Smalma: If you get a minute, perhaps you can post the links. I have looked long and hard and so far have found chum recipies, and many other things chumlie, but not the total commercial and sport harvest. BTW you are right, the data is VERY old. The few figures I can find end at 2002.

When you speak of allocation of chum and pinks to commercial and chinook and coho to sport, I understand the concept, but it seems to me I see a hell of a lot of commercial -Indian- boats out in the sound harvesting coho every fall. So it seems to me we get perhaps half of the coho, maybe most of the blackmouth, a small share of the pinks and damn near none of the chums.

I did see this from the WDFW site: Now my question is what did the test fishery show this year? Was the commercial session adjusted in response to the test fishery results?

The Management Process

The recreational and commercial salmon fishing seasons for chum are set in the same manner as other salmon fisheries. (See How Salmon Fishing Season are Set Fact Sheet) The basic method is to review the pre-season forecast of abundance and then design fisheries that open in areas and during times when healthy stock predominate and weak stocks are relatively unaffected. Hood Canal Summer Chum are of special concern because of their threatened status under the Endangered Species Act. Consequently, fishing for chum salmon is prohibited in Hood Canal (Catch Record Card Area 12) and Admiralty Inlet (Catch Record Card Area 9) through the summer and early fall.

The fall and winter chum runs in Puget Sound are very healthy. The run size of fall chum is monitored in-season by test fisheries in Area 20 south of Vancouver Island as the fish pass through the Strait of Juan de Fuca and during October in Puget Sound in the vicinity of Apple Cove Point. If these test fisheries indicate the run is either much larger or much smaller than predicted in the pre-season forecast then commercial seasons are adjusted accordingly. Because the recreational harvest of chum is still relatively small, in-season adjustments to recreational fishing seasons focused on chum are rare.

The Apple Tree Cove test fishery results are reported on the WDFW web site. Look at

http://wdfw.wa.gov/fish/regs/commregs/salregs.htm

The results are two weeks behind, the chinook and coho bycatch numbers are interesting. There are links to the weekly fishery opening and closings.



Look at the WDFW web site mentioned in Dave's post,

http://wdfw.wa.gov/fish/chum/index.htm

Some of the info you are looking for is on this site but it is only available up to 2002. Looking at the numbers I think the commercial chum fishery has been stable since chum hatcheries started up in the 1970's. Catch numbers go up and down, it appears that the sport fishery is the one that has increasing participants, though the sport catch is small compared to the commercial catch.

Market demand is a tricky question, chum roe has always had a big market in Japan. I suspect that the high prices this year reflect the weakness of the dollar against the yen. The Puget Sound gillnetters were recently complaining that after they had worked hard to develop a market for fresh caught "Keta" their fishery was closed. They wanted the state to increase their quota so they could deliver the promised fish.

I work near the Port orchard/Bremerton area. There is a creek that runs through Gorst behind the subaru dealer that usually gets quite a few chums. Now this year I have noticed nets tied up from shore on Beach drive in Port Orchard. Never seen them there before. I have noticed only a handful of chum coming up the creek. Just wondering if anyone knows more about the nets there

How many recreational fishermen actually retain a fish in freshwater?

Managing netting. What a crock of $hit. Netting is the poster child for Mismanagement.
Roe netting chum at the mouth of the Fraser & Skeena systems as Todd pointed out if the most ludicruos thing I've heard.

Two Dogs, I also appreciate your input and willingness to speak up and hold a civilized conversation. I'm also glad that most of the board members here have been fairly respectful in return.

I guess a basic question from me is, "Are the commercial guys doing as well as normal years in the salt?". If so, it seems that they are either intercepting a higher percentage of the chum than normal OR the fish simple haven't come in the rivers yet. If the answer is "no", then it seems like the run just isn't going to show up.

Like other fishermen that have been on the rivers this fall, I can say that the chum numbers are beyond low. They really do seem to be missing.

-Kaiser D.

Just got an email a couple of hours ago from someone at the state and they gave me some numbers to call later this week to find out about the numbers harvested so far this year. The main thing I am looking for is Bycatch numbers mainly for steelhead and chinook. What I found out was interesting. Steelhead wise they don't seem to know. Steelhead being a gamefish aren't allowed to be sold commercialy (non tribal) so all bycatch of steelhead are being pitched overboard dead or alive. As such there is no accounting of these fish. I will report back when i get harvest numbers for this fall.

Joe

I've never retained a Chum from the river, it's purely a sportfishing outing for me if I go to target Chum and Chum alone, which isn't often. I've kept several from the salt. I'd suspect that the majority of Washington sportfishermen and women are in the same category as I am.

The way things are going, I hope more and more folks release these fish as they are obviously becoming a scarcity. Let 'em spawn.

I was in an "S" river today, and while there were some other species in the river , no Chum were seen rolling, swimming, or biting.

Does anyone know when they purse them up does it cause much harm to the fish they kick back? I've seen a few videos here and there and it seems as though all the fish they toss back are in pretty good shape. But those videos don't speak for all of them.

If a Purse seiner uses his brailer to unload fish out of the net I think that they can do less harm to the fish that must be released. That being said I see very few using there brailers except on extremely large hauls and most to be honest don't really care enough about the non target species to take the time to properly release.

Time to hit the river?

