just came across the email from WDFG. the projected crawl I foretold would continue, well is continuing.

https://web.mail.comcast.net/zimbra/h/se...amp;action=view

just a complete total joke!

Do you have a different link?

Gray and Chinook Rivers are the latest additions to the inventory of wild steelhead gene banks.

Here's the press release


WDFW NEWS RELEASE
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
600 Capitol Way North, Olympia, WA 98501-1091
http://wdfw.wa.gov/

March 16, 2016
Contact: WDFW Reg. 5 Office, (360) 696-6211

WDFW sites last steelhead gene bank
planned for the lower Columbia River

OLYMPIA – The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) will no longer release hatchery-reared steelhead in the Grays River to help preserve the wild steelhead population near the mouth of the Columbia River.

The Chinook River, which flows into the Columbia 15 miles farther downstream, will also be off-limits to the release of hatchery steelhead now that WDFW has designated the Grays/Chinook wild steelhead population the state’s newest wild fish gene bank.

That designation, announced today, is part of a statewide policy to protect self-sustaining populations of wild steelhead by reducing the risk to them posed by hatchery fish, said Cindy Le Fleur, WDFW regional fish manager.

“This is the last of four gene banks currently planned for wild steelhead in the lower Columbia River Basin,” Le Fleur said. “The department remains committed to producing hatchery fish for harvest, but we also need to protect wild steelhead against interbreeding, disease, and competition from hatchery fish.”

Since 2014, the department has also established wild steelhead gene banks on the East Fork Lewis River, the North Fork Toutle/Green River, and the Wind River.

WDFW first identified wild steelhead gene banks as a recovery strategy in the Statewide Steelhead Management Plan, adopted by the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission in 2008.

Le Fleur said WDFW’s final decision to site a gene bank near the mouth of the Columbia River came down to a choice between the Grays/Chinook rivers, or an area including Mill, Abernathy and Germany creeks.

In 2015, a 16-member citizen work group advised against siting a gene bank on the Elochoman and Skamokawa rivers, but did not reach a consensus on a final option. However, about 85 percent of the comments later received from the public supported the Grays/Chinook option, Le Fleur said.

“Those rivers have a number of advantages over the three streams, including a higher abundance of wild steelhead and more spawning habitat,” she said.

In recent years, WDFW has raised an average of 140,000 winter steelhead smolts at the Grays River Hatchery from broodstock collected at Beaver Creek on the Elochoman River. About 40,000 of those smolts were released into the Grays River, while the rest were transported to the Elochoman and Coweeman rivers for release.

This year, however, the number of steelhead smolts raised at the Grays River Hatchery was severely reduced by the effects of last summer’s drought. Le Fleur said 130,000 juvenile steelhead died last July as a result of high water temperatures, low water levels and Ichthyophthirus, the deadly fish disease known as “ich.”

In mid-March, the 10,000 smolts that survived will be transported to the Elochoman River, where they will be acclimated then released in mid-April, Le Fleur said.

“Survival rates at some other hatcheries in the region were actually higher than expected, which help to offset the losses at Grays River,” she said. “Even so, total production for the area is about 80 percent of the goal, and we plan to reduce our releases by an average of 20 percent at six sites this spring.”

Those sites include the Washougal, Elochoman, Coweeman and Kalama rivers, as well as Salmon Creek and Rock Creek.

Despite the gene bank designation, hatchery managers plan to continue producing 140,000 winter steelhead smolts per year at the Grays River Hatchery or at the Beaver Creek facility. WDFW will also continue to produce coho and chum salmon at Grays River.

yet again, WDFW chooses the cost cutting measure. could have used abernathy, mill and germany creeks but instead chose a river with a hatchery program and public access. just like the green over the coweeman.

just wait till we get to the grays harbor rivers for a gene bank site. they'll probably pick the wynoochee, skookumchuck and satsop.

this state makes me sick.

Working themselves out of a job as far as I'm concerned.

Throw the lazy bums out!!!

There will be riots!!

Locals will not stand for that I can assure you.

So? Don't think the locals liked the Green/Coweeman either.

Are you presuming WDFW listens to input?

I'm suggesting they'd just say FU I'm fishing. The Wynoochee and Skookumchuck would be impractical, damed rivers need hatcheries. The Satsop is the only real option for this.

