Superfly, right on, way too much sense. Continue the in-fighting and finger pointing until they are all gone.

Sounds like a massage parlor.

'Happy Ending Massage'..........................

Back on topic...

The states have just downgraded the run by another 10%.

Their latest run-size estimate is now only 180,000.

WOW.... already off by a whopping 50%.... and still counting.

Suprise, suprise.... 132,000 was my pre-season estimate...

Keith <>

160K was my prediction. Guess a lot of last year's jacks were really hatchery peanuts. Is it time to reduce the slot limit used to determine adult status? :sad:

79K over the dam.... 31K taken below Bonne. That's about 110K fish that have already shown up with the run well past peak and the trend-line on a steep downhill slide for the past week.



As of today, they need another 70K fish over that dam to make their 180K prediction. If we use the natural run-timing of real fish, that's 21 more days of real counting... or 3333 fish a day every day thru the end of May.

If we doctor the counting calendar to throw another 15 days of fish passage to artificially pad those springer totals, the daily count will have to average about 2000 fish a day every day thru June 15.

Looking at either scenario... it ain't gonna happen.

***

Keith, I have the same gut feeling about the tribs... the fish are MIA!

Another run failure.... this is getting old.

Yet they will keep the Columbia and the tribs open until it is too late. Same old story different chapter.

Well one thing for certain is they don't need more than 500-700 fish in the hatcheries to do it all over again. So because of that they very well could keep it open...

But if in fact they don't start seeing fish in the local SW WA trib hatcheries, there's gonna be some closures...

Funny thing is the Lewis hatchery already has over 100 fish in it which is ahead of the past few years at this date...

Keith

Pug,

No. All wild and some hatchery spring chinook are already listed as threatened or endangered. The biological assumption, right or wrong, is that every listed run can tolerate some level of mortality without jeopardizing its survival and recovery. Absent that assumption, the Snake/Columbia federal dams would have to shut down whenever listed fish were migrating upstream or downstream, which is most of the year. ESA and biology give way to political reality that the dams will continue operating. Since the "incidental take" by the dams far exceeds the take in any recreational, commercial, or treaty fishery, clearly some small take by fishing is acceptable if take by the dams is acceptable. Follow? The upshot is that as long as the dams are permitted to operate, the tribes will be allowed to fish up to a pre-determined level of incidental take of listed chinook. That amount has been 13% in previous years; I think I read that the tribes' take is limited to something like 9.8% this year. The non-treaty fishing take was 2% last year, but I think it was reduced to 1.5% this year. Anyway, I think you can get the idea from this. If not, ask away, and I'll try to get better answers.

Laterun,

I don't know the details of what has actually been discussed with the tribes. One major issue of departure that I hear about is that the CR tribes assume the hatchery and wild runs to be integrated populations. That is, they don't recognize the same separation of hatchery and wild runs that the agencies do. So they don't see any need to fish selectively for the surplus hatchery fish. Science isn't on their side, but that seems to be the regulatory stale-mate last I heard. If the tribes would agree to some form of selective fishing, yes, I think that would be the best of all possible worlds. Instead it appears they are choosing to continue to be a small part of the problem instead of the solution. They are in a very strong position however, when you consider that the federal gov't owns and operates the major fish killers in the system, and in spite of the billions of $$ spent, the runs continue to decline, and all evidence indicates it's not due to the tribes' fishing.

Keith,

Ceremonial, along with subsistence and commercial harvest is among the federally protected fishing rights. It's very well established in case law. You and I will be stuck on the beach for years before the tribes are finally made to stop fishing. That is very well spelled out in case law in case you were wondering.

JoJo,

Yes, an IFQ model would work, as would other models. That's not the problem. The problem is that people don't want to change, and the state and federal agencies are reluctant to force the issue. If you're looking for leadership, you seldom find it in government. Leadership almost always begins at the grassroots level, and then government follows. Crazy but true.

--------------------------------------
Yes, it looks like the run is a lot weaker than predicted, but it's still a lot better than those many years when the river was closed.

I've been eating some springer the past couple days, and God it is to die for. No finer food has ever existed, I swear.

Sg

North Fork Lewis Merwin FCF has 345 springers.

