Never a sure thing at NOF from my experience. Some years, yes. Other years it seems science(and common sense) goes out the window and seasons are politically driven.

Guess we'll know soon enough.

River, I see that its only clipped Kings but my exp is there just isnt a bunch of clipped Kings there. And to say you can keep 2? So that puts WAY more pressure on the wild Kings that cant just be yarded in like a Steely.

Is it so wrong to think IF we get some "extra" fish why not error towards a few too many getting to the gravel or the hatchery?

Its like you've been in debt for years and FINALLY get a few extra $ and you have to spend it before you see the check.

Doesn't make sense to me.

Are there any other meetings scheduled for this? I found out on short notice and won't be able to attend, and I would like to show my support.

Think this meeting tonight, is just the "ground work", jab, jab, jab...maybe a few punches....

It's the one in Olympia, that could be the knock down drag out.....

March 29..........Not sure what this meeting is, don't remember this ever being a part of the NOF process, mmmmmm


Public Hearing on Willapa Bay & Grays Harbor Commercial Salmon Regulations:
•10 a.m. -11:30 a.m., WDFW Montesano Office, 48 Devonshire Road, Montesano.
•Public hearing, sponsored by WDFW, to receive comments on the proposed Willapa Bay and Grays Harbor commercial salmon fisheries regulations.

March 30


Final Grays Harbor/Willapa Bay Fisheries Discussion:
•9 a.m.-4 p.m., Room 172 of the Natural Resources Building, 1111 Washington St. S.E., Olympia.
•Public meeting to reach final agreement on sport and commercial salmon seasons for Grays Harbor and Willapa Bay.

Public Hearing on Puget Sound Commercial Salmon Regulations:
•10:30 a.m.-11:30 a.m., Room 175 of the Natural Resources Building, 1111 Washington St. S.E. Olympia.
•Public hearing, sponsored by WDFW, to receive comments on the proposed Puget Sound commercial salmon fisheries regulations

As I understand it, WDFW decided to split the "combined" meeting that has been held in Lynnwood for the past few years into separate meetings to save travel time for the ocean/Columbia/SW Washington folks.

The Lynnwood meeting will be geared towards the Puget Sound/Strait fisheries.

Then they get to put everything together for the final PFMC meeting in Seattle the next week.

fNp meeting synopsis....

Dept is very receptive to the idea of a rec spring chinook season. Consider it done. Someone commented "tread lightly" and treat it special as this is the only 100% wild run of spring chinook on the coast. Concern expressed about under-reported harvest by the Chehalis tribe.

Lots of the usual distractions about tribes this and tribes that. A good chunk of time discussing sturgeon which has nothing to do with NOF.

A pitch was made for the tidewater mom/pop contingent. They need more than just a consolation bone this year.

Couple of comments about conservation, precaution, and a thorough accounting of dead fish.

Comment about lack of enforcement and how that might play into season setting decisions.

Surprising lack of comments from the gillnet contingent.... not one gillnet proposal discussed.

Lots of different FW proposals for chinook presented. One suggested a 2 chinook bag. Another would allow clipped retention in the Satsop, countered immediately by no king retention. One suggestion for an early 2-C opener for 2 chinook, countered immediately by a 1 chinook bag. One of the commercials humbly suggested limited days/week in the bay. There was a suggestion to allow barbed hooks and a suggestion to allow 3 hooks in the bay.

ALL of it will be under consideration. But in the end, the Tier Plan and a full accounting of the dead Chehalis kings will weed out a lot.

March 30 at the DNR building in Olympia is the one you want to go to.

Pretty good turnout. Thanks to everyone who made time for the meeting.

You always get comments from all angles at these meetings but the guys who keep bringing up sturgeon, how many fish they don't catch, and negative commentary about the tribe really take away from what this meeting is supposed to be about.

And I think it's asinine to think the Chehalis spring chinook run is healthy enough to have a directed fishery. Paper fish or not. But then again, the game is about harvest. Healthy enough????..............WTF? I think the escapement number needs to be much higher.

The Chehalis Springers are just plain a abnormality for a river of this nature, very warm & not snow fed and it never was a big run and never will be in all likelihood. Most people outside upper basin folks did not know they even existed until recent times. The escapement goal is about right as numbers run around it but the harvest thing is another issue and with the pressure not being that great ( compared to other stocks ) it has never stayed on the radar all that long.

Eye, are you sure that comment wasn't "no retention" of Chinook in the Satsop?
That was the comment I made.
They don't even know how many are getting to the springs so how on earth can we target them?

Upper Chehalis springers very likely evolved as a separate stock by being isolated by summer low flow and thermal barriers in the middle river that prevent chinook movement during the summer and fall before the rains come. Always has had a lot of poaching pressure, never very many fish spawning. Now we're apparently getting a spring chinook hatchery built by the Chehalis tribe, which will bring heavy fishing pressure on the wild component of the run as all hatchery programs do, and a proposed dam that is being promoted as a good thing because it will augment summer flows and reduce summer water temperature - the very environmental factors that maintain the spring run timing in the first place.

Augementing the summer flows and lowering the temperature will also increase the resident O. mykiss at the expense of the anadromous.

TF..........By redd counts........The tribe and WDFW spend quite a bit of time....either floating river and counting redds OR flying and counting from plane or copter......

Much of the models that are used are based on the amount of "redds per miles"...

No easy answer on this one....I've never fished on them, in the Chehalis.....was going to 4-5 years ago....WDFW shut it down.

I do know that the Wynoochee had a run of springers, because I took our trailer to Satsop Springs for the summer, and baby sat them....wife, 2 boys and myself.....just to make sure no one "did a snag and run"...some of the fish were BIG.......but another WDFW f'up killed the smolt from those off........

Fixed it above.... sorry for the omission.

Silence from the gillnetters present was kind of eery. Should we be worried?

If WDFW follows the plan, I think we'll be OK.

Well Doc worried no but ready for hardball yes. The Monte meeting was a night time meeting for public comment and WDF&W prepared options to come. If anyone thinks that the next up in Olympia, which is a day time meeting, dominated by groups / advocates / and the commercials will be the same nice easy atmosphere ............... ah I doubt it. The commercials have their proposals in and they had nothing to gain from a public shouting match.

The next meeting is for all the marbles, so to speak, they will be prepared / on message / and rock solid as to the game plan to maximize THEIR share of the harvest. It will not be a meeting that leaves one with a warm and fuzzy feeling. Bring bandages!

after the meeting i asked one of the wdfw guys about why they didnt say anything about the cowboys schedule..

he said that the proposal from the cowboys was way to much and that they knew this and gave a new one.. then he went on talking around in circles so i said thanks and moved on..

If WDFW follows the plan, then the season will be about as good as it can possibly be. Of course the chum will be over-harvested in the net fishery because they just can't allow a "dangerous over-escapement" of wild coho. Chinook will be over-harvested (by QIN) unless the run size significantly exceeds the forecast.

The Chehalis spring chinook are such an environmental anomoly any more that you'd think people would appreciate them enough to leave them alone, although I wouldn't begrudge the Chehalis Tribe a C&S opportunity. I hope the run makes escapement.

Yes Kirt did hint briefly that this years coho prediction COULD BE one of those resulting in an escapement somewhere on the right side of the Ricker curve that might very well overwhelm the carrying capacity of the basin if we don't harvest it down to an appropriate size.

Personally, I'd take the risk.