From today's Everett Herald -local guide's reoort on Mondays' fishing on the Sky between Sultan and Monroe

""That stretch is full of chums right now ," he said, "and a lot them are fresh in from the saltwater. ...""

Sky guy -
Has the commerical fishing rate increased? As you may recall Twodog mentioned that rate has been fixed. Generally in the past I suspect that the fisheries has been consistently below that rate however with the prices they are getting this year it would not be surprising to see them fishing closer to that rate.

If I recall correctly the exploitation rate cap was a 50% rate. While that may seem pretty high remember that at current survival rates they are very productive. To put in prespective Twodog mentioned that he expected escapement this year would be more than 50,000 fish - preseason run size forecast was for a little more than 100,000 fish. Under the management of 15 years ago that set the escapement goal for odd years at 10,300 this years commerical folks would have been fishing at nearly twice the rate they are this year (90% versus 50%).

IWhile it has been a few years since the last license buy-back the number of commercial lic. has not increased but rather decreased over the last decades or so. However the number of lic. out there has less to do with the size of the commercial catches than the allocations. Even with the lic. buy-backs the portion of the catches allocated to commercial did not change. The result is that individual fishermen do better (more fish) but the over catch doesn't necessarily change.

Dave -
Noticed I was talking about the non-treaty allocation of the various species. It would remain the case that the Tribal fishers would opt to continue to take their share via nets.

The reality is that with a fish like chums it is highly unlikely that sport fisheries could catch huge numbers of them. For example I took a look at the fishing rate of sport fishery in the Snohomish. Looked at the in-river sport catches and the escapements for those years readily available (late 1990s/early 2000s). It looks like we as sport anglers tuypcially harvest about 2.5% of the in-river run. Even if that were developed and we got an addition 10,000 fish from the commerical fisheries. By having the commercial fishermen giving up 10,000 we would only expect an increase in the sport harvest of about 500 fish (5% of 10,000).

While you and I may think that is a good deal ; better sport fishing and more fish on the spawning grounds I suspect it would be a difficult sell to the commercial fishers and the States policy decision makers (legislature, etc). At this point I just thankful that at least in Puget Sound that Chinook and coho are given recreational priority for the non-treaty fishers. IMHO our efforts at this time would be better sprend on getting that species priority established in the other of areas of the State rather than going after chums here.

Tight lines
Curt

"The reality is that with a fish like chums it is highly unlikely that sport fisheries could catch huge numbers of them."

Do you mean "catch" or "harvest" huge numbers of them?

Fish on...

Todd

The ones at the bottom of the net they call "squishers". I was told that by the now ex director of ODFW. The photo below was takne by my daughter near Hood Canal.

Samla: I think that you are, as usual, way more right than wrong, but the harvest of in river chums in no way reflects angler effort. Most of us will seldom if ever keep a chum, but the rivers are full of anglers when the chums are in. They provide a major recreational opportunity that should be protected.

We know the gill nets kill lots of seabirds. And I suspect they are very harmful to the low numbers of Hood Canal coho that still try to return. I hope someone can stir up the Audubon society to raise hell about the gill nets killing almost 8 % of all the nesting murres in Puget Sound in a two week period.

The Herald report is of little value, I was on the river yesterday and will be out there today. Yesterday I talked with a boat that had 2 Coho and no chums (it was difficult to hear them, but that's what it sounded like they said) and 2 other boats with no fish. One boater said they saw another boat fighting a fish down river. I did see more fish though, as in two rollers that were in a spot that should hold huge numbers, but has had no fish prior to now. The full of fish report is most likely from them spotting the spawners that have been in the river since the coho came in, and they could have hooked something that just recently got by the nets. Or maybe trying to generate interest in guided trips. The river is in no way full of fish. The Three Rivers guys were out this week also, and they say it's dead too. It would great if we are all wrong and in the next few days the river does fill with fish, if it does I will report the good news here and be happy to do it.

Not one single chum was spotted on the Snoqualmie in four hours of fishing yesterday...plenty of coho around, though

Fish on...

Todd

I think huge harvest numbers would be correct, because if they're in the river, catching them is not a problem.

I would say looking at sportfishing harvest reports for chums would be misleading, as I think I've only retained one chum in the last ten years, yet I may land from 5 to 25 per trip, this number of fish would be for each person in the boat. So I don't think you would see a big change in retained fish numbers in a good or bad year.

ah ha!

Dave V. males a very good point regarding catch and harvest.

Last year when the Sky was basically unfishable due to high water I fished below the railroad bridge on the Wallace which is designated as a part of the Skykomish and legal to retain chums. In three afternoon trips of two hours each or less I caught 35 chums, using a float and jig, releasing all but one. Most fishermen I observed that caught chums released them without ever removing them from the water.

The number of fish actually harvested in the river chum fishery by sport fishers is small compared to those releasesd. The economic value provided to a region by sport fishermen is significant.

If this increasingly popular river sport fishery were to go away for lack of fish, so will the economic benefits to local businesses.

Based on the numbers of chums I have seen on the Sky this season to date, I doubt that I will expend many dollars the rest of the season for gas, tackle and meals that I normally would in the pursuit of C&R chum fishing. Multiply that by the significant number of sport fishermen who do fish chums and I believe the lost is something that needs to be considered in our fisheries management programs.