Today I received a News Letter from a Local Tackle shop in Skagit County (which I do every week). But this one was a little different then most, they talk about the Chum fishery in the Skagit which is not open for Chum fishing!

There was too columns of fishing reports; on the fishery telling how good it is. And how to fish for them, HMMMMMMMM!

Is there any thing wrong with promoting a fishery that’s closed?

In my book there is!!!

Here is a sample from the news letter:

“The popular Spud Bar above the forks continues to be productive for chum while occasionally yielding some large silvers.”

“A couple of customers reported doing well on chums this past Monday fishing the Gardner Bar area with metallic Spin N Glows sizes 4 to 6 tipped with sand shrimp. Aside from the bountiful chum fishing they did manage to catch a bright 7 pound silver.”

“Perhaps the most consistent section of river has been the Hamilton-Lyman stretch. “I have removed the name of the guide” and clients fished this area and did very well this past Thursday catching over twenty chum ranging from 12 pounds to well over 20 pounds along with a couple of silvers. The fish were taken on a variety of Dick Nites and Blue Fox Vibrax spinners. "Name removed" and clients returned to the scene of the action Saturday and while chum fishing had slowed somewhat, they boated three mint bright silvers that tipped the scales at 6.5 pounds to 12 pounds.”


FLAME ON!

Homer I get te same e-mail newsletter and in defense of the guide mentioned in it, who I consider a friend, you cannot help but catch Chums in the lower Skagit right now...They're everywhere!!!

We've been fishing all the traditional silver water & gear and have been getting loads of Chum. I've even pinched all my barbs on my silver gear the because Chums have been so numerous. They've been hitting everything from Vibrax's & Dick Nites to the usual plugs we do best on Silvers with.

I do feel a bit guilty when hooking into one knowing the season is not yet open for them but it seriously cannot be helped.

Yesterday we hooked 10 plus Chum to 7 Silvers. Today was more Silvers than Chum fishing the same water.

Skagit chums are such a tradition for many people that it just seems natural to fish them. And with the number of chums that are usually visible in the river most people would never imagine a closure. When I first noticed it in the regs I thought it may have been an error, but it's the real deal.
I hear rumors that staff at the tackle shop near my house are telling customers to fish the Skagit for chums. One employee from the same shop openly talks about fishing for Skagit kings in the summer. That employee also ran into my buddy on the NF Stilly this last summer and was admittedly fishing for kings there. :rolleyes:

Hey Johnny I agree you cant help but catch them. They are everywhere on the skagit right now went Monday and they were every where hooked about 10 chums some of the brightest chum I have ever seen.

With all the chums in the skagit, can anyone tell me the reason for not having a season? when I first read it I thought it was a misprint.

Chum Forecast this Fall for the Skagit.

Nooksack/Samish 78,484
Skagit 120,711
Stillaguamish 128,979

You can see that the Stillaguamish has a BIGGER forecast run (fry based) of Chums then the Skagit! And look at the size of the river!

One more thing to add, why did the Tackle shop say how to catch Chum in there news letter? And not say the Chum fishery was closed? HMMMMMM!

“…chums this past Monday fishing the Gardner Bar area with metallic Spin N Glows sizes 4 to 6 tipped with sand shrimp”

Time to head and watch the chum line at Swift Creek

Since when has someone's own perception of a "large run" been justification for poaching? This is a blatant example of fishing where and when you want to fish just because you feel like it. If a river is closed to a species then targeting it is illegal and immoral. I've got neighbors with this mentality and it just boils down to selfish greed. Of course there are always a lot of excuses to justify a behavior.

A thread earlier in the season mentioned that the Skagit isn't open for chum retention this year. The question was addressed by Smalma when he said the preseason forecast is less than the spawning escapement goal. Therefore, there are no harvestabe chum salmon even though there may be a lot of them in the river. I don't recall what the even year escapement goal is, but it's a pretty big number.

Maybe there will be a runsize update. If there is, and the run is larger than previously predicted, then WDFW could open it.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

And a well known fly guide is offering November classes in Skagit chum fly fishing.

You're got to be jokeing, he wasn't here it is!

******** winter Flyfishing for Steelhead, Dolly Varden and Chum Salmon Schools
Now Booking for 2004
Nov. 19, 20, 21 or 22
Don’t put that rod away yet! ****** and **** are now offering a crash course in flyfishing on some of the Skagit Rivers’ finest.

Isn't Dennis special!

