A buddy of mine notified me of the swinomish commercial fishing schedule for today through july 14th or so. Starting today there is a continuous commercial tribal sockeye fishery out in the bay that will extend through mid July. That's 24/7 for the next month! On top of that for the next month they are netting the skagit Tuesday through Saturday! I have heard they've already reached their chinook quota.

Call this number: 360-466-4112 and listen to the prompts. Hit #1 for swinomish and then hit #2 for fin fish. Here you can listen to the rules for the tribal sockeye fishery in the bay, marine area 8 and the skagit river. You will notice that chinook by-catch must be brought in for "sampling". If they've already reached their chinook quota, that seems fishy...

Here's my question: is this years tribal fishing season any different than last year for sockeye? I love that lake fishery and have been excited for this years run since it ended last year. I'm just hoping for a good opportunity for baker lake sockeye as I'm sure many of you are as well. last year we saw some great fishing. I hear the plunkers did ok yesterday as well.

The tribal and non-tribal commercial sockeye fishery is mainly catching Fraser River fish, which number in the tens of millions...for a good story about that, Google up the earthquake and landslide that happened at Hell's Canyon on the Fraser, how it got remedied...and why we net the hell out of their fish.

Fish on...

Todd

There is also a pretty extensive Tribal fishery targeting just Baker River sockeye.

A number of sprties i have heard from think that they (sporties) will get pretty effectively corked.

Also, the primary damage at Hells Gate was due to blasting for railroad construction. Overfishing didn't help, either.

John Roos' book on Restoring Fraser Sockeye is pretty interesting, with all the history and politics involved in getting the US and Canada to not fish the stocks into extinction.

they are going to wipe it out, run numbers will start tanking, and they will blame it on sportsfisherman... or, they will wipe it out, run numbers will start tanking, sports fisherman will not get a season, and they will continue to net it anyways...

look at Lake Washington...

I'll be honest. Main concern here is having another good season on baker lake. If tribal and commercial fleets fished marine area 8 with the same pressure last year as they are this year than I won't worry...as much.

Todd, so the bulk of the sockeye in area 8 are Fraser fish?

Well they can't blame the fisherman on the Skagit River because opening day there were a few caught but now the river is blown out tell maybe August.

SteelieDrew,

Area 8 is Skagit Bay. I haven't looked at the tribal regs on line, but I was told how many days the tribes have scheduled to fish for Baker sockeye. There wasn't any tribal fishery going 24/7 for a month. If the runsize is close to the forecast, there should be plenty of fish in the lake for the recreational fishery. However, the tribal fishery occurs downstream of the Baker River and prior to the runsize update. What that means is that if the runsize is a lot lower than the forecast, then the tribes may take all or most of the allowable harvest. If the runsize is a lot larger than forecast, then the tribes will catch less than half of the allowable harvest, and the lake will have more sockeye than the recreational fleet can harvest. With only a couple years of fishing for this run, there isn't much of a harvest model to use, so a lot of guessing is going on.

If you don't want to gamble on the lake fishery happening, then you might want to join the river fishery and fish on the unknown runsize. Some river fishermen have the sockeye dialed in pretty well, and they'll get a few regardless of runsize.

Sg

Salmo,

The phone number I listed in the first post describes a 24/7 skagit bay fishery from today until July 14th.

SteelieDrew,

50% of the Baker sockeye enter the Baker River trap between July 12-15, which is how the runsize update is made. So fishing by the Swins through the 14th, at their known low exploitation rate may make a dent in the run, but won't deplete it by any means. More important to pay attention to is the Upper Skagit harvest. They have a much higher harvest rate per day fished, but will be fishing only a few days, last I heard. But they can just as easily miss the sockeye that are moving by in pulses as not, or really slam them. As far as I know it's totally unpredictable.

Whatever they do, the treaty allocation remains 50%. I know that the roll of the dice means the recreational fishery in Baker Lake could be cancelled, or that it could be just as good as last year. I'm not going to worry about it. The law of averages tell us that some seasons it's going to work out great, and some seasons will stink if you're fishing last in line.

Sg

Ha! I love it...We don't know how big the run is and yet they take 50%..Uh????? WHAT? Yep, makes perfect sense....

The river is raging and will be raging for some time. Even the Indians won't be netting for at least this week, and if the weather heats up then forget it for the river fisherman and Indians on the river. The Indians will only be able to try to net them in the bay and we will be able to fish the lake.

thats good. Well, sorry to all the plunkers but.....

On another note isn't there also the threat of downstream wild steelhead this time of year that could get stuck in those nets?

Those downstreamers are no longer necessary; they've already spawned. Leastwise, that's what I've been told.

And the springers going upstream, and he steelhead going upstream aren't all that impostant either. If they were important, the fisheries would be selective.

I have been wondering the same thing. Especially since there have been so many reports of winter Steelhead ( heading back out ) and summer runs being caught ( since the opener 6/1 ) . Under cover Wdfw officers stopped and checked us on Sat and said they just witnessed a nice summer run native caught and released just above where we were fishing. I am worried that some of the brainless fisherman ( that have no clue ) are most likely to keep steelhead. I think the Indians are required to use small mesh so they should only pick up smaller steelhead.

mesh size is 5.25" I believe.

It is still a little early but with the high water hopefully we will get more then enough to target in the lake. 36 in the lake and counting ....

Phil,

I understand your dismay, but as we've all come to understand, fishery interests are not about not fishing. Harvest first, conservation later.

SteelieDrew,

The river flow has really jumped up, so there won't be much fishing until it drops down again.

The net fishery for sockeye is completely unnecessary. The main problem with the sockeye gillnet fishery isn't with sockeye. It's the bycatch of kelt steelhead, wild spring chinook, wild summer chinook, and a very small number of wild summer steelhead. The Tribes, like other commercial fishing interests, are opposed to selective fishing, particularly in a case like this where all the sockeye are bound for the Baker River trap, where fish could be taken for harvest and the hatchery and the spawning beaches, and the lake without affecting a single fish of non-target species.

The eternal problem with using the trap for commercial harvest is: who gets the proceeds from the sale of the fish? Each individual fisherman believes he is the highliner who would catch the most fish and make the most money. When all the fish come from a single trap and there is a single pool of money, who gets it and how much? And so the tragedy of the commons continues. And the commercial harvest will occur before the runsize can be updated.

Sg

An intyeresting sidebar to Salmo's comment is that I was taught that the treaty right to fish was to the Tribe, not the individual fisherman. And, further, it was to Indians so that (in this case) the Swinomish could take 100% of the tribal allocation and leave nothing for the upriver tribes.

But, as Salmo alludes to, the politics in the Tribes are like they are anywhere.

While being checked by the gammie on Saturday there was 10 lb native hen in the bottom of his boat that he had confiscated from a fisherman. The ticket price $109.
I am guessing summer run. But a NICE fish.