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#964391 - 09/15/16 10:31 AM Coho Model
eldplanko Offline
Fry

Registered: 06/27/12
Posts: 31
I'm wondering if anyone in this group knows the answer to this:

Do we know if there's any ongoing work by the fisheries managers/salmon technical team on what went wrong with the coho model this year? You'd think, given the overall impact of this years predictions, this would be an area the bios are intensely interested in improving.

Full disclosure, i work in a field where we used very complicated models to inform big $ decision making, and a I know there's always a bunch of stuff "under the hood" that really only the scientific/technical experts really understand.

It seems there should be some pretty intense review of the model inputs/assumptions that led to this year's coho prediction numbers being so low; maybe some sensitivity analysis, etc. In the field of modeling, it can be somewhat surprising that an input, can be greatly influential on the final output. And if that input is known with less certainty... there can be huge uncertainty in the output.


Edited by eldplanko (09/15/16 10:32 AM)

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#964394 - 09/15/16 10:40 AM Re: Coho Model [Re: eldplanko]
Todd Offline
Dick Nipples

Registered: 03/08/99
Posts: 28170
Loc: Seattle, Washington USA
A WAG on my part is that the environmental conditions that led to the small return last year were a really significant anomaly that threw off the models to a large degree.

When it became pretty clear last spring while fishing out at Neah Bay that the returning adult coho were both not numerous and not large, there was some very un-scientific wonderings if perhaps some of the "adults" had not matured and were staying out another year due to the schitty conditions...such conjecture was roundly rejected by the experts.

Now were are having a relatively gignatic return, and by all accounts they are not only a lot bigger than last year's midgets, but are significantly bigger than in average years, too.

I am wondering if that roundly rejected un-scientific conjecture may be worthy of an actual look, rather than being rejected out of hand by the experts...it sure can't be any more "wrong" than they have been this year.

Fish on...

Todd
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#964395 - 09/15/16 10:40 AM Re: Coho Model [Re: eldplanko]
Todd Offline
Dick Nipples

Registered: 03/08/99
Posts: 28170
Loc: Seattle, Washington USA
P.S. When I say "last spring" I mean the spring of 2015, not this past spring wink
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#964397 - 09/15/16 11:08 AM Re: Coho Model [Re: eldplanko]
Carcassman Offline
River Nutrients

Registered: 11/21/07
Posts: 7410
Loc: Olema,California,Planet Earth
The folks down in Oregon had developed a really good model for explaining the returns of Oregon coastal coho. It had 4 different, temporally successive, variables. The problem was that the model was not good at predicting the future because the last variable (essentially measured at the coho arrival to the bays) could over-rule the other 3. The first 3 said "bonanza" and #4 could still crash it.

The lesson that should be learned, but won't be because of inertia and demand for mixed stock fisheries, is that you fish on known numbers with those numbers based on updates of the actual returning fish.

That won't happen because we all (AK, BC, WA) want that ocean fishery. So we take our best shot knowing (or should know) that a last minute change in marine conditions could blow things out of the water.

As to Todd's question about this year having age-4 adults instead of age-3, a competent sampling program would have caught this. Sockeye managers read (at least used to) hundreds of scales a day, the day after collection. The technology exists to do a much better job of knowing what is going on with the stocks. It simply costs money that is desired to be spent elsewhere.

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#964398 - 09/15/16 11:13 AM Re: Coho Model [Re: eldplanko]
FleaFlickr02 Online   content
River Nutrients

Registered: 10/28/09
Posts: 3314
I think what's broken is the very concept that salmon runs can be forecast with sufficient accuracy as to be the basis for structuring fisheries. The results are in, and indeed, the current model is performing about as should be expected (which means poorly). One year, we come in well over (which I like, because that usually means lots of escapement goals are being met or exceeded). The next year, if the factors in the model suggest a similar surplus, we all too often see the fish fail to materialize, leading us to overfishing already depressed runs.

It made a lot of logical sense that this year's coho run should be expected to be poor to nearly absent. According to everything we thought we knew about the ocean and what makes conditions poor or ideal for salmon, combined with what we actually witnessed last year, that outcome seemed inevitable.

