On Weds. and Thursday I fished the lower Columbia out of Cathlamet. The fishing was terrible, but there seemed to be lots of fish aroound - at least according to my electronics. Near Skamokawa I saw a strange looking boat, recognized it from a distance as a purse sein type boat and went over to see what was going on. WDFW was conducting selective harvest research from this miniature seiner using an approximate (my guess) 500 foot long net. I watched intently as they finished one drift and carefully sorted the wild fish from the hatchery. My estimate, again, was about 70% Coho and a15% each of steelhead and Chinook from a catch of about 35 fish. I was impressed by the effectiveness of the gear. I also chatted with the crew a little bit and they said that on one drift they landed 82 total fish! I watched them use a dip net to release the wild fish with very little stress to them. It also appeared that the type of seine that they used imparted almost no scale loss. I thihnk this type of gear may have a real future for selective fishing on the Columbia. At least if someone says it does not, I know that will be false.

you said above that fishing stunk, what if the method you seen them testing was the method that the wdfw chooses to go to, how do you think sportfishing will be with 150 of these purse seiners fishing for the same fish thats sportsman are fishing for and keeping more of them than they do now ?

Folks need to be very aware of this fact...seasons on the LCR are set by mortality rates on the wild fish...no matter how they are killed, they will be killed, period.

Make a fishery more selective, and they will kill the same amount of wild fish...but the more selective they get, the more hatchery fish they'll kill while doing it.

I'm generally a fan of selective fisheries, when appropriate...but in a set of fisheries like those on the LCR, where seasons and exploitation rates are set by ESA fish mortalities, the only thing "more selective commercial fisheries" will accomplish is less hatchery fish for sporties...the same amount of wild fish will die.

That's why when some trumpet this type of development as some sort of "recovery tool" for wild fish, they are either lying, or woefully ignorant of how LCR fisheries work.

Fish on...

Todd

Todd -
excellent point that many folks seem to miss. The only real way that selective fisheries contribute to "conservation " of listed stocks that are managed with minimal allowable impacts is by removing more hatchery fish from the natural spawning populations while staying within those allowable impacts.

Of course if that is the way to achieve those "conservation" benefits then the managers need to give those fisheries that have the lowest release mortality the largest share of the allowable impacts. When the commercial fisheries become more selective (lower release mortalities) guess who will get more of the allocation pie because of the increased "conservation" benefits?

tight lines
Curt

Well...unfortunately there's a whole group of sporties out there who seem to think that either the State will restrict the commercials to the amount of hatchery fish they're already killing, thereby reducing their wild fish impact, or that, in a serious fantasy world, that the commercial fleet will do it voluntarily.

The whole "we've got to fish harder to get those pesky hatchery fish off the spawning grounds" in order to "save" wild fish arguments are about the least thought out, or most disingenous arguments I've ever heard...and as you have, I've hard some of the most illogical and disingenuous arguments imaginable.

This one takes the cake, though...and seems to have spawned an entire organization to support it.

Baffling.

Fish on...

Todd

Need I point out the most obvious, most cost-effective, and most effective overall way to keep those darn hatchery fish off the spawning grounds?

The point of it, however, goes directly to the issue of recovering wild fish, and not pretending to do so while fishing on blissfully, which I see clearly is the actual point of the position.

The idea that we just have to fish harder to save wild fish is like saying we need to go out and eat all the ice cream in the world to lose weight, so there's not so much fattening ice cream around. Of course, that only works if they don't make more ice cream.

Hint...it's not by catching more in nets or on fishing lines.

Fish on...

Todd

You all have missed the point. Selective harvest must take place in order to restore wild sticks while maintaining harvest; AND hatchery stocks will have to be harvested or face serious cutbacks in production or hatchery closures. What do you think will be said when 50,00 or more surplus coho hit the Cowlitz hatchery this year?

As a guy who has seen how effective gillnets are at taking salmon non-selectively, I was encouraged at how benign this small sein seemed to be at releasing the wild salmon. But you guys can turn even an informative report into something negative. It was just an observation. Get a life.

would you rather have a new selective commercial method at the mouth of the cowlitz catching all of the surplus fish ?, how would the sportfishery be on the cowlitz then besides dead ?

Boater,

There isn't a predominant wild run on the Cowlitz and I believe WDFW manages it as a hatchery river, as such, I doubt there will be any overall impact on the Cowlitz. If anything I would suspect they would increase hatchery production.

The way fisheries has been managed or mis-managed has done little to restore wild fish. Commerical and non-commercial fisheries are not going to go away. So, to close a river to fishing to restore wild fish isn't an option.

The best option, as pointed out by the HSRG, is to manage with selective harvest and hatchery reform. By taking hatchery fish out of the system, which are genetically inferior to wild fish and allowing more wild fish to spawn will increase numbers.

I think there will be as much hatchery fish to catch and in time, more wild fish as well.

Sooner or later you'll have to learn the truth...if you want it to be later, well, that's up to you.

If the fishery allows for 5000 dead wild fish...they'll die no matter what. You can harvest more hatchery fish...at the hands of the commercial netters, or seiners, or fish wheels, or whatever...but the same 5000 wild fish will die.

