whats the differents a glob of eggs up river or trolling herring with two hooks out in the bay??????? you still going to hook kings and they will die either way..not all but some..

How many meetings like this have there been over the years?? Nothing comes of these. The results come from the hard work and relationship building that guys like Francis have done.

What do y'all think is best for the fish of the Chehalis???


JimB

I've got an axe to grind if this is where they make the decision for the total Humptulips closure in September. September is the best month of the year for fly fishing for sea run cutthroat, and WDFW closed the Hump, a really good cutthroat stream so I won't snag kings with my 5 wt bamboo fly rod? There ought to be some latitude in management on this one. Same with the Chehalis. Often when early silvers won't bite, sea run cutts will, and keeps my day interesting.

Sg

With Spring Chinook below Escapement again We need to force WDFW to prevent the Sturgeon gillnetting all Spring and Summer in Grays Harbor. Like they did last year with a claim of less than 20 Springers caught as incidental.

ive asked that the hump be a bobber and jigs fisherie only and they said yes that would work but it never happened..still summer runs there in sept..

biolo.. if the springers are below escapment are you still going to net them like last year???? How many did the chehalis tribe get??? did you turn your numbers in???

JimB:

Here's my take on what's best for the Chehalis Basin

1. No conceptive days netting allowed....matter of fact 2 days between would be better.

2, Selective fishery.....tangle net requirement....cowboys and indians.

3. Release all "non-targeted fish".....heck why should non-target fish be allow to be sold for profit????

4. Get WDFW off thier asses....paper fish, pushing...has driven the wild runs to the worse levels in my 40 on the Harbor.

5. Wynoochee mitigation monies need to be spent on increasing wild runs on that river. Most people don't know that 2.4 million sits in an account....and WFDF, doesn't have a plan.....14 years and no plan....duh...WDFW answer is "shut Wynoochee down" for sports. Still the QIN and Cowboys are allowed to fish on these fish in thier netting.

6. I agree with others....restrict the sports fishery in llower river....we all know what's going on........Coho fishery....yea right!!!!!

7. Better monitoring of QIN and cowboy netting.....no reason, it can't be 100%.......computers, cell phones, software....should be "updated" results within 2hrs. of a netting. Personnel just have to want to change the historially poor way of doing things.

8. Probably time for some of the WDFW personnel to get rotated out of Region 6.........

9. Models that WDFW think work........AREN'T......need a plan B but its a S.O.S. (same old xhit) in Region 6.

10. Been hiding behind the "manage for wild", which I like....but then allow a gillnet fishery about 250 - 300+ days a year.....grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr and then accountiability is ???????????? who knows what's going on.....sure not the average sportsperson.

Want more??? believe me there is more......

steelyslammer---- The Chehalis tribe is not the problem.

Steely Slammer The Chehalis Tribe will have a ceremonial fishery for Spring Chinook again this year and will plan on taking no more than 20 fish as they did last year. They had no commercial or subsistence fishery for Spring Chinook in 2008 and this number was reported and discussed with Phil Anderson and Region 6.

The Chehalis Tribe was also very vocal in their concerns about Spring Chinook by-catch in the Sturgeon Gillnet fishery done by the QIN from April 16th until July 31st 5 days a week. The WDFW said that there was nothing they could do since the model the QIN used showed a limited impact on Spring Chinook taking less than 20 fish which is B.S. When is WDFW going to stand up the QIN and begin to protect and conserve the States resources? I think Cronic underescapement of Spring Chinook is a critical conservation issue on a completely wild stock. If you have anymore question feel free to PM me and I'll try to answer them.

AuntyM the Chehalis Tribe has tried Sueing in the past and failed I'm working on it though maybe a partnership with CCA a Sports/Tribal team would have more Chance I think.

Frow WDFW Web Page......Commerical Salmon catch and reported...............In Grays Harbor/Humptulips

Chehalis River and Areas 2A, 2A-1, 2C and 2 D


Chinook

QIN-------1876

Cowboys- 566

Total commerical catch....2442 Chinook

Coho

QIN---------- 10,116

Cowboys---- 7,783

Total commerical catch......17, 899


Chum

QIN--------------2069

Cowboys------- 241

Total commerical catch......2, 310

This was allowed to happen, when a 100% "No Catch"/release all Chinook and chum was in effect for sportsman...


And WDFW shuts the upper river down for a September hatchery silvers and thousands of jacks fishery....when "they say" someone was fishing "eggs for chinook"....


Wow, what is wrong with this picture????????