We still don't know what the final numbers will look like, but it seems safe to say the coho are reminding us just how little we understand about the ocean, as they have apparently weathered the Blob much better than expected.

Rather than try to fix the model (which I agree is clearly broken), I'd rather they change the whole paradigm to one that prescribes terminal fisheries over mixed stock fisheries, to the greatest extent possible, with no fisheries authorized over a given stock before required escapements are met or imminent. Reported data over pie in the sky. People in the know will tell you that's a non-starter, since nobody wants to give up their ocean fisheries, so there you have the reason why we will continue to use forecasts that have little hope of being accurate to model our fisheries.

In other words, what Carcassman said (while I was busy typing my novel).


Edited by FleaFlickr02 (09/15/16 11:16 AM)

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#964399 - 09/15/16 11:22 AM Re: Coho Model [Re: eldplanko]
Todd Offline
Dick Nipples

Registered: 03/08/99
Posts: 28170
Loc: Seattle, Washington USA
The problem with super emphasizing terminal fisheries is that they would probably be defined as no fishing between Neah Bay and Inner Puget Sound...and would, by political necessity, ignore that millions of "our" salmon are being captured in Alaska and BC, daily...which is the least "terminal" as possible.

There is no doubt at all by anyone in the world that the closer the fish are to their final destination the closer we can come to accurately determining run sizes and compositions.

Fish on...

Todd
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#964402 - 09/15/16 12:05 PM Re: Coho Model [Re: Todd]
eldplanko Offline
Fry

Registered: 06/27/12
Posts: 31
Originally Posted By: Todd
The problem with super emphasizing terminal fisheries is that they would probably be defined as no fishing between Neah Bay and Inner Puget Sound...and would, by political necessity, ignore that millions of "our" salmon are being captured in Alaska and BC, daily...which is the least "terminal" as possible.

There is no doubt at all by anyone in the world that the closer the fish are to their final destination the closer we can come to accurately determining run sizes and compositions.

Fish on...

Todd


Shouldn't this year be a "golden year" from a scientific perspective to learn something from intensive data collection at the terminal fisheries... scale samples, DNA, etc? I get that there's a budgetary aspect to all this, as well. There's got to be folks on the academic side that would jump on this.


Edited by eldplanko (09/15/16 12:21 PM)

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#964403 - 09/15/16 12:19 PM Re: Coho Model [Re: eldplanko]
FleaFlickr02 Online   content
River Nutrients

Registered: 10/28/09
Posts: 3314
Good point on the terminal fisheries, Todd. I thought about that a little while I was writing my post, and while I didn't write it down, a thought occurred to me that there might be reasonable ways to make a few fisheries "almost terminal." For example, allow fishing in the bays and estuaries that mark the end of each major drainage (Buoy 10, Willapa, Grays Harbor, and maybe a small nearshore area off the mouth of the Quileute. Sure, you'll catch fish you don't mean to that way, but at least they'll be from the same river systems as the target stocks the majority of the time.

Puget Sound is a tougher nut, for sure, but maybe fisheries similar to the Tulalip Bubble provide some sense of what might be possible there.

Get ready to laugh out loud here... My whole thought process assumes the AK/BC ocean fisheries cease to exist....

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#964406 - 09/15/16 01:52 PM Re: Coho Model [Re: eldplanko]
Carcassman Offline
River Nutrients

Registered: 11/21/07
Posts: 7410
Loc: Olema,California,Planet Earth
Moving WA to terminal fisheries would/should only occur by also moving BC and AK to the same thing. Alternatively, make them pay WA for the capture of WA fish.

Management needs not only to focus on the ecosystem in which the fish live but political landscape across which they fish.

Maybe, as a funding source for schools, WA could tax imports of fish from BC and AK; a tax for taking "our" fish.

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#964407 - 09/15/16 02:12 PM Re: Coho Model [Re: eldplanko]
BroodBuster Offline
River Nutrients

Registered: 07/11/04
Posts: 3113
Loc: Bothell, Wa
We gave BC the green light to take whatever they want when we took about half of their fish by damning the Columbia. I forget the exact number but it was based of the historical run size at that time which was pretty huge and it is a signed treaty.

As for Ak where else can Wa anglers spend their money and actually catch some fish. Or more importantly schedule vacation and book trips without having the season closed a week before your departure date.