Ive always thought they needed an early December hatchery run. Spread the pressure over the Nooch and Satsop. I live near both, I fish both. Id love to see both full of early run hatchery brats. Oh, and plug the Satsop full of summer runs, so I can fly fish above the Schafer bridge and not just occasionally run into trout fishing.

Im sure people are pissed about the other rivers, Grays Harbor folks just tend to REALLY not care what the WDFW think. Been scorned to many times.

The Satsop and Skook programs (as well as Newaukum and upper Chehalis releases) intentionally went away from the early winter stock years ago. The only place that has it now is Humptilips and that is not likely to change. All of the winter fish (besides Hump) use local and some natural-origin broodstock, so the return timing is more like the naturals - late winter early spring.

Summers in the upper Chehalis were tried for about 5 years of releases back in the mid 2000's with limited to no success. Summers in the Nooch do good and there's a release in the Hump too.

Not sure what the candidates for WSGB would be but I agree that the Nooch and Skookumchuck are not likely... Wishkah, Hoquim, Black, Scatter, Lincoln Creek, SF Chehalis? All places with no current hatchery plants. Not sure of the size of the steelhead pops in them...

Cloqullum would be a good creek. When I was a kid, I'd float eggs in there in January and catch a few. Didn't know any better when I was 10. It would be a good river for a brood stocking program.

Have they actually tried hatchery Summers on the Satsop? I would think it would do well. More bank access (It feels like to me) on the Satsop. Would be nice to have a few to play with. I caught one pulling a bugger under a log two years ago up above Schafer, kicked my a$$ for about 20 minutes, I felt bad when I got it close to the bank and saw it was a steelhead. A nice little 6lb torpedo. Thought it was just a big 2lb cutt. Fun fight on a 4lb tippet. Had to sit with the thing for 45 minutes to revive it.

At first it seemed odd to propose the Gray's as a wild gene bank river because of the hatchery on the West Fork. However, I heard that the hatchery is going to close because the site and the water supply are threatened by the river channel movement, or something like that. So it's just a matter of time. And since the Gray's does have the most suitable steelhead habitat and the healthiest run of wild steelhead at the present time, it's the best candidate for gene bank designation, unpopular as the idea might be.

If gene bank designation comes to Gray's Harbor, the best candidates probably are the upper Chehalis and Newaukum. There's a fair amount of suitable habitat that's likely to remain in forestry and decent wild runs, but today's standards, that is.

It would surprise me that the Grays has much of anything wild in it. When I worked in the watershed it was hellishly unstable. The bridge at the hatchery used to something like 10' or more above the river. Last time I was there the bottom was up to the bridge in places and well filled for the rest. If, in unstable stream like that, the steelhead are doing well (or what passes for well in WA) then those are damn tough fish.

Pretty high fluctuation, but they're there.

https://fortress.wa.gov/dfw/score/score/species/population_details.jsp?stockId=6658

What would really be informative would be to have a age analysis rather than just looking at escapement. If one assumes 2 fresh 2 salt then looking at the recent data shows most "cycles" declining. In a fish with as complex life history as steelhead (FW can be at least 1-4 and saltwater can be 1-3 or 4) for first-time spawners (before you even get into repeats) it is way too simplistic to just look at un-aged data.

Well, sure it's too simplistic Carc...

However, I was only demonstrating that fish are present, not making inferences from it.

That's for you to do!

I agree. I don't imagine there were even that many.

This whole teasing out by brood line started for me in the 70s, looking at steelhead punchcard data. All the graphs, plotted annually for the streams with primarily wild fish in the catch, showed a lot of variation. If, though, you broke it up into 4 separate lines (assuming as we did, then, that 2.2 fish were the vast majority of a wild run) in almost every stream for all 4 lines the lines all went down. Wild steelies were in trouble 40 years ago, before it was cool, or job enhancing, to notice.

Won't belong when there will be no hatch steelhead to be kept. The truth is wild steelhead just don't respond when hatchery fish are cut.

The Yakima river should be used ased a excellent example. Never had a state hatchery on the Yakima. It should be loaded with wild steelhead.... Guess what? It's no better now that 40 years ago.

Brewer,

I think if you looked at the data you would see that Yakima basin steelhead are doing quite a bit better now than they were 40 years ago. Improved downstream passage at the mainstem Columbia River dams and more restrictive trout management in freshwater have contributed to an uptick in adult steelhead returns.

Sg