the Puyallup Tribe?

I thought the same thing. Maybe use Barnaby Slough as a natural habitat.

Barnaby Slough Steel

Official word is that we (OPGA and WDFW) will be moving the program over to the Bogachiel and the Sol Duc will be classified as a 'Wild Steelhead Gene Bank" that will be "devoid of any hatchery interaction". Although I'm not quite sure how the hundreds of stray Chambers fish don't factor into that in some way

I too feel a mistake, as there's a lot that isn't on paper that is going to factor in here ... unfortunately, poaching issues are going to be perhaps one of the largest. I would bet my drifter that the number of fish taken for the program will now simply disappear into many local smokers without a legal fish to retain this time time of year. A sad state of affairs, but a goodly number of "anglers" look at things much differently and see fishing strictly as a harvest based activity ... whether legal or not.

In the early days of the program, it was often tough to collect the broodstock ... now the river has far and away the most early wild returners early in the season. The data that the state and tribe came up with was either so woefully incomplete or skewed (tribe stated that perhaps they forgot to teach all processors to look for belly clips) .... it was impossible to ever grasp the actual returns of the fish. yet all anecdotal and first hand-observations on my part showed pretty solid returns.

My personal feelings were that we should have studied things further, but it's moot now. We're currently investigating possibilities for the new facility and also exploring the idea of using the current facility to switch over to brooding fall kings instead of steelhead since the 'Wild Steelhead Gene Bank" has no bearing on salmon plants.

Financed by us. Ran by the Mucks I believe. Check your winter stocking reports on wdfw. They make you believe its for recs, but its an enhancement program with no chance or dream of recreational fishing. Fish return well after its closed and aren't clipped, just tagged in the schnazz

If you honestly believe this isn't going to play into things, then you're definitely have a lot to learn about fishing in Forks

Here ya go

White river 629 in 2010


Mainstem Puke


Carbon
398 in 2010


This completes my series of non smart [Bleeeeep!] posts for the month.

Bob I will be calling you later in the year to get a trip for a Snider fish.

Snider Creek was an issue that a bunch of us started as an induction towards bringing back some of the early fish. There were a bunch of us who worked for a lot of hours to bring this to bloom. So many people were unaware of the amount of early fish that there used to be.
I am talking November Steelhead in abundance.

We saw what was happening and through a lot of effort and relationships built with some biologists we were able to get this program going. Unfortunately the head of the Fish and Game at that time had a meeting with us at the Forks Sportsmans club and essenetially told us we did not know what we were talking about as none of us had fisheries degrees. We were trying to impress upon them the need to protect the early returning fish that were diminshing, more and more.

Now I know a lot of you were not part of this effort, and some of you look at it as a mistake, yet it has been viable. It was some of the guides in Forks and a few locals who pulled this whole thing together.

A little known fact is that there were often a lot more than 50,000 smolts that were viable. A lot of them were put in streams in the upper SolDuc and residualized and became true wild fish. One year there was more than 160,000 to release. So the good times are the efforts of a few that so many of you enjoy now..........

Wow, that article sure brings back some memories. Thanks for sharing it.

I spent some time as a youth volunteering at Barnaby, cleaning raceways etc. About that time, talk of a new upgraded facility at Grandy Creek started making scuttlebutt. How did that turn out?

I have mixed feelings on Snider Creek but when it's all said and done, I guess I'm glad that WDFW is implementing no hatchery supplementation in the Duc as a reference stream or wild gene bank or whatever they wind up calling it.

I do like the concept of using hook and line to capture wild broodstock and release them for harvest. Those that aren't harvested can still spawn without the risks associated with out of basin fish.

By the way Bob is right in the move of the wild fish effort to the Bogachiel. That was actually talked about 15 years ago. The idea was to do a Snider Creek program on the Calawah, Bogachiel, and Hoh.

True to the way politics work, things are just now coming to light.......

We asked state bios in one of our meetings if they are able to see any genetic difference or not ... their answer was that north of the Queets, they can't tell any difference at all between the fish with the studies they have done with fish from any of the river systems.

Yeah catch, Wish I was old enough to see what the skagit system or the Sol Duc was like.


My common sense say if the river is dying like the Skagit, Sauk, Shuiattle, Stilly, and Sky. Why not try a broadstock program. But then again I haven't been in the fishing scene that long and am im not a bio.




Is there any proof/science that the snider fish have harmed the wilds in there spawning efforts or returns?

The unfortunate part of the equation for any of the OP rivers are the Chambers Creek fish. I have had fish landed that were spawned out in early December that were definitely hatchery fish. Whether or not they took is hard to say.

Yet, they spawned some where. Same thing for the Washougal Summer runs. Dumped all over the place and the natives were left to defend themselves. The true Wild Steelhead in the Hoh were actually smaller fish. 3 to 5 pounds. Beautiful fish then replaced by the Skamania's.....

From what I recall, there was not a lot of evidence supporting that the program was affecting wild fish other than the fact that there is no evidence that hatcheries help wild fish any where. Some of the evidence was either compromised or not to be trusted on how it was collected.

I forget what the name of the creek is, but it runs into Discovery Bay. That is where the model for the whole of the OP was formulated. The Bio's at that time used that creek and the returning Steelhead to determine what the whole Peninsula was like.

One little stream to make a determination for the whole Peninsula. Now how do we process that?????

Mmmm...Snow Creek? Can't remember for sure, but I think that was it...

Fish on...

Todd

I think that is right...anyway I was thinking Snow Creek too.

If "popular" meant "successful", then we wouldn't need bios or science or any of that elitist fancy stuff...we'd just ask the guides and fishermen.

Fortunately, when it comes to broodstock programs, we have both...science on the one hand, and guides/fishermen on the other...the unfortunate part is that they never agree.

Science always says they don't work, generally or specifically, and the guides who run them and the fishermen who want to catch them always *think* they work...even if all the other ones don't.

Fish on...

Todd

This chart gives some idea of how skewed tribal catch data (and subsequently run size data, return rates, etc for the program) has been. Basically, over the last 30+ years, the tribes catches 150% of what the sporties do for wild fish on the Q system. Now look at the percentages of reported Snider fish from the tribe:

What about the effect of those 100 billion hatchery smolt on wild fish in the Puget Sound? Besides, that just sounds like another Cowlitz.

When the scientific data is clearly flawed in respect to returns we can't make it up from entirely different rivers and or scenarios Todd. Both co-manager entities should be ashamed of the job that has been done in this case.