It seems pretty obvious to me that the current situation is exactly what everyone, with the notable exception of sport anglers, want it. Especially if your a dumbass like me and buy a license so I can eat a couple of trout a year on alpine hikes.
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#964412 - 09/15/16 03:09 PM Re: Coho Model [Re: eldplanko]
MPM Offline
Spawner

Registered: 12/09/08
Posts: 766
Loc: Seattle, WA
Maybe it's obvious, but why does it matter how BC/AK do it?

It's simply a matter of determining how to fish in Washington waters. Is it that we would be giving up some portion of BC bound fish by nixing the mixed-stock fishery? That makes sense, I guess, but how does AK play into it?

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#964418 - 09/15/16 05:42 PM Re: Coho Model [Re: MPM]
Lucky Louie Offline
Carcass

Registered: 11/30/09
Posts: 2286
Originally Posted By: MPM
Maybe it's obvious, but why does it matter how BC/AK do it?
That makes sense, I guess, but how does AK play into it?



Example

Here is a quote from Lorraine Loomis NWIFC Chair;

“Making matters worse, lack of monitoring by federal fisheries managers last year allowed Southeast Alaska commercial fishermen to exceed their harvest quota by more than 100,000 Chinook. Most of those fish were bound for Washington waters.”

Now read Hoh v Baldridge and see what devastate effects an ocean harvest can have on terminal fisheries.

Now read the Puget Sound Chinook Harvest Management Plan that will answer most to all your questions.
http://wdfw.wa.gov/publications/00854/wdfw00854.pdf

“On average since 2000, 30% of the harvest mortality of Elwha, 60% of Hoko, 11% of Stillaguamish summer, and 27% of Skagit summer Chinook occurred in Alaska (CTC 2008)”-- read on for more rates.

IMO, these mixed stock intercept fisheries has resulted in Washington and Puget Sound once being a destination of tourist fishing dollars now leaving a gaping hole in both revenue and the memory of how things once was.
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#964447 - 09/16/16 10:37 AM Re: Coho Model [Re: eldplanko]
cncfish Offline
Returning Adult

Registered: 02/24/11
Posts: 258
Loc: whale pass
I think its a little early to say the model is broken, it's only the 15th of Sept.

yes hatchery fish in Lake Washington and the Green are higher than normal, and they are defiantly the normal early component of the run have been for a few years now, but that doesn't mean everything is rosey.

I have not yet seen a jumper in the Sky, or the Snohomish for that matter.
I have not been by the Wallace to look at the rack yet so don't know how that is. but it has been my experience that fishing for coho in the Snohomish system really doesn't kick in til Oct. Many years I do better in Nov.
I noticed the patterns change about 10 years ago. so I would say we need to wait and see for at least another month.

my other thought is I know from the reg's I read for Canada, they attempted to reduce their catch of our coho this year. I didn't think it would be a huge difference but maybe that's what we are seeing. and I think they are aiming high for hitting their own coho starting in Oct. and that may bang a lot of Snohomish fish... the Nov. group....

to me the data is not all in yet.

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#964451 - 09/16/16 11:16 AM Re: Coho Model [Re: FleaFlickr02]
AP a.k.a. Kaiser D Offline
Hippie

Registered: 01/31/02
Posts: 4533
Loc: B'ham
Originally Posted By: FleaFlickr02
I think what's broken is the very concept that salmon runs can be forecast with sufficient accuracy as to be the basis for structuring fisheries.


Bingo. Yet, because humans are the way we are, we demand full exploitation of the "exploitable" even though we don't know what that is until after the fact. Over predicting the run and then creating a fishery for the inflated number always has the possibility of creating long term problems. This extends beyond the coho model.

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#964453 - 09/16/16 11:53 AM Re: Coho Model [Re: eldplanko]
Carcassman Offline
River Nutrients

Registered: 11/21/07
Posts: 7410
Loc: Olema,California,Planet Earth
Need to remember that there was essentially no harvest of Fraser sockeye this year. In the past, anyway, the Area 20 fishery (their outer Straits) took a lot of coho along with the later-timed sockeye. Those fish traditionally did not show up in WA coho databases. So, if there was a year with no fishery you would see a bump in fish that were never seen in WA.