I noticed the chum class too. Sounds like his humpy trips on the upper river last year before the upper section was open for them.

Why delete thier names? Why are you protecting them?

Poachers suck...

I just want everyone to know that I was fishing for silvers when I caught my Chum it just happens to be that the chums hit everything I threw !!!!!!!

Here's why we can't fish them:

http://www.piscatorialpursuits.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=017720#000030

LT,
Thanks for the link to that thread from last spring.....answered a lot of my questions.

After reading all of it I still don't understand (or agree with, at least until educated) why the escapement goals are so high for chums (118,000) vs winter steelhead (6000).
It is hard to believe that a run of 100,000 plus can not safely support a catch and release season, but we have allowed a kill fishery on steelhead through Feb. in previous years. This makes no sense.

Rat:
It is ridiculous to call Dickson a poacher. I have been a gear fisherman for 30+ years but took one of his schools a few years ago to learn how to flyfish for steelhead and have been a client several times a year since. His practices are the most conservative of any guide I have seen. Strictly barbless CR, hooks no bigger than 2, no nets or fish removed from the water. Mentioning Chums in his school ad is simply recognizing that they will be caught by accident (as many have reported) while flyfishing for other species. You're attacking the wrong guy!

Hey Jam what they are saying is that since you cannot retain any chums that it is immoral to target chum. I am with everyone here that says you shouldnt target chums because they are not keepable. Now if you are fishing for silvers and happen to hook into chum all the power to you but it is immorally wrong to target them.

Stlhd,
I understand that point but don't completely agree with it. How do you justify fishing for wild steelhead with this reasoning? CR allows the maximum recreational opportunity with the minimum impact and is our best bet to be able to keep fishing. I think runs of 100,000+ can support a CR fishery, without significant impact. It is clear that this is technically not legal, but you are splitting hairs to say targetting them is immoral because you are going to catch them anyway when targeting the other species.

I understand your reasoning about about wild stealhead I dont want to get into that again I believe there is a thread that goes on for days. I just have to ask the question should they close the Skagit because the chums are in there . A escapement goal of over a 100,000 fish is quite a bit and should be able to sustain a meat fishery.
I dont know about how others feel but I am with a lot of other people CHUM YUCKY.
Also in regards if they are not open to retention why target them . I have been fishing the Skagit religously and I know it cannot be helped but why should a guide give a clinic on how to catch them on a river they are closed for maybe he should go to the Sky and give his clinic where they are open just my .02

I don't understand what you guys are so self righteous about. Dickson is teaching flyfishing on the Skagit. Most flyfishing techniques you use to catch steelhead or dollies will also catch chums, cause there is 100,000 of them in the river and they are aggressive fish! I guess it is not politically correct to point that out. If you think this is a big deal, you should stop using all methods for silvers that might also catch a chum or I will accuse you of targetting them too.
Save your attacks for the snaggers!

Well then maybe he he should change his class to say Learn to fly fish for stealhead not chums!!!!!!!!!

He's already changed it, so hope you are happy with the new wording. Now says coho, dolly and steelhead instead of steelhead, dollies and chums. Doesn't change the fact that chums will be caught by accident just like you and many others are doing.

This is one of the places that WDFW needs to work on. The way the regs are written it is questionable if you can legally fish for chums. The way I read it you can legally fish for them so long as you release them. I'm not saying it is the moral thing to do. I'm just interpreting the rules the way they are written.

Note it doesn't say closed to Chinook and Chum. It says "Release".

Now as to having a clinic on how to fish for them? I would say he should have done it on the Sky rather than the Skagit. He has changed the wording now to make you guys happy though. Feel better? :rolleyes:

BTW: I took one of these classes a few years ago and Dennis struck me as someone who was very passionate about the fish and would do everything in his ability to see them survive. Not something a "Poacher" would do!

I had a whole series of email back and forth with the department a couple of years ago when it was closed for chum. They were quite adament that you could not fish for chum! Period! If I remember right, the logic was that it was harassment of a fish that was not legal to catch.

Chum fishing & retention to open on the Skagit tomorrow!!!

https://fortress.wa.gov/dfw/erules/efishrules/erule.jsp?id=246

JC
Thanks!
This means the local fly guide and Tackle Shop can sleep tonight!

I had to say that.

Good news! thanks for the heads up John!

The tackle shop newsletter was a bit out of line, but I think you guys are being hard on Dicksen. Looked like he just recycled his annual chum/dolly school description for his website company. Easily could have been an oversight.

