You know it is kinda like the fish has met his enemy and we are it!

No arguement there..+1000

Ralph -
Even with the dams coming down we'll not be seeing any 100# Chinook in the future. The reason they have gotten smaller is the fishing on them on their feeding grounds. That harvest strongly selects against older (larger) fish.

With approximately 75% of the harvest of Elwha fish happening in Alaska and BC (more BC) on the fish's feeding grounds expect the Elwha to continue to get smaller. That is also the problem with many of the PS Chinook stocks. Unless we see movement away from fishing on immature fish (ocean fisheries) it may not be much longer until our Chinook are no larger than ocean coho.

Tight lines
Curt

Curt
I am "shall I say" to ignorant to agree or disagree with your statements, so i have no reason to doubt them. I do value your knowledge
I was being provocative with my statement,
I guess my question to you would be: Do you expect the river to be left alone after dam removal or can we expect to see these fish harvested just as all other rivers? With talk of a hatchery I can only assume the river will eventually be par for the course.

Ralph

Have fun Curt. Maybe CM will spot this to. The thing I still fail to understand is why people fail to realize the huge impact ocean harvest has on Chinook. PS ( or these fish ) have, do, and will continue to have a massive harvest rate. We have lost almost all of the 4 have lost nearly all of the 5 & 6 year age classes on the coast.

Until or rather unless harvest is terminal based nothing much changes. Coho and other species not so much but Chinook it is destroying them. It isn't harvest though but rather hatcheries and habitat. Silly people.

Separating hatcheries from harvest is like separating John Boehner from tanning beds...anyone who tells you this hatchery complex going in on the Elwah is being disingenuous...at best...if they tell you it's about "recovery"...unless when they say recovery, they mean "recovery of the fisheries"...

Fish on...

Todd

Might be right there, if they didn't have the hatchery wouldn't they need to manage the Elwha as the weakest stock? Be pretty devastating to Ocean Fisherys S/C/T Alaskan/Canadian/Washington if they did.

Todd

"Separating hatcheries from harvest is like separating John Boehner from tanning beds"

LOL I thought we were all past the skin color thing in this day and age

great points though

Ralph

Ralph -
Those Elwha fish will be harvested (impacted by fishing) and likely at rates similar to what we currently are seeing. If I recall correctly recent fishing impact rates have been something in the 30% range (down from those seen in the 1980s and 1990s but up from earlier in this decade)

The reality is that bulk of the harvest (75%) happens outside of Washington waters in Alaska and BC. Most of the rest is here in Washington in various marine water sport fisheries. Those fisheries are all mixed stock fisheries. It is only the Washington fisheries that are currently limited by weak stock management (over all fishing limited by what the impact limits on the weakest stock). In theory if the Elwha Chinook were managed as two stocks (wild and hatchery) the wild stock might be the Washington marine water limiting stock. However it is probable (at least in the short term) the hatchery and wild stocks would be managed as one stock (at least as far as escapement is concern).

It could get more interesting down road as the Chinook become more established in the watershed above the current dam sites as at least far as the Washington fishing goes.

Does any recall whether the plant is to mass mark the Elwha hatchery releases?

Tight lines
Curt

Curt
Thanks again for the info. I am sure you are spot on in your statement but I guess that my question to you should have been; Will we be seeing tribal nets and anglers in the river soon after the removal of the dams? I wouldnt expect that ocean harvesting practices to change (although that would be nice)but I would like to see a NO FISHING of any kind in the river itself for at least 50 years to try to protect anyfish that may happen to survive the ocean and make it into the river itself. As a sportsman i am willing to never fish the river again in my lifetime.
If we spend the money and do this right I would be perfectly happy to watch this experiment unfold for the rest of my years. No hatcheries,no sportfishing and no tribal. Now that might make the whole project worthwhile but then again I wont hold my breath.

Ralph

Weak stock management went out the window when Co-Management and Hoh v Baldridge came in. Now, we all "share the pain/fish". So, instead of dividing up the "harvestable" fish, based on a fixed escapement goal, I think we now balance fisheries. The NI ocean fishery takes some, the Indian fishery matches it.

Not saying the old escapement goals were anywhere near enough but there was a time when having fewer than the EG coming back meant nobody fished.

Today, with ESA listings, that would mean shutting down. Instead, we fish our way to recovery.

As to the Elwha, those fish were big in order to successfully spawn. Once restored to its pristine state, it will take those same big fish to restore the run. lacking that, they won't be successful. So, we'll need those hatcheries.

The Elwha Chinook to the best of my information have not been clipped. They have either a CWT or they are otolith marked. They are not available to the recreational fishery in MA 6.