What a bunch of crap. I mean, I knew that we were taking it in the shorts pretty much all the way around. But we get less and less every year. So if I am understanding this right, you are saying that the tribes get a roughly 10% of the acceptable take of total projected fish and we get 2%? Correct me if I am wrong here, I don't keep up on the happenings on the Columbia too much. But the state has projected, before the season started, roughly 230,000 fish coming in right? Aren't the numbers that are allotted to the different groups figured in based on those numbers? It seems that every year the state over estimates on the amount of fish we are "supposed" to get and then half way through the run we are scrambling with emergency closures and reduced take in regs. EVERY YEAR! When are we going to get a friggin clue here? Especially letting the commercial and tribal take theirs before mother nature gets hers. I give up. These fish are doomed to go the way of the dodo bird. So long as the dollar is more important anway.

thats how it will always be

Just for the record, the sports were unleashed on that same run before ma nature got hers, too. And we as a user group went way over our allowable impacts as well, even with the early closure on April 21.

ODFW/WDFW design and execute the fishery. The users simply participate to the extent allowed by the rules ordained by both states.

On a run-size of 180K and a mark rate of 87.5%, the 2% non-treaty impact represents about 450 dead ESA-listed upriver spring chinook. The sport:comm split was set at 60:40 so the sport share of that 450 dead springers is 270 fish.

click here for summary of catch and wild-handle

The managers believe about 3904 ESA-listed springers were handled by the sports below Bonne... at a 10% mortality, we killed about 390 fish.

Since the sport impact allocation was only 270, we have already exceeded our allowable impact by 44% based on the below-Bonne sport fishery alone. A few more ESA springers have died in the above-Bonne sport fishery over the past 3 weeks as well.

So be careful about casting blame directly on the user groups... if that were the case, we would be just as guilty. The real blame rests on WDFW/ODFW and their respectiive commissions.... they are all too content to prosecute this contentious fishery on nothing more than paper fish!

At this point I don't see any other alternative. Pre season forcasts are not exact science. The only other alternative is terminal fisheries. which would mean no fishing below bonnaville in the main columbia and fishing would be restricted to hatchery area's only on tribs. The fact is the bulk of these fish are hatchery fish and we could have double the amount of hatchery fish and we still would be shut down because of ESA impacts. I am sure the hatcheries above bonneville are going to get there egg take. The issue is how do we limit the ESA impacts to allow for a greater harvest of Hatchery fish. The options I see are selective harvest by commercials and it may be time to switch to barbless hooks and no bait for sportfishers. That should be the discussion. At this point it doesn't matter how many hatchery fish we get back it's all about the numbers of wild fish and what we can do to limit the impacts.

FNP,

I know what I say does appear to be a direct cast at one set of users i.e. netters, but that really is not the case. That is a really easy target though. I knwo that the number of sporty folks out there is no small number. And if all those people take what the state allows then it leaves just as big if not bigger of an impact. But the fact remains that the aforementioned group does fish indiscriminately. Obviously the target is the salmon, and they have mastered to a point the ability to fish in the correct "zone," but that is a part of the problem. Having lived in the Astoria area for a few years, I was able to witness how the harvesting is done. Watching all the sports get stepped on with closures while the Youngs Bay was slammed full of nets off of Bowpickers. On several occassions the whole area was closed because of the number of fish that were taken so quickly. I guess what I am saying is if everyone were put on a level playing field (everyone uses gear, even if treble hooks and half pound coils of lead are gear) the fish have a better chance and it is much easy to determine when a certain number of fish are caught and a stoppage is in order. Prior to a overfishing. Either everyone stops or we all lose. Lots of this is rant. And I have stayed pretty quiet for a while so I needed to vent. Sorry if this banter has ruffled some feathers.

We need more hatchery fish planted... It's as simple as that.......

You can't keep cutting hatchery plants and expect to keep fishing.

The sooner the states clip all true hatchery fish the sooner we will see what we really have as far as true native fish... I think the states will be pleasantly shocked at how few true native salmon are still left........

Keith

More hatchery plants would mean more hatchery fish on the spawning grounds reducing the amount of wild fish spawning sucessfully meaning less wild fish coming back.

Thats a good opinion but wheres the proof JG? There are some rivers in which the wild fish are probably never gonna beat our growing populations need for power and habitat degradation. I say plug em full of hatchery fish and leave a few selected rivers that have fish that still have a chance alone.