Freespool,

Dan S. listed the key rivers for you. These were major steelhead and salmon rivers in the not too distant past. The habitat is as good today as it was then. Please do show us the scientific peer-reviewed literature indicating that habitat degradation is the proximate cause for the crash of these populations.

I don't think you're stupid, but when you show up time and again with the same explanation (habitat degradation) when the discussion regards examples to which your explanation is not applicable, it undermines your credibility and frankly, makes you appear stupid.

For just about every other PS steelhead population, yes, the proximate cause is habitat degradation. And while dams certainly account for a part of that, a keen analysis would show them to be over-represented on the list. Dams account for the loss or degradation of a relatively small percent of the total PS steelhead habitat degradation. The major culprits are land use conversions from forests to urban, agriculture, roads, rural development and forestry, which have adversely affected 90% or more of PS steelhead habitat.

Sg

Here's a NOAA link that addresses four basins off Hood Canal.
My point is these populations are all suffering from many different environmental issues, over harvest isn't one of them, or none of these agencies are saying it is. They also are not saying predators are a factor, so that's two primary tools in sport anglers tool box that are scientifically false.

http://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/research/divisions/cbd/mathbio/isemp/docs/imw_progress_rpt.pdf


Hood Canal
Land use in the four watersheds in this complex range from urban and residential in Little Anderson Creek to almost entirely forestry in Stavis Creek. We plan to implement restoration treatments in all the watersheds except Stavis Creek. The types of treatments
12
applied will vary by watershed depending on the factors perceived to be limiting fish production. In Little Anderson Creek, lack of wood and off-channel habitat has been identified as likely factors constraining fish production. We are currently planning several restoration projects that will address these concerns. Seabeck Creek displays evidence of channel incision in some locations and significant amounts of sediment deposition in other channel segments. The incision in this watershed may actually be contributing to low summer flows by reducing groundwater storage. We are currently conducting a hydrologic assessment of this watershed to determine the potential for increasing summer flow by reducing incision in key reaches. Big Beef Creek has a small impoundment that impacts water temperature downstream and provides habitat for various warm water fishes that may prey on coho and steelhead smolts. As the factors most likely to be limiting fish production become evident, appropriate restoration actions will be applied and the fish response compared with Stavis Creek, where no restoration applications will be applied.
The watersheds in this complex offer us the best opportunity to evaluate the impact of urban and residential development on our ability to increase salmon production with restoration efforts. These watersheds also offer the advantage of being quite small making it possible to treat a significant proportion of the channel network relatively easily.


Here's a paper done by AFS pointing to out migration problems in the Sound.




The depressed status of Puget Sound populations of steelhead Oncorhynchus mykiss contrasts with the healthier condition of those along the coast of Washington and suggests that there is substantial smolt mortality during the migration through Puget Sound to the Pacific Ocean. Acoustic telemetry transmitters and stationary receivers were used to investigate the survival, migration timing, and migratory behavior of 159 steelhead smolts in 2006 and 187 smolts in 2007 from four Hood Canal (part of Puget Sound) streams and one stream flowing into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The estimated population-specific survival rates for wild and hatchery smolts from the river mouths to the northern end of Hood Canal (28.1–75.4 km) ranged from 55% to 86% in 2006 and from 62% to 84% in 2007. Survival was much lower from the northern end of Hood Canal to the Strait of Juan de Fuca (135 km) in 2006 (23–49%) and could not be reliably measured in 2007. Travel rates through Hood Canal (8–10 km/d) were significantly lower than those estimated as the fish migrated through northern Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca (26–28 km/d), while the mortality rates per unit of distance traveled were very similar in the two segments. The high daily mortality rates estimated during the early marine phase of the steelhead life cycle (2.7%/d) suggest that mortality rates decrease substantially after steelhead enter the Pacific Ocean.

Received: January 23, 2009; Accepted: July 12, 2009; Published Online: October 22, 2009

Freespool, very good. A portion of the article mildly pertained to the discussion, we are proud of you.

Maybe you can go hang out with these folks:

http://www.king5.com/news/local/Cultivating-a-New-Life-113032904.html

Learning is fun! Just don't get stabbed by a dyke!

Freespool, you have named a bunch of creeks that are on the Kitsap County Side of the canal, and they are just creeks. The rivers you were given in an earlier post, are rivers coming out of the Olympic Mtns and they are small rivers with very little population about them as compared to the Kitsap Side.

This is why I dont fish anymore, I just cant do it as it makes me feel too bad, its downright depressing. Everything accept the actural main cause of overharvest is blamed for the declines.

Habitat is a factor but not much of one. If it were the fish would have never even been here by the time the white man came along. The natives were using the rivers as their toilets for thousands of years and the fish kept comming.

Once the white men got here they logged,developed farmlands and built cities and the fish still came. It was not until large scale inriver comercial harvest started before there were big declines.

decades ago we hit the point of critical mass with these runs, plain and simple they are just not recoverable.

My grandpa and his brothers fished the Dose and Duck, big Quil as early as the 20's. literally with the gear they had they could catch fresh steelhead year round as the conditions permitted. At peak times they could fill up the bed of a pickup with gear caught steelhead just standing in one spot. There were thousands of fish even in those short rivers.

Freespool,

You just proved my point and sound like a broken record. You equate Big beef creek, which I now live on, stavis creek and the others to the Dosie and the Duck. You need to look at a map. These are not the same and making the no distinction makes you sound at best stupid and at worst agenda driven.

These populations died because of netting and to a smaller extent, hook and line by us who were idiots to bonk and eat these fish(me included). They were netted relentlessly over a whole generation of fish so that none were allowed to spawn. At the end of that there was none left.

