Gee how come someone was authorized to put it on a BB but its not on CCA's website? Anyone?

Chuck,

I am glad you got permission to post that otherwise you may not get dessert at the banquet.

Is there really a Chuck? Sure would like some verification.

That is EXACTLy the attitude that is going to eliminate FOC steelhead and salmon ponds by the end of this year. I guess you wont fish the cowlitz any more and just take your lumps or will you whine?

The guides who get on board with CCA will reap what they sew. At the end of the year in 07 Texas had 53,000 members and I know because I talked to the ED in Texas. In 2004 they listed 40,000 members. Still growing after 30 years. NO problem is ever changed until people stand up and get involved and speak their minds. We have it easy. In 1776 they put their lives on the line and had to kill Englishmen for independence.

Lead Bouncer, The Cowlitz is already done for Summer Steelhead fishing. DNA test going to take 2-3 years with FOC. In that time the plants have been severely cut.

Did you fish it last summer. It was horrible! fish returned off of a 250,000 fish plant. Get use to that now that there is a new FERC license there. This summer will be the last decent steelhead fishiery for summer runs there then its over!

I starting to feel that Washington/Oregon is a little more challenging to fix than Texas!

Add me to that list too, please. I need some eggs. Badly.

Yeah, my degree in fisheries plus $2 will also get a cup of coffee, too!

What fisheries program did you graduate from?

Not if you were President and you were also a serious fisherman. Wouldn't you do whatever you could for the fisheries you participate in if you were President?

Not enough was done. Apparently, menhaden were so overfished that stripers are now starving to death and in a weakened state, are falling victim to a bacterial infection.

I guess we need to put a Washingtonian that fishes in the Oval Office?

I am of the elite Grays Harbor fisheries program, when Don Samuleson was there.......never took it further as they felt their services were not needed for an individual of my caliber...............laffin

I was in a couple of his classes.

Tender,

When are you going to join CCA??? If not, please expain why???

Keith

When I see their true direction, have seen too many groups roll in with the promise to save everything, guess I ain't that gullible anymore, not bad mouthing them at all, am just not real quick to be a flag waver yet.......
Takes money to buy whisky where I come from

Well the cabinets are full here but the rivers are empty..........

Keith

Maximizing habitat diversity and availability will maximize fish life history diversity and abundance.

Maximizing life history diversity and abundance will maximize the long term species viability.

In theory genetic methods are just one group of many groups of tools to help define species diversity and how different populations are related to one another.

Genetic data are good but I try to not get too caught up in all the buzz around it, because it is just a piece of the puzzle.

the cca isnt against hatcheries...

Lets remember the CCA helped create funding for two of the largest saltwater hatcheries and research centers in the world...

all things in time GO CCA>>>

Unlike Todd, I read the whole damn thread. . . . another 30 minutes of my life that I'll never get back.

A few things - Jerry, natural spring chinook runs in the LCR occurred in the Cowiltz, Lewis, Kalama, Sandy, and Willamette.

As for wild salmon or steelhead recovery, well it depends. These are my opinions. I've provided the rationale previously, so I won't repeat it now. Upstream of Bonneville, pretty much forget about it, although a few populations will sustain themselves, like Deschutes, John Day, Klickitat, maybe the Wind (all steelhead, not chinook). Downstream of Bonni, wild steelhead have a fair chance of recovering to self-sustainability. However, they won't provide harvestable numbers on a consistent basis, and most won't provide harvestable fish in any but the rarest of highly productive years. Wild spring chinook could recover to low self-sustaining levels in the Cowlitz, Lewis, and maybe the Sandy and Kalama, but I wouldn't count on those two. Self-sustaining with harvestable fish is highly unlikely for any of those river systems.

Unfortunately, without hatchery spring chinook there isn't likely to be any springer harvest opportunity in the Columbia even with the best wild spring chinook recovery outcome I could forecast.

Mostly left out of this discussion are wild coho. Wild coho could more likely than not recover to self-sustaining levels if they weren't unselectively harvested in the LCR commercial fishery. They wouldn't provide much of a harvest compared to what people are used to deriving from extremely massive hatchery plants, but that's not my point. I'm just describing wild population recovery potential.

As for joining with the LCR gillnetters, not a chance. Their extinction is on the horizon whether they or anyone else recognizes it or not. It doesn't make sense to team up with dinosaurs. We don't need gillnetters in order to have hatchery fish, if that's anyone's concern. Money for hatcheries is there for the taking because of mitigation obligations, and the presence or absence of the gillnetters isn't going to affect that.

Sg

All true, on both points...the one good thing about the LCR gillnet fleet is that they are self-defeating...they are fishing themselves right out of existence, and the only 'reason' to have them at all right now is just 'because'...all economic and biological arguments are against them.

We're almost at the point where they are not going to even remotely afford to be able to do it...we're winning the war of attrition on 'em on that.

Fish on...

Todd

Interesting thread to say the least.!!

A side note to the "going after selective fishing on the LCR" issue...

If a truly selective commercial fishery were instituted (however they do it, if they do)...

1. It will be good for listed steelhead stocks who will suffer less gillnet mortality.

2. It will be good for sturgeon in that less will presumably be killed in the spring Chinook fishery.

3. It will not put one single more ESA listed spring Chinook on the spawning grounds.

4. It will likely result in a re-allocation of the non-tribal portion of the harvestable hatchery spring Chinook to the newly selective commercial fleet.

5. That means less hatchery spring Chinook for the recreational fleet.

6. It may, as a consequence of increased hatchery spring Chinook on the part of the commercial fleet, put less hatchery Chinook on the spawning grounds, which will presumably be good for the wild spring Chinook.

I hope no one is under the impression that more wild spring Chinook will get to spawn, or that fishing will improve for the recreational fishers, at least not for Chinook. It might result in better steelhead fishing in the lower Columbia tribs.

Fish on...

Todd

And then again, it might not. Just because NOAA F says we can kill 2% of the unclipped springers doesn't mean we have to. Any savings from a switch could be used for conservation.

Of course it means we don't have to...and there's no way in hell we won't. Those are the impacts that always limit this fishery...they limit it now. We don't have to kill that 2% now, either, but we do...just think how hot they'll be to let everyone kill those 2% when the mortality from the commercial fishery plummets and they can harvest tens of thousands more hatchery fish and still only kill their 2%?

To think otherwise is incredibly naiive...what would possibly change between now and then that would make them want to send more of those fish to the spawning grounds?

The only difference would be the amount of hatchery fish heading to the commercial fleet, which would go up significantly...the amount of dead ESA fish would stay the same, and the amount of fish available to the recreational fleet would go way down.

Like I said, steelhead bycatch would go down, and that would be great, but if anglers think they will get a shot at more springers, then they are going to be very, very rudely surprised.

Fish on...

Todd