The Model works??????? grrrrrrrrrrrrrr I think not!!!!!! Mis-management at its finest.......

Check it out http://www.wdfw.wa.gov/fish/regs/commregs/landings_coast.htm

excellent post DrifterWA too bad this doesn't include incidental Springers in the Sturgeon Fishery and the numbers of QIN Coho are hard to believe. That Fall Chinook number is horrific and the Chum ouch when they were already forecasted at 11,000 below escapement. Apparently the commitment by WDFW to limit impacts on Fall Chinook to less than 10% was not true.

While those numbers look deplorable.... they are meaningless without a breakdown of wild exploitation by sub-basin. From the standpoint of escapement objectives for each sub-basin, hatchery fish are irrelevant.

This habitual lumping of wild/hatch and Chehalis/Hump in the reported catches just makes it all the more difficult to assess to what degree which users are impacting wild escapement for each species.

biolo-- you say you turn in all your numbers??? than why on different post (04/02/09 11:07am) you posted (the netted totals will go to the wdfw when they begin to work on the co-managment of the chehalis basin fisheries and work with the chehalis tribe)..so im taking it as you dont send in your totals cause there not co-managing anything the way you want..


Jerry-- im not saying the chehalis tribe is the probblem.. its just that biolo isnt saying the same thing twice and im just asking which one it is..

To all of you, Francis and I have been on the phone all evening figuring out how we are going to make everyone happy and we think we have something that will make at least 1/2 of you happy, come to the meeting tomorrow night and you can see our handiwork firsthand.

Peace
Fly

Here's a preview of what's to come tomorrow night.

Nuts and bolts....

Chehalis is Tier 1 for chinook.... no harvestable fish.
Chehalis is Tier 4 for coho.... a pile of harvestable fish. Access to these fish will be constrained by impacts to chinook.

Hump is Tier 4 for chinook.... a pile of harvestable fish, hatch and wild.
Hump is Tier 1 for wild coho.... no harvestable fish. Impacts to wild coho will constrain our access to harvestable chinook, and to some extent, access to harvestable hatchery coho as well.

Sharpen your pencils before the meeting. Things may get interesting.

The bulk of the GH coho harvest will be out of the Chehalis.... not much of a problem as there are plenty of fish and lots of room to spread the effort over space and time.

For all intents and purposes, the Hump will bear the brunt of virtually all the GH chinook retention. The challenge will be how to craft an orderly chinook season that spreads the effort out over space and time. Think about creative ways to access these fish without having everyone and their dog show up for one brief and massive kill-fest. In years past when there were no other harvest opportunities for GH chinook prior to the mid-October Hump opener... the resulting crowds on opening day were downright ugly. And whenever the kill season was compressed to only two weeks, it stayed ugly every day of the season.

And remember, in the end, it's all about putting wild fish on the gravel.

Doc,
Like we talked about I believe we need system limits to keep it orderly and extra enforcement to make sure the system limits work like they do in the tillamook rivers in Oregon.

Peace
Fly

system limits??????? elaborate please

Francis, good thing to have you in support of and defending our CB fisheries!!! Thanks for last years JR fishery and will see you at NOF meeting. Norm

Here is an idea. Close the whole fishery. no one gets to kill any fish. That ought to make it real easy to tell who is fishing illegally and the escapement goals are sure to be met, eventually.

To compensate the indians, let them run a duty free casino that they keep everything from. That should compensate them pretty well and more than offset the loss of not fishing. Oh... wait, we already do that one. never mind.

Seriously guys, it seems like every year there are all these ideas about how we can keep taking fish. But at what point do we decide that the fish can't sustain a run while still being harvested by every user group under the sun.

Doc:

I agree..........but trying to get the total "wild count" on anything ........ just doesn't happen.

WDFW......doesn't want to really know the cowboy...wild count.....cause if they did, the process for doing the "wild vs. hatchery" would have to change. Bet the cowboys get a fishery before 10/16......makes it easy to shut us off up river.....10/15.

Bet also....no selected fishery.....just net'um....kill'um....move them fish out to market.

Hope someone brings up the mitigation monies, 2.4 million, on the Wynoochee ...... sounds like the "only plan" would be a direct benefit to winter run steelhead.....and no plan for Wild Coho. Person I talked to from Tacoma City Light, fish Biologist.....said "doesn't matter how many Wild Coho are trucked up over the dam, because of the limited spawning area, only about the same amount of smolt are checked down river". So unless "something is done differently".....there is no way the Wynoochee will ever make escapement.