What part of allowing no fish to reach the gravel for a whole life cycle do you not understand? Why do you deny it happened? Again I watched it and no one would do anything about it. These rivers were exterminated. One of the saddest sights of my lifetime. And with the netting schedule and harvest first mentality on the other OP rivers they will follow in the dosie and duck footsteps.

80's were hatchery hay days, nothing clipped. Wildfish everywhere.

The 80's were also MSY hay days also if I remember right.

In the Hamma Hamma, the number of redds has increased tenfold since the experiment began in 1998

Wow , 10X more redds with supplementation-- that is significant difference.

Don't forget the real question in the line right after the one you quoted:

"Now the question is whether the boosted population will sustain itself over the long run."

It really doesn't mean much unless this happens.

Freespool,

OK, we've tried spoon feeding you, but still you persist in appearing dumb as a box of rocks. I'm puzzled as to why you do this. You posted, "My point is these populations are all suffering from many different environmental issues, over harvest isn't one of them, or none of these agencies are saying it is." My point, and the point expressed by several others in this thread, is that your point if flat out wrong as regards these key western HC populations. Generally for most PS steelhead runs, your contention and citations about habitat degradation being limiting is correct. Now why the fvck can't you get it through your head that those limiting factors cannot possibly apply to certain HC rivers that have no urban, agricultural, or forest development due to having the preponderance of their watersheds inside the pristine Olympic National Park?

You won't find the answer to every fisheries question in the peer-reviewed literature or even non-peer-reviewed agency reports. Not all the salient information applicable to every fish population's condition ends up in a report or scientific article. That's all we've been saying in regards to these specific exceptions to the general cause for population decline, yet you continue to cite literature and reports that just flat out do not apply. You have persisted to the point of making yourself incredible and appearing stupid. A smarter person would acknowledge that they made a mistake and that general causes are general for the very reason that they generally apply, but don't necessarily apply to any and all examples. But you haven't been that person. You just keep clinging to evidence that does not apply? Why?

BTW, I know most of the authors on that IMW list. They wouldn't support your ill-conceived contention that habitat degradation caused these populations to collapse. That might be a clear and cogent reason why rivers in this thread are not a part of their report.

Sg

OncyT,

With most PS steelhead populations barely averaging one recruit per spawner, I wouldn't expect a miraculous upswing in the Hamma Hamma or other populations on this life support measure. However, we hope that by having a larger base population that these stocks will be in a better position to maintain themselves, and halt the precipitous decline. Time will tell if they have a chance, or if it's too late to save them.

Sg

As to the peer-reviewed literature on overharvest take a look at Stockner's "Restoring Nutrients in Salmonmid Ecosystems". While the papers contained in it are not specific to steelhead or Puget Sound, they lay out a convincing case that the "cultural oligotrophication" (excessive fishing) of watersheds substantially reduces productivity which leads to smaller runsizes.

The literature is out there. It is just being ignored.

Carcassman,

That's the kind of literature that gives harvest management types the heebie-jeebies, cuz the only cure is managing for larger than MSY escapements. Surveying an AK stream, it's quickly obvious where the nutrient base is coming from; there's not much CaCO that isn't marine derived.

Sg

It really does scare them.

What is funny, or depressing, to me is that on some study streams (pristine so you can throw away the Habitat, Hatchery, or Hydro H's) in Alaska they allow pretty huge pink escapements (and still have good fisheries on the pinks) with the result that CATCH of coho goes up something like 5X.

Just how big of a stick do they need to be hit with?

Carcassman,

I really don't know. It's gotten to the point that the commercial salmon fishery is WA is so small in ex-vessel value that ending it wouldn't make a blip on the state's economic screen. However, I've heard in-person testimony that decreasing the availability of commercial fishing will cause more kids in Whakiakum County to take up a life of drugs. How can a guy "refudiate" that?

Sg

When I was a kid growing up in Northern Mich, my entire family were commercial fishermen, fishing for mackinaw trout, whitefish etc in the 50's with gill nets. Then came the big crash in fish populations due to the lamprey eel's and us........drugs......no........we moved on to other things, for me it was first some time logging and then the military......the folks involved with commercial fishing in WA will move on to other things.

The literature is out there on a lot of stuff. I just took a look at the NOAA evaluation of the PS Chinook harvest RMP. For all practical purposes NOAA's Salmon Management Division ignores the evidence of loss of productivity caused by hatchery fish spawning naturally, while including hatchery fish spawning naturally (and their offspring) in estimates of escapement abundance and trends. They even ignore the conclusions (actually, even worse, they mis-represent the conclusions) of NOAA's own independent Recovery Implementation Science Team (RIST) that says that you have to deal with having large proportions of hatchery spawners if you're going to have recovery. You kind of wonder if anybody in that agency is ever going to step up and be in charge.

It seems to me, that despite evidence to the contrary, the salmon managers think that someday they might return to the rock star status they once had and be in charge of a bunch of stuff again. Sadly, unless they start to address all the factors for decline and the needs of viable salmon populations, that just simply is not going to happen. I just wish they would come to that conclusion as well, so that other folks could get on with it.

Or take on a life of college. Thats what community outreach progams and rehabs are for. That is the ultimate rational for continuing harvest. Recreational fishing will also keep one away from drugs. We should save our communities and abolish all comercial harvest to increase angler opportunity. Drug free's the way to be, lets go fishing and get sober.

NOAA also ignored the effect of fishing on adult sizes. According to Ricker, and others who looked at it, Chinook may have lost up to half their adult size and a couple years of age. All due to fishing.

In NOAA's analysis, at least the one they did about 10 years ago, they looked at the last couple years' of data, completely ignoring decades of information. Their conlusion was that fishing had no affect on adult size.