That is not "recovery", nor is it anything like recovery.

The folks pushing this at the CCA really need to learn how the fisheries and seasons work before they go too far...but I fear it's already too late.

Not only have they already gone too far, they've shown the same inability as you to take even the slightest bit of time or energy to learn how the fisheries work.

Get a life? That's the same type of brainless response that we always get from the CCA membership, if not their leadership...you can't cover up massive ignorance with one liner rejoinders, though I suspect you'll continue to try.

The same amount of wild fish will die...there will be less hatchery fish available for sportfishermen...and the resulting change in numbers of hatchery fish on the spawning grounds will be negligible...yet, when told from on high (Woodland) that this is the way to go, you all eat it up, hook, line, and sinker.

Fish on...

Todd

We will just have to let the numbers show the success of the test fishery then.

What would you propose and if so, why hasn't another group pushed long and hard for this?

i realy dont put much faith in what the HSRG says.

Who are you asking, and what are you asking about?

I think I know, but I want to be sure before I answer...

Fish on...

Todd

Todd -
I was at the WDFW commission meeting in 2008 where they decided to increase the recreational share of the allowable impacts on the Columbia River spring Chinook - in effect transferring allocation towards the sport fishery. I clearly recall the debate that lead up to that decision and it was clear to all that were there that the deciding factor was the due to the sport selective fishery and the lower release mortality on the wild associated that fishery which removed more hatchery fish from the system per dead wild fish (per ESA impact).

There is little doubt in my mind that the decision would have favored the commercial fishery if it had been selective and had a lower release mortality than that associated with the recreational fishery. Given the mortality that might been seen in some of the commercial selective methods being pushed I would not be surprised to see that sharring percentages of the allowed impacts reversed and potentially a doubling or more of the commercial share of the hatchery catch. Such a move would only be consistent with Commission actions the last two years that has been so popular with the recreational community.

As you alluded to the devil is always in the details.

Tight lines
Curt

I agree wholeheartedly, that's why I wish those pushing for selective commercial gear would not just accept, with no facts or logic behind it, that it will be better for the fish, or for fishing.

At best it will be negligible for "recovery", and a seriously reduced sportfishing opportunity.

At best.

Explain that to them, however, and you get the responses like above...

Fish on...

Todd

The devil is always in the details, so true.....JMO and the reason I never joined, but to me it seems like CCA felt that by requiring commercial harvest to be selective that would in turn get rid of all commercial harvest. You've hit the head on the nail here Curt....if you force the commercial industry into the selective gear corner and they turn to gear types that are more selective than recreational gear then both the proposed Hatchery Reform Policy being proposed by WDFW and the revised NOF policy dictate that they should have a shot at more of the non-treaty share. I felt that most of the quick membership growth was due to the fact that folks felt CCA could simply "get rid of" commercial due to the reason I mention here, but I don't feel you'll ever get rid of them. In fact you may have ruined a good thing by forcing them to go selective....as Todd points out, the same number of wild fish will die, and as the commercial selective gear takes out more and more hatchery fish as it becomes more selective....what happens to the sport fishery? Without a specific allocation of hatchery fish, it will suffer. And if the goal of hatchery reform and NOAA is to remove hatchery fish at a higher proportion than we are currently doing....with a more selective commercial gear that can do that....well you already said it...the devil is in the details. If history is a lesson I believe purse seines were legal on the lower columbia in the past....its just the gillnet lobby was able to get them banned through the legislature as they were too effective at catching all of their hatchery fish being produced and the gillnets wanted their fare "share". Funny how things seem to repeat themselves.

rojo, and you are now touching on where I think our energies ought to be focused...removing non-tribal commercial fishing from fresh water areas, completely.

Period.

They serve no useful purpose but to line the pockets of a few and cause problems for the many, including the fish runs.

Fish on...

Todd

the biggest myth floating around the cca camp is that when the commercials go to a more selective way of fishing with a lower release mortality rate that they wont be allowed to catch any more fish than they do now.

You only have had to been through the CR commercial/sport battles a few times to see that the commercials have continually been demanding "parity" with sports fishing's harvest. "50/50" has been their testimony, particularly on Spring Chinook.

They were given it with Summer Chinook, and they're above 50% on fall chinook and off the chart on coho....

Implement commercial methods that have an equal or less mortality rate than hook&line and the commercials will likely get what they want ONE HALF of the spring chinook harvest.

And since we're up against the limits of the catch-balancing agreements with the Tribes, there's no "surplus" of hatchery springers to give to the commercials without impacting sports fishers.

What sports anglers are guaranteed to get through "selective commercial harvest" is an invigorated commercial fleet, more competition through the year and harder-fought allocation battles without end.

"Selective harvest" advocates began with the faulty premise that commercial harvest is necessary on the mainstem Columbia River and went south from there.

Really too bad....

Don't be surprised if they get more than half of the 2% allowable impacts on ESA spring Chinook...the argument we've been winning on in order to get 65/35 or 60/40 the last several years is that we're more selective...

What happens when they're more selective and use our argument...which wins...against us?

Fish on...

Todd