Anybody wanna hear the real story?

I will try and keep as cool as I can throughout this post, but I am warning you up front, this may get heated. Since Monday I have received hundreds of calls, made hundreds more, and have been told how and what I should be doing instead of what I am doing at the current time. With that being said, here ya go...

We have a tiering plan for both chinook and coho bound for Grays Harbor and the Humptulips. We have never finalized the plan, but the department is using it as the past 2 years frameworks for season setting in Grays Harbor.

Last year was a tier one chinook fishery and we should have never had a chinook retention in the bay, but for some reason the department figured differently. October 1st alone killed 350 chinook, and we were well on our way of blowing through our share of impacts in the first couple days.

We made numerous calls to the department asking for an emergency closure, but were told everything was going okay and we were going to run the rest of the retention season just the same. Luckily after the first couple days the fishing turned to crap and the catches dropped off dramaticly. We eneded up making ecscapement, somehow. Must have been hard to see all those chinook reds in November when the rivers were at flood stage the entire month.

This year Grays Harbor is supposed to see 15,501 Chehalis wild chinook, 194 Chehalis hatchery chinook, 4,614 Humptulips wild chinook, and 4,040 hatchery Humptulips chinook. Totaling 24,349 chinook. The goals are 12,364 wild chehalis chinook, 47 hatchery chehalis chinook, 2,236 wild humptulips chinook, and 369 humptulips hatchery chinook. That leaves 3,137 chehalis wild chinook available, 147 chehalis hatchery chinook available, 2,378 humptulips wild chinook available, and 3,671 humptulips hatchery chinook available.

Now divide all that by 2 and that gives you 4666 available non treaty chinook impacts. Since the wild chinook is the driver, were only really counting wild chinook, so really 2,684 available chinook for the sportsman, commercial gill netters and the Chehalis tribe. Since the Chehalis tribe only takes and handful of about 25 fish a year, they don't really count in this.

We are at a high tier 2 chinook run this year, so in our tiering plan the commercials must use their chinook impacts, as release mortalities from the live boxes and must fish selectively. So other than the release mortalities given to the commercials all retention impacts should go to the sportsman. WRONG! WTF?

Instead the department felt that the commercials needed a chinook directed fishery with only 2684 available chinook impacts. Our wording in the plan states that the commercials "Increase chinook impacts as needed to provide for a directed coho fishery without reducing tier 2 sports fisheries. WTF is taking out of our cookie jar and giving the commercials some of our share? Sounds like reducing to me.

This is still not final, and is going to get brutaly ugly the next couple of days I can guarantee you guys that! Now for the season the the department put fourth...

Marine area 2-2 Open October 1. Oct. 1 thru Oct 30 1 chinook may be retained in the daily bag limit. Nov. 1 and on, release all chinook.

Mainstem Chehalis to Porter bridge open October 1. Oct. 1 thru Oct 30 1 chinook may be retained in the daily bag limit. Nov 30 and on release all chinook.

All Chehalis tribs, open Oct 1. release all chinook.

Humptulips open Oct 1 thru Oct 15th coho retention only, release all chinook, no bait. October 16th thru November 30th 1 chinook may be retained in the daily bag limit. Bait allowed. Dec 1 closed for salmon completely!

These are not the season that we wanted, these were the seasons that the department and the commercials wanted. Beleive me when I say that we are not on board with this season! Lets hear from some of you hard core harbor guys, lets hear your oppinions...

Harbor Hog

I was typing that in reply to the other Grays Harbor topic, and realized that it had been deleted. Thanks Dom for the smart @$$ comments that got her locked! Glad you could help... j/k!

I am sure Francis will chime in when he gets off, we've been up till the wee hours in the morning working on this stuff the past few nights, lets hope we can get it turned around and stop the slaughter in the bay before it's too late. Anybody know if we stand a chance at PFMC arguing our points? Or is everything final after NOF #2? We need some help from someone that knows the PFMC process fairly well. Bushbear? Smalma? Salmo G? Anyone?

Harbor Hog

Andy,
My hats off to you for all the time you and others have put into this. If anyone has any complaints, they should sit in your place for a while. I for one, after going to all the meetings, thinking there was a good plan in place, then hearing "Sorry guys I F@$&ed up" was enough for me. Keep up the good work.

