Greed says, get them off the river, leave the remaining hatchery fish to the Sportsman.... But.............................. We can all dream, we know that won't happen... Fact of the matter is we're in a catch-22. Although I hate the gillnetters, I hate to say it but THEY ARE NOT THE PROBLEM TO RECOVERY, (in the spring time)..... There are problems with them over fishing in the fall though but that's a different topic....

You want recovery for wild springers?? Quit planting hatchery fish for 5 years and see what's left, then we can discuss what we really have for wild spring chinook........................................................ We're crying over something that doesn't really exist, and if it does we really don't want to know how many are left.... You keep pushing, CCA keeps pushing and the snowball is going to explode from that downhill ride...

As I keep preaching, you CCA members are expediating the end to spring fishing, for the Columbia River.... You'll be pleasantly suprised at how "FEW" wild springers are left given that time comes.......

I'll keep saying it...... We're 5-7 years from it all ending........

Keith

K-man, If you can come up with a way to do zero fishing on the CR for 5-7 yrs, I will sign up. And I would arm bar my buds to do the same. I deeply believe that the runs would improve....and if the dam flows were improved, or better, the dams broached or the treaties adjusted to the 21st century, or dead fish returned to the rivers, or habitat improved, etc. , etc.

It all works for me!

Rick,

Hate to say it but it's likely a bit too late..............

Start with clipping all hatchery springers, then let's see what we really have....

Let me guess, a 11:1 hatchery/wild ratio after 5 years?

Any takers on that???

Keith

Boater,

In some cases. It depends on how well the hatchery stock is adapted to any environment in which they spawn naturally. They will perform better in some systems than others. A lot of the hatchery stocks are of mixed origin, having been pulled from the Bonneville or other fish ladders.

Kieth,

Why are you so certain that the LCR commercial fishery can't be terminated? The gillnetters alone, through the OR and WA initiative processes, excluded the drag seines and fish wheels, by falsely accusing them of overharvest, to greedily esconce the fishery to themselves. I'm not convinced that a well-planned initiative drive couldn't remove non-treaty commercial fishing from the CR. The FACT is that any outcome is presently uncertain.

Doctor Rick,

Give up fishing if you want to. However, fishing is not the limiting factor to recovery of any CR salmonid stock. Keith is suggesting that discontinuing hatchery plants would reveal how many actual wild springers there are. I contend that's also unnecessary. We know that many of the natural spawners are hatchery origin chinook. Heck, the upper Columbia ESA listing identifies the hatchery stock (which consists or used to anyway of mainly Carson stock = Bonne fish ladder) as essential for recovery of naturally spawning spring chinook due to their extreme low abundance.

CR fisheries are very complex. I'm sure I don't know the half of it.

Sg

CR fisheries are very complex. I'm sure I don't know the half of it.


I not sure anyone understands half of it..

On the CR no ESA listed stock has ever recovered sufficiently to be delisted, and out of the original 5 stocks listed none has recovered and two have actually declined in number, and this is after spending a billion dollars in the name of recovery.
The reason is simple, dams and their operations kill 80% of the rivers salmon producing potential.
The denialists would like you to believe it's other factors, but the science says otherwise.
Hardly a road map to recovery, utter failure would be a better label.
Want to increase ESA stock populations?
Then start managing the river's flows in a more fish friendly manner, and remove the four outdated, inefficient, tax payer subsidized dams on the lower Snake River.

Policies and Actions of the WSC

To increase fish runs, more wild fish must return to their rivers and spawn. To that end, the WSC promotes year round, catch and release of all wild steelhead in the Pacific Northwest.

The WSC promotes and encourages the development and utilization of fishing practices that result in decreased mortality of wild steelhead and salmon.

Barriers to migration and the degradation and removal of productive habitat have reduced the capacity of rivers to support wild steelhead. In order for fish runs to be restored, the WSC promotes the return of existing damaged habitat to its productive state, and that miles of productive spawning grounds that are no longer accessible to fish be made accessible again.

Hatchery programs must be closely examined and be carried out in such a manner that the negative impacts on wild fish are removed or minimized. The WSC stands for the mass marking of all hatchery steelhead, and for science, not politics, to be the basis for the re-tooling of hatchery practices.

The models and policies that drive fisheries management must significantly change. Maximum Sustained Harvest and Maximum Sustained Yield have failed to protect and perpetuate our wild fish, and in many cases have been the driving force behind their decline. New models that are based on factors other than the greatest possible harvest of wild fish are necessary to return fish runs to safe levels.

In promotion of these goals, the Wild Steelhead Coalition is an organization that provides a voice that unites the public, private, and other interests who desire and depend on wild steelhead. The WSC provides a voice for recreational fishermen, businesses whose livelihoods depend on recreational fishing, recreational fishing clubs and conservation groups, united in common goals, through consultation, association, and collaboration with those clubs and groups.


****

Hmmmmm.....

More wild fish hitting the gravel?

Selective fishing that reduces mortality?

Mass marking and removal of hatchery fish and their negative impacts?

That doesn't sound a whole lot different than what the CCA is trying to achieve in the LCR.

Can anyone in the WSC tell me again how that can be "bad" for the fish?