I would like more clarification about targeting closed fish on water open for other species from WDFW. I'm always fished under the assumption that you can't be specifically targeting a closed species, release or no. For instance, fishing a chum candy fly on the NF Stilly with a 10wt rod while claiming to fish for SRC could get you a ticket. But that's just been my assumption. On the Skagit drainage I've generally seen people abiding by the spirit of the law- the Sauk is closed for salmon, and while salmon are present in decent numbers at certain times of the year, I don't see folks fishing for them, same with the Skagit above the Cascade (not to say poaching doesn't happen). In this respect the new law about keeping fish in the water that are illegal to retain makes some sense (I wasn't a fan of that law!). I'd like to keep water open for fishing even if a closed species is present, the specifics to how that is enforced need to be clear from the WDFW. If a silver bites my dolly streamer in the Sauk, and I release the fish in the water, am I breaking the law? I dunno...

Maybe if you claimed you were a complete cracker, and your brother-in-law told you that was how you should fish that river, he'd take pity.

You don't get up there much, do you?

BTW, it clearly states in the regs that it is illegal to fish for food fish unless specifically open in the special rules section. Salmon are food fish, though I don't personally consider chums to be food.

Gary,
Thanks for quoting the actual regs....and pointing out the wording "release". Given this wording I can't believe any citation would hold up in court. Thankfully it is a moot point now that the season is open. What bothers me most about this whole thread is the attitude that if the fish aren't legal to kill, then we shouldn't fish for them. I think CR is the future of sportfishing and that Chums on the Skagit are an excellent opportunity, where the impact to the run would be negligible....who'd want to keep one anyway?

Jam wrote:
“no nets or fish removed from the water. Mentioning Chums”

Jam check out this link and tell me again that he doesn’t take fish out of the water!

http://www.flyfishsteelhead.com/howisfishing.htm

homer, i bet the picture is an older one (i'll give him the benefit of the doubt on that).

but i disagree completely that the posts have been to hard on specific guides or tackle shops. imo, guides and tackle shops have a duty and the responsibility to make sure they fish legally... and not just in terms of taking or targeting fish... but in not fishing in areas or places they are not licensed to fish. guides and tackle shops are places people go to learn and get information. to me, that means that there should be a higher standard for professionals than joe sixpack.

chris

Homer,
You really caught me on that one! I don't know how old this picture is, but this client obviously lifted the fish for a picture (which we all know can be done without harming the fish if done quickly). So I'll retract my statement about removing fish from the water and just say he shows his clients how to handle fish carefully and releases them unharmed.

So does this picture mean he is a poacher? Ridiculous.
Calling him a poacher is what I was objecting to.

The river is now open for killing chums at the time the school was planned for anyway, so this is a moot point.

Now what about the other issue I brought up here. Why on earth can we not have a legal CR season from the beginning, when 100,000+ chums are predicted? Why is the escapement goal so high? And if the concern is about mortality then the silver season should go to restricted regs (barbless as JohnnyC reported doing) cause the by catch is going to be significant (probably far more harmful than all of the flyfishing schools). Arguing about what is being targetted, isn't protecting the fish and is mostly semantics anyway. I would think you and Dickson would be on the same side of this issue but you seem to have something in for him that I don't understand.

Jam

First off I’m not a Fish Biologist; chums/kings/silvers are a big part of the systems nutrients. And chums are the biggest part of the equation. There is a group that spends up to 40 hours a week for 6 months a year doing carcass distribution in the Skagit Watershed. They distribute up to 30,000 carcasses a year! If you take away half of the fish, where is the nutrients going to come from?

ONTHESAUK was the one who first brought up Dickson not me!
I just showed his mistake to every one.

Jam -
You asked the question:
"why the escapement goals are so high for chums (118,000) vs winter steelhead (6000)."

The short answer is that the biology of the tow species is much different. Chum salmon are primarily a fish of marine waters spending very little time in freshwater once they hatch from egg. They leave the river within days to weeks of hatching so have little dependence on freshwater habitat other than the success of the incubation of their eggs. A gvien river's capacity for chums thus becomes dependent on two factors - the amount of sutiable chum spawning habitat and the avialability of suitable maine near shore rearing areas for the fry. Puget Sound supplies the near shore rearing habitat. Chum successfully use both main stem area and side channel habitats for spawning which the Skagit has in abundance. The result is that the MSY chum escapement goals are pretty high -though much lower than for pinks (1/3 million for the Skagit).