Too many of the data bases used to predict fish runs are incomplete. What is needed is a complete, every fish accounted for, base. That would require data sharing, annual recognition of how much of each stock was taken, and so on. Another reason to stop the mixed-stock fisheries.

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#964458 - 09/16/16 12:47 PM Re: Coho Model [Re: eldplanko]
MPM Offline
Spawner

Registered: 12/09/08
Posts: 766
Loc: Seattle, WA
So, I understand that AK/BC mixed-stock fisheries impact our local fish. It would be great if we could somehow prevent AK/BC fisherman from taking a single Washington-origin fish (especially since I personally don't fish much for BC-origin fish!).

But I don't understand why Washington should not switch to a fishery model that gives mixed-stock fisheries less priority unless/until BC and AK do the same. They are going to do what they do, but we can still manage our waters in a way that makes more management sense, right?

Is it a question of leverage? Because I don't see how our decision to fish mixed-stock or not in WA waters impacts AK at all. I can see how it impacts BC, since our Juan de Fuca and North Sound fisheries can impact their returns, so we could maybe get something from them in return if we agreed to fisheries that took fewer BC-origin fish.

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#964461 - 09/16/16 01:35 PM Re: Coho Model [Re: eldplanko]
RowVsWade Offline
River Nutrients

Registered: 11/08/06
Posts: 3405
Loc: Island Time
If we could prevent even a single fish from being intercepted by AK/BC fisheries we're still stuck with gutless representatives that cower to the indians. As it sits now we don't get to fish for the fish that WE pay for. So what good is fighting for more fish?



Edited by RowVsWade (09/16/16 01:36 PM)
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#964465 - 09/16/16 03:20 PM Re: Coho Model [Re: eldplanko]
Carcassman Offline
River Nutrients

Registered: 11/21/07
Posts: 7410
Loc: Olema,California,Planet Earth
Too many people in WA support/push for the marine mixed stock fisheries. Ilwaco, Westport, Neah Bay, and so on inside, too.

Plus, i suspect that the tribes and feds still believe as they did in Hoh v. Baldridge, that we need the ocean fishery so the Tribe's can balance catches inside. As an example, let's say Hoh coho are forecast to return no harvestable. With no ocean fishery, the Tribe can't fish the river because the NI side has taken all available conservation measures. But, if there is coho mortality in the ocean, the Tribal fishery gets to balance impacts.

Plus, as we have seen by tribe; actions in PS, they don't want fisheries they can see (local). They will push for ocean fisheries and hope the NI's take all their harvest out there. That is the Perfect World.

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#964466 - 09/16/16 03:45 PM Re: Coho Model [Re: Carcassman]
FleaFlickr02 Online   content
River Nutrients

Registered: 10/28/09
Posts: 3314
Originally Posted By: Carcassman
Too many people in WA support/push for the marine mixed stock fisheries. Ilwaco, Westport, Neah Bay, and so on inside, too.

Plus, i suspect that the tribes and feds still believe as they did in Hoh v. Baldridge, that we need the ocean fishery so the Tribe's can balance catches inside. As an example, let's say Hoh coho are forecast to return no harvestable. With no ocean fishery, the Tribe can't fish the river because the NI side has taken all available conservation measures. But, if there is coho mortality in the ocean, the Tribal fishery gets to balance impacts.

Plus, as we have seen by tribe; actions in PS, they don't want fisheries they can see (local). They will push for ocean fisheries and hope the NI's take all their harvest out there. That is the Perfect World.


I wondered for a long time why the Tribes never went after the open ocean fisheries, since they presumably account for a lot of fish the Tribes could be taking terminally. That Hoh v. Baldridge decision paints the picture pretty clearly, so thank you for that. Essentially, ocean fisheries provide justification for the Tribes to fish when the forecasting model says they shouldn't. Good tool to have in their box these days, I suppose.

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#964467 - 09/16/16 03:56 PM Re: Coho Model [Re: eldplanko]
eyeFISH Offline
Ornamental Rice Bowl

Registered: 11/24/03
Posts: 12766
Let's not forget the Makah and QIN like those open ocean troll fisheries, too.

Anyone have numbers for the 2016 treaty troll fisheries?
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