Thanks, who said escapement was met last year? How does anyone actually know?

Not positive because I don't have the paperwork in front of me but I believe the department said they under forecasted the run and we ended up making escapement last year on Chinook but not sure if I believe that or not.

Here's some more info that I've been tossing around. Throughout this entire planning process we have always managed both the Humptulips and Chehalis fish together in marine area 2-2 (the bay) the departments reasoning is that the fish intermix out there before they make the journey upriver. I disagree, but that is how we have been doing things for quite some time.

At the montesano meeting March 19th I asked Ron Warren if he ever seen a day when we started managing the two stocks seprately, and his response was "No, not with the current tiering plan that we have in place". Not the answer I was wanting to hear, but definately the one I expected.

The reason the department groups these two stocks together is to get this huge unrealistic number of chinook in the bay by using the Humptulips fish to boost up the numbers. The Chehalis chinook run is not healthy, but the Humptulips chinook run on the other hand is very healthy.

When we got the meeting in Olympia on Monday Ron breaks out the Humptulips and Chehalis chinook stocks seperately. This was a major curve ball that I was not prepared for at all. The department is great for giving you false numbers, no time to prepare, and passing the buck but for everything else they are worthless.

Here is some more info...

We have never seen a Grays Harbor model, they say it isn't user friendly so we never get to see how it works.

The first numbers are Chehalis fish only...
They modeled marine area 2-2 9/16-9/30 the sportsman would kill 923 chinook. 10/1-10/30 the sportsman would only kill 501 chinook. In the mainstem Chehalis we are supposed to kill 667 chinook the whole month of October.

The Chehalis tribe will take 20 chinook in the month of October.

The commercials will get 3 days October 8-14 2/A and 2/D with live boxes would kill 147 chinook, with out live boxes would kill 327 chinook. Along with 6,706 coho.

Now for Humptulips fish: Marine area 2-2 9/16-9/30 the sportsman would kill between 271 and 509 chinook. Marine area 2-2 10/1-10/30 the sportsman would kill between 147 and 276 chinook. In the Humptulips itself the sportsman would kill 699-1310 chinook in the month of October.

The commercials will kill 195 chinook with live boxes or 433 with out October 8- October 14. October 15-20 the commercials will kill 277 chinook with liveboxes and 615 with out.

Total sportsman chinook kill chinook 3,030 and 7,658 coho

Total commercial chinook 760-942 and 7809-8343 coho.

AHHHHH!!!!

Harbor-Hog

I am sure I will have more all night to post and keep you guys updated....

I don't. Sure there were a few Chinook around after the 1st flood but they got hit hard afterwards and I see NO way they could have made escapement. NONE!

Without having solid numbers to back myself up, gut feeling tells me that calling escapement "made" for Chehalis Chinook this fall is bull$hit. Not only would the forecast have been significantly undershooting the actual run size, but they would have to have been out there counting redds under 20 feet of muddy water.

Lame.

Counting the mixed Humptulip and Chehalis stocks in 2-2 when doing the numbers for the Bay has always been crap...for two reasons; the Hump numbers have been pretty good, and the John's River area of the Harbor is almost entirely (if not entirely) Chehalis Basin fish...the number of Humptulips fish caught in the bay during the sportfishery is minimal...at best.

When I asked last year about why those aren't broken up, I was told they couldn't...now, when using the numbers to establish last year's escapement, all of a sudden they can be?

Hmmm...

Fish on...

Todd

Thanks everyone for your support, it is much appreciated and alot of why I continue the battle.

Stam- PFMC starts the first week of April, and is in Seattle this year. I don't know the PFMC process as I have never been through it. I don't know if we stand a chance at changing any of this, but I am not going to roll over just yet. I don't think it would hurt flooding the commisioners with emails, exspecially Miranda Whecker. She seems to have alot of go-juice and may be just the voice we need. I would also email Ron Warren region 6 fish manager at Warrerrw@dfw.wa.gov and Phil Anderson at ANDERPHA@dfw.wa.gov.

