Hopefully this will put a smile on you Northerner's

WDFW FISHING RULE CHANGE
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
600 Capitol Way North, Olympia, WA 98501-1091
http://wdfw.wa.gov
February 2, 2010
North Fork Nooksack River reopens to fishing
Action: The section of the North Fork of the Nooksack River previously closed to fishing will reopen.
Effective dates: Immediately
Species affected: All gamefish
Location: The North Fork Nooksack River from the yellow post located at the upstream most corner of the hatchery grounds, approximately 1,000 feet upstream of the mouth of Kendall Creek, downstream to the Mosquito Lake Road Bridge
Reasons for action: The Kendall Creek Hatchery has met hatchery winter steelhead broodstock needs.

Other information: Please see the Sport fishing Rules 2009/2010 pamphlet edition, FISHING IN WASHINGTON, for a complete listing current of fishing seasons and regulations.
Emergency fishing rule changes can be found on the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife website at: http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/regs_seasons.html

Might take a bit of pressure off the chilliwackers.

jesus. it did. I didn't even fish. I've never seen that many people on the sack. I heard every run was multiple occupancy. Didn't hear of many fish caught at all either.

time to go wet the hands.......

The hatchery has met broodstock needs. However, it was met when the last hatchery steelhead in this year's run arrived at the hatchery. Now that's a "program" to emulate! It barely maintains itself, produces no steelhead fishery benefits other than keeping Kendall Creek hatchery open, which in itself, through its salmon production program, is the proximate cause of the near extirpation of wild Nooksack chinook and coho. I hate to appear anti-hatchery; it's just that I'm opposed to pouring money down a rathole, and it looks like WDFW has a large rathole on the Nooksack River.

Sg

I suspect they might be a little misleading in the news release, as I doubt they met their "broodstock needs"...I believe that hatchery policy on broodstock collection requires that they only take fish that return before the end of January, so even if they only have two fish in the hatchery come Jan. 30, they're done collecting...might as well let the anglers go out and catch other two that are still in the river turning purple and black.

Yippee.

Fish on...

Todd

So what should be done on the Nooksack? Why are the fish not returning? I know there are plenty of salmon along the shore out in the salt in late summer. They just don't seem to come into the river. Maybe they are fish from other systems I'm seeing and catching.

^On the money^

What should be done? Enforcement on sport fishermen AND the tribes. Shutdown the hatcheries. If you haven't figured it out, that is the reason the nets are allowed to rape that river. I would argue that the habitat has actually improved over the last decade and will continue to improve as many projects mature.

How do we shut em down? What fishing opportunities did Kendall creek give us this year? I have read that they aren't even producing coho anymore, leaving it up to the Skookum creek hatchery. The Lummi hatcheries and netters are subsidized to hell and back. Money is laundered through the hatcheries and fisheries system into the pockets of a few fisherman to the detriment of wild fish and other stakeholders. Tons of money and volunteer hours is being spent to improve habitat. Can that benefit be realized with the failing hatcheries?

Stickfisher,

Unfortunately, I'm now of the belief that there is almost no path that will/can help the fish AND still allow much sportfishing. And that isn't because sportfishing is the problem.

The problem is that if the hatchery is closed down, which would help fish, netting and sportfishing will cease to exist in the same way they do now. The reasoning for the existing fisheries is to justify the hatcheries. The reason for the existing hatcheries is to justify the fisheries.

For example, as you can see by the WDFW's actions, they don't believe there are enough wild steelhead to support a CnR season. The only reason we're allowed to fish the Nooksack is because people are "fishing for hatchery fish". Anyone with much time up there knows that the wild fish outnumber the hatchery fish by a large number. So really what we are doing is living this lie.

The most frustrating part to me is that there are 2 runs of fish up there that the WDFW seems unable to find even though I could show them. The first are the wild kings that come up the NF in the summer. The other is the wild steelhead run.

Argh!

How great is the sportfishing really? What would we be missing if we went all CnR for a few years, shut down the hatcheries, let the Lummi's produce fish at the salt ponds, limit netting to the saltwater only except for maybe a short "cultural" river harvest, (they should be only reefnetting anyway like their ancestors did) and employ some type of fish trapping devices to harvest the hatchery fish that blow past the salt ponds? There has to be a solution. Too bad the main sticking point seems the be the gillnetters not willing to move on to newer technology. All federal grants and subsidized loans to these fisherman should come with a stipulation that funds can not be used to purchase gillnets but to upgrade to netting 2.0.

So if the wild run is so good why don't they have a C&R season?? Have any counts been done, and if not, why not??

Who at the WDFW is in charge of this area??

The answer to your first question is highly dependent on when and how you fish.

The second part of what you said relates to my earlier post. We "can't" go CnR because sportfishermen fishing to keep fish is what essentially allows the netting and hatcheries. The Indians and the state WANT a catch and keep fishery for sportfishermen.

Trust me, if all I could do is CnR fish from Jan 15th - April 15th, I'd be the happiest guy on this board.

Why do other rivers have C&R seasons??

What do you mean poor? They got a whopping 78 fish back as of 1/20/10

Stickfisher, Iwant2fish,

The sportfishing for hatchery steelhead is almost non-existant the last few years. It's never been really good to my knowledge. The status of the wild steelhead run is not well enough known to justify any recreational fishing, even CNR fishing. There is generally a recreational fishery for the hatchery coho run, which I guess can be good at times. I don't know if there is ever any chinook fishing.

If the hatcheries were shut down, there would be no recreational fishing on the Nooksack at all. None of the wild populations are healthy enough to support fishing. The wild steelhead might be, but based on the rest of the Puget Sound rivers, buy probably isn't healthy enough to support even CNR fishing. Recreational fishing is not the problem with the fish populations, but angling gets to carry a disproportionate share of the burden of conservation.

Sg

Salmo, they have not even counted the returning adults or redds in the Nooksack in recent years due to "bad weather", so there aren't even any official numbers for what is, or is not in the Nooksack so far as wild fish go.

Fish on...

Todd

Like anyone could count redds in THAT water

So should I invest in a Canadian License?

BINGO!

Livin' the lie.... a most astute observation.