Or are we really just arguing about an allocation grab that the haters perceive to be "bad" for sportfishing?

CCA Oregon Position on Harvest Management (Adopted July 8, 2008)
“CCA Oregon supports harvest plans focused on conserving and protecting northwest wild salmon and steelhead stocks and opposes harvest plans that do not adequately protect ESA-listed salmon and steelhead.”

Harvest of Pacific Northwest fish stocks too often occurs at the expense of conservation. Managers tend to base harvest plans on pre-season forecasts that often fail to accurately predict the abundance and/or timing of anadromous fish returns. Fish run forecasting is far from an exact science and CCA Oregon believes that forecasting models, and the harvest decisions based on them, should make conservation and adequate escapement the first priorities. The fish resources of this state belong to present and future Oregonians, therefore harvest should be managed in a manner that first respects conservation and then maximizes economic, social and cultural benefits.



I agree with this statement Doc from your organization. But were trying to extract maximum amount of hatchery fish with associated impacts before we have an accurate count. This new plan to make the Ocean Selective kinda goes against this since its entirely based on projections.

Eyefish,

A Gottcha', eh? Kinda' illustrates the difference between interests (the same) and positions (different). Of course a significant part of this is about an allocation grab. I've never made any secret of that. Any time a harvested fish can be diverted from the commercial fishery to the recreational fishery, society receives a greater social and economic benefit. The best, if not only, reason I can think of for opposing the conversion of the LCR gillnet fleet to seine is that it may become even more difficult to end the commercial fishing altogether, which is the outcome that delivers the highest overall benefit to society.

So yeah, as articulate as Todd is, or can be, I'd say there's a little bit of a grudge match going on. He seems to have a thing about Gary Loomis, which is completely understandle, because as good a promoter as Gary is, he's entirely wrong on several of his key points. However, that doesn't make CCA in the NW a bad idea. It just means CCA has some clean up work to do on some CR issues.

Sg

What's good for the fish is good for the fish.... it doesn't need to be clouded by self interest, but being human, it's difficult to keep from superimposing our personal biases.

In the eye world, a procedure that's good for the eye is good for the eye. Doesn't matter what kind of person that eye is attached to. I'm gonna do what's good for the eye whether it belongs to a white collar aristocrat, blue collar workin' stiff, redneck peasant, black or white or red or Ornamental... yeah even a gillnetter.

Do your patients have to show their CCA cards before you will talk to them>? Just kidding...

I too beleive it can be done, but I don't beleive we have the wild fish that everyone keeps preaching about saving........

I've been around too much, caught too many. So many of these wild fish have smashed fins, cwt tags in their heads, etc....

Sad but true, I don't want to know how many are really left. When that time comes, we're screwed.......

Keith

That's debatable.

Guess what my wife and I found today at lunch, Fishprince

A restaurant selling Quinault Wild Steelhead.

Sorry back on thread.

Games over Gillnets are coming out.

It must have been killed by the Dams.....

why ?

...cause they suck.

i agree but they go in, reach there esa take and catch a few fish and they are done, the new way of thinking is to replace them with a method that has a lower release mortality rate so they can catch more hatchery fish while killing the same amount of wild fish, before any of you 25 dollar experts bash me answer a question or 2, how many hatchery coho from the columbia do you think the gillnetters would be allowed if they had a release mortality rate of 10 percent ?, do you think this new method will spread to willipa and grays harbor ??, what about puget sound ??

I can't believe folks are making excuses as to the current viabliity of gillnets and the overall death they cause to all species.

Regardless of the # of hatchery fish caught by selective methods, the # of Steelhead and Sturgeon that suffer less mortality is a good thing....no?

Keith would prefer to keep his head buried in the proverbial "sand" than to actually know how many true "wild fish" there are. I suppose he is motivated by money and not real conservation.

Todd wants gillnets to continue to kill indescriminately until and only until all LCr non-tribal commies are forced out, regardless of the impacts to Steelhead and Sturgeon during the pout fest and ignoring the fact that less hatchery fish will naturally spawn with the "wild" stocks. All of this seems to sync up pretty good with the WSC's mission.

It is interesting to hear both sides of an issue that should find us all on the same side.

Staying on the issues keeps us focused and effective, the personalities and styles stay secondary. Otherwise, it's back to high school.

Been there, done that.

Boater said; and I snipped some out.

Good point. From the discussions I personally know of the intent was to replace the gill net harvest method with a method with a lower release mortality rate so more wild fish would go to spawning land. That was the stated intent.

The hatchery/wild catch rate, ESA, allotment, mark percentages, etc., still makes my head spin, but I'm working on it.

So, how do we allow more wild fish to escape while catching the hatchery fish?

FWIW, some disclosure: sometimes, like now, I think if I were KING, I would just remove all dams, and send out the King's men to enforce No fishing for, say, 10 or 20 years. Oh, and no logging within 300 yards of the river. Something like that. Oh , and no nets on the seas. The genetics and habitat would sort out a lot and the fish wouldn't be able to tell who was native and who was hatchery.
But none of us are King, and there would probably be unintended consequences anyway.

So here we are.