Let those guys hear your frustrations about the potential over harvest of Grays Harbor Chinook, exspecially Chehalis bound chinook. Last year we killed 350 chinook in one day (October 1st) and the department only forsees us killing 501 Chehalis bound chinook the entire month of October out in the bay. Give me a break! These numbers just don't make any sence. They may be the numbers that we have to work with, but that doesn't make them right or beleivable.

I would like to see the bay open September 16th like it has in the past. We could use alot of our chinook impacts and hook and release mortalities the last 2 weeks of September and use the remainder of our chinook impacts October 1 thru the 15th during a retention season. Oct. 16th go back to coho only. Same with the mainstem. Reduce the retention season to the first 2 weeks in October. I would say the last two weeks of October, but then we would have a rolling retention and the crowd would just chase the fish upriver, basically following the retention.

The Humptulips should open October 1-15th coho only, no bait. October 16th -November 30th 1 chinook may be retained bait allowed. Nov 30th - Dec 31st. hatchery coho only. bait allowed.

Anyone have any complaints about that season? Sounds like our best bet....

Harbor Hog

Its always amazed me that on a run of lets say .. 2,000 fish.. Washington "manages" it for 75 % harvest.. and they have no real idea how many fish there really are until its all said and done. Seems like there is a 50 % chance of getting caught with your pants down.

What would happen if harvest took a couple of years off ??

I can pretty much say, being on that system everyday that it was in shape enough to fish that you could not have counted reds in any one of those streams unless you were very high up in the system on just the right day when water conditions let you. Fry counts? Don't think so.

Sounds like you still have a little time to change minds Andy? Do we call and raise cain? And if so who? Would calling these guys or sending them letters help at this stage?

Phil, check out the bottom of page #1... there is a couple of emails addy's there for ya. Thanks for your support, it's much needed. Lets hope we still have some time. You should get involved with us, we could always use someone like yourself who is on the river everyday. Lets talk sometime....

Harbor-Hog

I'll call tomorrow. Andy, If I can help I'm in.

Andy is right on track with the available numbers.

Runsize forecasts are a bit of a shot in the dark... they err on both sides of under- and over-prediction. The last two years, WDFW got "lucky" and their numbers reflect that way more fish showed up than originally forecast. Recall that the 2005 PSF in the Chehalis sub-basin was 3000 fish short of escapement goal and the 2006 PSF was just within the 110% escapement buffer... basically no harvestable chinook either year. Our managers allowed 3000 Chehalis kings to perish in 2005 and at least 2700 Chehalis kings died in 2006.

The 2007 WDFW plan currently on the table is yet another sure-fire formula for over-exploitation. Think about it folks.... 501 fish for the bay comes out to a harvest rate of only 16 fish per day. Anybody out there actually believe the sport fleet is so lame that they can only muster 16 dead kings a day with hundreds of boats plying the water each day in October? Get real! I know a handful of regulars that could single-handedly blow thru those fish without blinking! That allocation will be bonked before we see three tide exchanges after the opening bell! Any takers on that bet?

The Mainstem Chehalis piece of the chinook retention season is only budgeting a kill rate of 21 fish per day. How quickly do you think sports will blow thru that allocation? With the effort we are likely to experience in GH, I give it a week max.

Last year's harvest model underestimated exploitation by a factor of four! If that's the same model they used this year ( and that's anyone's guess because they won't divulge the model... too complex for us simpletons), what makes anyone think the result will be any different?

WDFW is obviously turning a blind eye to conservation. But they are also turning a blind eye to "we the sportsman" (Hey what's new?)

Up until 2001 the bay used to open Sept 1. The past five years, that opener has been cut back to Sept 16. And our gift for 2007? Yup , we lose another two weeks of opportunity. It's one thing to restrict harvests for conservation, but there are certainly enough fish this year to feed a full salmon season beginning no later than Sept 16. As sportsmen, it's NOT just about the ability to stuff the fish box.... it's more about the opportunity to just be able to go! It's about recreation! The opprtunity to partake of what it is we are all so passionate about. They take that opportunity away and they are basically de-valuing your annual license. They've essentially taken away a month of opportunity since 2001... don't we at least deserve a pro-rated rebate on our license fees? (j/k folks... there's way more at stake here)

And finally, there is the issue of sharing the non-treaty piece with the gillnetters. Like Andy says, their chinook impacts are supposed to be limited in such a way to allow thier directed coho fishery to proceed without reducing Tier 2 recreational opportunity.

