Seriously though, we've been preaching this for years upon years.... Let's do this or that to get the wild fish to come back.. Quick question though... Where are they??? Every system's true native fish returns are spiraling right down the toilet bowl!

I say we pull down on the flush lever and go nuts on hatchery plants!

Keith

HEY! Let’s do this, let’s take some of the MILLIONS OF DOLLARS that we put towards these spiraling native runs and boost up our hatchery counts just like the cow used to be in the good ol days!

The fishing is ridiculous open one day closed the next huge return one year horrible return the next.

If we as a collective group don’t take the initiative to take care of some of this stuff then who will?

When I go fishing I go to catch not release. Native fish are a great fish, yes more powerful, generally bigger and yes they are the native strain. But what’s the point if there are hardly in there? and if there are and we cant fish them?

I think that scinario would please alot of sport fisherman and commercial fisherman. Everyone agreeing to that is still up in the air. I have to agree with you guys in relation to the columbia you can stop gillnetting today and those dams will still be there and will continue to hinder any wild salmonids. So why not just write them off and go hog wild. As much as I would love to see wild salmon again I think we have made it so they will never thrive again.

Salmon without rivers...

I've always believed restoration of native stocks should fall second to my angling enjoyment.

Hatchery fish all the way. Native fish will be all hatchery spawners in a few years anyway, let it be and plant the crap out of them all over. Lets have fun and hammer down. Natives are gone.

Red, where is the $$$$ going to come from to do this. Didn't our Gov just veto a bill that would have supplemented $$$ for our hatcheries?

No $$$ no hatchery fish to plant.

I have never thought that taking out the gillnets might actually be a bad thing. It makes senes that there would be a decreased need for hatcheries if there were a large piece of the harvest taken out. As you take out more pieces of the harvest; you have no need for a hatchery. Now to correctly remove or balance the pieces is a huge mess. Which piece to take first. Dams, gillnets, predators, ocean comercial/sportman, river sportsman? Removing any of them would help the fish but piss somebody off.

CCAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA


New Chapter startup (KITSAP) #13 in Wa State

:2cents:

I don't know Jerry. Just trying to be realistic, natives runs are losing fast, they will be gone soon and noone will be able to fight for them anyway. Lets focus on some fact instead of a bunch of crap every year.

The use of hatcheries to replace native fish has been tried for years. Read salmon with out rivers or king of fish. It doesn't work. We as humans have this misguided notion that we can do things better then momma nature but we can 't.
Also I would be ashamed of myself if I let an animal that has survived millions of years through ice ages and volcanoes wink out during my life simply because I greedily chose to harvest more fish.

That's great, in reality everyone supports your thought's but mother nature doesn't... As long as the world (along the west coast) rapes and pillages the resource we will need hatchery fish OR WE WON'T BE FISHING MUCH LONGER....

But if that's what it takes I'm going to become a world renown Walleye fisherman!

Keith

I can't believe you guys are even talking about letting the wild fish go extinct. Makes my stomach turn as a sportsman and conservationist. I'm wondering how you are going to try and explain that to your grandkids. "Yes Johnny, I thought it was a good idea to let the wild fish go extinct just to I could fish more and/or make a dollar." If the wild fish mean so little to you, or they are hindering you're ability to make a buck, then by all means quit fishing for salmonids and go chase those walleye.

Everyone is looking to blame someone or something on poor returns. When the fish runs were fat in 2001, we were all living a dream. The fish runs have historicly run in cycles. Yes, this may be some of the most depressing runs we've witnessed in a few years, but nothing compared to 30 years ago. At least for the Columbia.

I follow the Oregon Coast fall and spring runs very close. It was just a few years ago (2004) that we had fall and spring runs that were the highest in decades. They are in a slump now because mother nature messed with our ocean currrents in 2004,5,6. Durring those summers, the jetstream was so far to the North that it created a counterclockwise roation of the Ocean currents, which pushed tons of warm waters way too far north. With those warm waters came visious predators that fed on our salmon smolts.

We can blame all we want on the Ocean commercial fisheries, but how do we explain the banner years of 2000-2004. Were the commercail fleets not fsihing then? They fished just as much then as now. The key was the excellent ocean conditions that fed our salmon to a healthy lifecycle.

I can recall those NW winds every summer that hammered the coast. We lost those upwelling winds in 2004,5,6. Durring those summer months, the valley temps would get to 90+ and in a typical NW wind cycle. The caost would be fogged in all day long. 2004-6 the coast had soaring temps close to 90. This was a direct result of the counterclockwise ocean currents created by the extreme northern shift of the jetstream. Last summer those NW winds were back in force, just as they are starting to do again this spring.

