them back then. There were so many fish and the creek was so small it was the accepted way to do it. The creek was apparently the size of Issaquah Creek.

He also talked about how he would go out into Elliot Bay and fish for kings there. He said he would "fill the boat" in just a few hours. Now mind you he was fishing in a small skiff of about 12' and was litterally filling the boat with as many fish as he could stay afloat. They would then smoke them and eat them over the rest of the winter.

Unfortunately there are no numbers to find out what the run sizes were back then. So your record runs mean nothing.

I firmly believe that if we really wanted to "restore" the runs it would simply be a matter of stopping ALL fishing for them for the next 4 cycles of fish. Yes it would take that long to build the runs up sufficiently to be close to what it used to be. Will that ever happen? Not bloody likely. More likely is that we completely wipe out a run and make it so that the river is closed to fishing (Sound familiar for the Methow or Yakima?). Then when a few fish start showing up again we say there are "Record Numbers" again and open it back up and start the cycle over again. Sooner or later this will fail and there won't be enough brood stock to even get those few fish to breed. Then what?