And before anybody starts throwing darts our way, I speak for the entire GH committee that the plan on the table is unequivocally CONTRARY to the principles spelled out in the document we spent countless hours crafting over the past 2 years. That managers would sanction undoing years of work in Gray Harbor in a single afternoon in Olympia is reprehensible.

So please don't try to pin these shenanigans on the dedicated members of the GH committee. For two years now, our pleas for conservation have fallen on deaf ears. And our reward? Further cutbacks in sport seasons, with more impacts allocated to the gillnetters using NON-selective gear in 2007.

Thanks WDFW, thanks. Now do us a real favor and derail this ill-contrived plan. We deserve better... WAY better. And so do the fish!

with a big chinook season there are going to be alot of people buying license that normally would'nt and thats what WDFW is looking at big $$$$$$

So are we screwed for yet another year or do we still have a fighting chance? I think we have enough people to rally against the proposed season, just not sure there is enough time left.

I would think that until PFMC ends nothing is set in stone. So in reality we have until April 9th I would think. You would think that we have enough documents backing up our accusastions that should have a leg to stand on. This is complete BS, this is two years in a row that our conservative views have been ignored and we have been granted these outrageous kill seasons that end up falling in our lap.

Does anyone object the season that I have put forth? FP, I know you've got some issues to talk with me about, does this work with you and George? I hate having to represent the sportsman without really knowing what the majority wants. So speak up guys, lets hear your thoughts.

Harbor Hog

Harbor Hog:

Your suggested season and bags on the hump are exactly what I thought was settled at the end of the Oly meeting. Did I miss something? When did they change to the Oct 1 beginning for chinooks? Oct16-Nov3o is what the majority wanted. Did they change it after everybody left?

Oops I goofed, your right, I didn't realize I had forgot to put in the 16th chinook opener. Thanks for catching that. I stuck around till a quarter to 5:00 or so. Almost everyone was gone except a few of the hardcore guys. I'm sure I seen you there, there wasn't that many people there in general. I was the young kid, probably a little mouthy at times. Next time say hello. We were arguing whether or not we could extend the hump retention season till the 30th instead of the 15th and if we could still fish for hatchery silvers after the chinook closure.

I always assume that after the NOF #2 that everything is final and have seen things change for the worse after PFMC, so I know we can change things, just not sure how to go about it. Someone who knows that routine will come forward I am sure and share their knowledge with us.

Harbor Hog

Harbor Hog

Harbor Hog

I am with you, brother!

The Hump piece of the WDFW plan is fine the way it is. There are plenty of surplus fish to support a chinook kill season Oct 16-Nov 30.

The Chehalis side is where all the problems are... there simply are NOT enough fish to support 4 weeks of combined chinook retention in 2-2 AND mainstem Chehalis.

For the sake of clarity, I will spell it out in chronologic order with some minor additions.

Sept 16-30 open Area 2-2 to coho, release adult chinook. Also open the north bank of the Chehalis upstream to Elliott Slough, single hook no bait, bank only, release adult chinook. This shore based fishery is meant to target unexploited early-timed surplus hatchery coho returning to the Lake Aberdeen Hatchery.

Oct 1-15 open remainder of Chehalis mainstem to coho and one adult chinook. Allow one adult chinook in Area 2-2. Release all chum.

October 16 forward release all chinook and chum

This plan provides maximum recreational opportunity for all users... bank-bound anglers, those with smaller boats that can navigate the mainstem Chehalis, and those with larger sea-worthy boats capable of taming the wind waves in the bay. There is also ample harvest opportunity for all users while still meeting the basins escapement goals.

Recreation, harvest, AND conservation... what more do you want?

As I've said before, you're far too logical. I agree with your suggestions. The question though is one of allocation. If we decide to catch less, doesn't that then go over to the commercials because it has been deemed catchable harvest? It's just something i've heard.