This fall will see the result of the 2005 poor ocean conditions. We should see an improvement in 2009 fall seasons with a healthy 3 year old fish. The 4 year old fish will still be in trouble. 2010 will see a huge recovery for all year classes. The spring run is a 3 year cycle and that is why we had a decent showing of 2 salt springer in the Columbia. Next season should be a good showing of 2 & 3 year fish.

It doesn't matter how many fish you plant, if the garden that feeds them is sterile or lacking of food, they will not make it. When the Ocean recovers, like it has done for the last two years, you will see some great returns.

Steelhead return in 2 years, and the runs we had this winter are evident of how the ocean conditions were improved bigtime.

Yelloweye, seriously if you only had a clue... You're blinded by dreams and wishes that all have with our native fish returns. It's easy for you to say what you've said. I can't wait for the day that "ALL" hatchery fish are actually clipped. It discusts me thinking about how we've been trained to beleive that so many of our salmon runs are "native" when an extremely large percentage of them are actually just hatchery mis-clips.

Let's all open our eyes for a second..........

The commercial industry is indeed what justifies large scale hatchery production in much of the Columbia. In Puget Sound, it is the Tribes. With the push to "recover" wild fish so politically correct, the mitigators, NOAA, and even WDFW would love to have the slightest reason to reduce hatchery production and save some money for "habitat", for fish that have virtually no chance of providing viable harvest opportunity.

So really, what's next?????

The writing is on the wall, there are more closures this year than I've seen in my 32 years of age........

Keith

Kevin,

I agree with you 100%. I do believe that this is just a down cycle. The issue is whether good ocean conditions are enough to bring back runs that are on the brink. Unfortunatly that is not the case. Columbia Hatchery spring chinook harvest levels are always going to be affected by ESA listed species. Until habitat is corrected and those runs are rebuilt it doesn't matter how many hatchery fish we get back because of favorable ocean conditions we will never take full advantage of the surplus of hatchery fish.


To this day I have yet to see anybody in a leadership role at the fed or state level make it a priority to fix the problems that man has caused. Part of that is sportsfisherman have different agendas and can't agree on what the real issue's are. This november is an important oportunity to elect people that will truly want to help save wild salmon and then actually act on it. I am tired of the lip service from our elected officials. These people control the money for habitat restoration.


Yelloweye

I personally think that the dams will never allow for the rebuilding of Native stocks on the columbia and those dams are not going anywhere in our lifetimes. In that watershed I don't see much else that can be done other than to boost hatchery plants to allow more harvest opportunities for both sport and commercial.

HMMMMMMmmmmmmm.........very nice to see the wheels of reality turning here, A question to a few here that are not afraid of replying to this thread, What are you willing to give to have a river full of "uh um" native fish? mis clips nail it on the head! they are what hey are............again, we as a group need to be careful what we are asking for.........

The four H's that are so often preached about on the depletion of Columbia River salmonids really only boil down to two. Harvest (which includes hatcheries) and habitat (which includes hydroelectric dams).

The reason the fish continue the downward spiral is our addiction to harvest and our addiction to abusing the river ecosystem for the "necessities" of modern society. The past 125 years chronicle a deplorable historical record of man's incapacity for self-restraint when it comes to managing salmon.

This thread is a perfect example of how the harvest addiction (sport and commercial) is very much alive and well. I'd say it's about damned time we all suck it up... sport AND commercial. Take the lumps now while we still have a chance at recovery. The longer we keep putting it off (125 years and counting), the more painful and difficult it becomes.

If folks hadn't been so damned short-sighted and taken those lumps earlier, we would only bitching about runs depleted from 16 million to 8 million. Are we gonna keep dragging our heels until there are so few salmon left that we just throw up our hands and say to hell with it?

Seems a few of you are more than willing to prematurely drive the last nail in the coffin while live fish are still banging at the lid from within.

We have a century of proof that hatcheries are NOT the answer.... they're merely there to feed the harvest addiction.

with Francis.

Fancis,

If we have been on such a spiralling down cylce,how does one explain the robust years of 2001-2004. The willamette had almost 100,000 springers pass the falls. That is the HIGHEST ever recorded in history. Not only were the springers in great numbers. The fall fisheries at the coast were some of the best I've seen in years. My Dad who started fishing the Oregon coast in 1963, claims the fall runs were no better in 63 than they were in 2003,4,5.