For a fish like steelhead with a much longer need for freshwater rearing (2 to 3 years) the bottle neck for the population becomes the amount of juvenile rearing for the fry. Typically steelhead populations are limited by refuge habitat from high flows and/or the amount of habitat available during the summer/fall low flows. In the Skagit there is surprising limited steelhead juvenile rearing habitat. While one would think that the main river would supply lots of rearing habitat in reality it does not. During the periods of high flows (late May through July) there is precious little refuge habitat for the fry/parr. This is due to the lack of complex habitats along the edge of the river without which there is nowherer for the fish to escape the high velocities from the run-off. This has been compounded by the extensive diking of the banks that has occurred over the last 100+ years.

The result is the MSY escapement goal for steelhead is just a small fraction of what it is for chums.

I find it interesting that you seem to think that targeting a given species with a CnR fishery is OK when its escapement is expected to be below its goal. Under what conditions do you think it is OK to impact a population and drive it even further below escapements goals?

Regarding the lack of CnR seasons for salmon. That lack falls directly at the feet of anglers like yourself. The process in which our salmon seasons are set is the North of Falcon process. Traditionally river salmon fishery have not bothered to be players in that process. The result is that freshwater season only occur when some other user group has not figured out how to catch the allowable harvest - the river fishermen get the left overs. In the last decade I can not remember one case where any angler asked for CnR salmon opportunity on the rivers - some limited interest in marine areas though where there have been CnR marine salmon seasons the fishing pressure has been very light. Without at least the chance to harvest a fish or two most salmon anglers seem to have little interest in fishing.

If you want to see different seasons/management get involved.

Tight lines
S malma

Homer,
I don't understand your point about taking away half of the chums. A CR season wouldn't take away any, though some small percentage would be accidently killed.

Smalma,
Thanks for your detailed reply to my question about escapement goals. I didn't understand the differences in the smolt stages of chum vs steelhead. And I guess I still don't understand why MSY is the right way to set escapement when the runs are this large. If I understand your explaination, the escapement goal is this high, simply because the Skagit is capable of supporting this many fish. Why is this important when there are so many fish? I certainly wouldn't advocate a CR fishery that threatened survival of the species, but believe that the impact of CR on a run of 100,000+ to be a pretty small percent of the total, which is probably negligible compared to all of the other effects on survival. (I'm comparing this to the CR impact on a steelhead run of only 6000+ fish.)

And I plead guilty as charged to not being involved, thanks for the constructive suggestion.

Jam -
The MSY escapement is not necessarily the "right" goal. The appropriate or right goal depends on one's objective. If the goal is just to maintain a vialable population a goal of just a few thousand would likely to enough, if the objective was for a chum population at carrying capacity then several hundred thousand would be the likely goal (it would maximize the ecosystem benefits - marine nutrients etc). or if one wishes to maximize the amount of fish harvested then at or just above MSY is were the goal should be.

For chum salmon the management objective has been commerical harvest - tribal and non-tribal. Any sport fishery harvest or impacts is small potatoes compared to the commerical fishery. Given the max. harvest objective that goes hand and hand with commerical fishing the managers would select escapement goals around MSY. In Washington the majority of the non-treaty harvest or fishing impacts for game fish (like steelhead), chinook and coho have resevered the sport fishing community while those impacts for chum, pinks, and sockeye (except Lake Washington) the focus is on commerical harvest.

The issue of whether there should be a CnR fishery on an under-escpeed run chums given the large run size is an interestign call. I believe that long term management of multiple species is best accomplished if there is a consistent set of management standards. Once directed fishing is allowed on an underescaped run where does one draw the line - How do you justify saying a little overfishing by a sport fishery is OK but it is not for a commerical fishery? In short if we aer to demand a high standard of management from our managers then we need to live with those standards cutting both ways.

Tight lines
S malma

Smalma,
Thanks for the further explaination.

My only additional comment is that a CR fishery is even smaller potatos, which is why I thought it was justified (almost no impact?), but I see your last point about where do you draw the line and a consistent policy....though I don't think you can compare CR to a little overfishing by the commercials, the numbers are completely different. I can see that the tradeoffs and politics are not simple.
Thanks again.

Glad the river is now open and can't wait to do a drift.

In case you all haven't heard, the Skagit has just been opened up to the Cascade for chum. The latest count is more fish than previously expected. Limit is 3 salmon, no more than 2 chum; release chinook and pink.

Now noone will need to feel guilty about fishing the Skagit.

Fish ON!