Release numbers have averaged close to 2 million zeros and 200,000 yearlings from the state Elwha rearing unit each year.

They still get 40#+ fish back each year. The genetics are there. One can only hope the 5-7 salt genes are still blended in somewhere.

CM -
While it is the case that for Puget Sound Chinook (which includes the Elwha fish) the managers have moved from an escapement drive models to an eploitation rate model it is still the case that the at the least inside mixed stock fisheries are often limited by impacts on one of the weaker stocks. Every year it seems at NOF that the impacts on a given stock (often north Hood Canal, Stillaguamish, etc) will limit (or in some caseslead to a re-shaping of the mixed stock fisheries). While different from the older weak stock management the current management remains (at least for Washington fisheries) de facto weak stock management; just that the weakest stock is now determined by which every one reaches the ESA allowed impacts first.

Bushbear -
Thanks for the mark information. It will be interesting to see how things change for the next 10 to 20 years.

I'm not sure that genetics is still in the population. My understand that those huge hogs were typically 6 to 8 years old. The most recent age information that I have seen showed that currently 13% of the returining Elwha fish are 3 years, 57% 4 years old, and 29% 5 years old. CM is right that the habitat will continue to apply pressure for those larger/older fish (that is what worked the best) however the continued selection pressure from those ocean fisheries will continue to pull the population towards younger fish. In the end the population age/size structure (genetics) will likely reach some sort of static situation balancing the selective pressure from the habitat and the fisheries. The end result will be a population that is both younger/smaller and less productive than that found historically.

Tight lines
Curt

Don't want to excite you BB ( if it is possible at your age ) but we have 40 lbs around. Chehalis and tribs to be sure biggest I have gotten lately was about 37. Each year in broodstocking we got several over 40 on the Satsop.

As CM said it was the same above on the Columbia above Grand C., it took a big strong fish to go up the interior Columbia and spawn. Those genetics are gone.............but can you get them back? Sure..........kinda. Do history and find when the last ice age was and then guess on how long it took for the fish to repopulate. I think if harvest is not in it a few hundred years, with modern harvest ( especially ocean ) nah maybe a few thousand years and likely not. Your going to have Chinook just not big guys.

That's funny, there's a tribal fishery involved isn't there?

Keith

The tribe raises coho and they are marked. They are also talking about releases of upwards of 60K early run steelhead over the next 5 years. Feds apparently aren't too happy about that, but .... time will tell if the early run component is going to be maintained by the tribe.

I understand that their new hatchery is some distance up from the river mouth. The existing hatchery is right at the mouth.

As for marking WDFW hatchery fish (Chinook), it hasn't been happening except of otolith marking and CWTs.

Rivrguy - I'm always happy to see 40# fish in the river. We've had some show up in the Dungeness, too. They might have been bigger in the salt. Whether the genes are there to have some of the fish stay in the salt for another year or two will have to waited for, I guess. I'd like to think there might still be some around....

The genes for the older fish are probably still there. But, until we stop killing them in the ocean they won't show up.

After the Elwha dams come out, just what is specifically going to be done in AK, BC, and the other fisheries where immature Chinook are caught? Without big changes, the same an=mout of 80-100 pounders will return as return now.

SBD,

A tangential point: you mention 50 year license cycles for dams. That only applies to non-federal dams that have to obtain licenses from FERC. The four lower Columbia, plus Chief Joe and Grand Coulee, and the four lower Snake dams are federal dams, owned/operated by the US Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation, hence no FERC licenses, ever.
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Regarding the Elwha hatchery, part of the reason is as an insurance policy. Rivrguy is correct in that many compromises were made to obtain agreements. Another part of the reason is to support harvest fisheries in the Elwha as soon as possible after the 5 year no-fishing agreement concludes. Depending on what happens, the no-fishing could be extended, but only by consensus of the affected parties. Those who are betting on fishing, sooner, rather than later, are placing the correct bets. Unfortunately.

One thing not much discussed in regards to the upper Elwha resident rainbow trout, they are just as likely, if not more so, to create a summer steelhead run as a wild winter run population. Plus, given the poor success of PS steelhead in general these days, I think there is a good chance that the resident rainbow population will remain robust and end up inhabiting all of the Elwha right down into tidewater.

Sg

Do they or did they ever plant out of basin trout in those lakes?

Just curious... I know with the upper Lewis River basin they've been planting "trout, coho and kokanee" and have always wondered how those have interacted with those genetics that were originally locked in when the dams were built...

Keith

Hatchery steelhead won't do those rainbows any good, either...and those rainbows would do the wild steelhead a lot more good if there weren't clouds of hatchery turds swirling around them.

Fish on...

Todd

There are Eastern Brook trout in Lake Aldwell.