Does anybody know why the Queets is not listed in the fishing regulatiions?

The Queets River, above the mouth of the Clearwater, lies entirely within the boundaries of the Olympic National Park and is therefore managed by the U.S. Park Service. That portion below the Clearwater is on the Quinault Indian Reservation. The Park Service sets regulations for fishing the Queets above the reservation. A state fishing license is not required, but I believe a state catch record card is. I'm sure that you can probably find the regulations on the ONP website. (Whew) That took more looking than I thought it would. Go to- http://www.nps.gov/olym/regs/fish2000.htm
scroll down to Seasons and Possession Limits and click on Beaver Ponds, Rivers and Streams. Scroll down to Queets. Hope this answers your question.


[This message has been edited by Preston Singletary (edited 10-06-2000).]

also remember any part of the river on reservation land requires a native guide.

Thanks for the info guy's.

Just so you don't get "pinched", the actual rez line is above the clearwater mouth; about as far up as the bend in the river that you can see looking upstream from the bridge above the Clearwater mouth. The Queets tribal fishermen were just nailing them the first 3 days of the week but pulled out Wed. and won't go back in till Steelhead season due to depressed chinook and wild coho runs. There will be thousands of Salmon river hatchery coho available!

When I go to reg site and pull up the queet's river reg's,What I see is that you can't keep any wild chinook.This is a bunch of $hit,Because the salmon river hatchery doesn't clip $hit for fin's.I've caught several salmon river steelhead that weren't clipped this has been a problem for a long time.They don't clip 90% of the fin's so that they won't have a more accurate count on the return so they can net more fish.Quote me if I'm out of line on this.
Good luck STRIKE ZONE

First, Queets wild salmon are at a depressed level currently.

Secondly, clipping fins costs a lot of money. 100% clipped fins does not mean more accurate counts because each clipped fin represents x amount of hatchery fish dependin on the percent of fish clipped.

If netting more chinook was the priority they wouldn't have pulled the nets on Wed. after catching over 1000 coho per day. There won't be a chinook net fishery. The season is over to protect the wild salmon.

The park service offered to pay the bill to have the Salmon River hatchery steelhead clipped and the tribe declined. I wonder why?
Maybe the whole story should be told! The main reason the chinook run is depressed can be contributed to the tribal nets and not to habitat. Are you sure the nets came out to "save" the chinook or is it due to the fact that the market is flooded with coho, no price, and few buyers????

[This message has been edited by Hohman (edited 10-07-2000).]

All the chinook that would have been caught would have been bought at a better price then the coho. I have heard nothing of the park servive paying for the clipping of the fish?
I believe the biggest reason for the lack of chinook can be directly linked to the "100 year freshets" we have had the last 5 or 6 years in a row. Anyone who is out there can see for each of the last 5 years right after the chinook spawn, wham, big freshet. Whole gravel bars are moved. Old growth trees rip down the river, etc.

well, my understanding of the park service's offer to pay for clipping of salmon river hatchery steelhead was that it was only for one year... in hope that another funding source could be found.

as far as i know, there has been no offer of funding to clip the salmon from that hatchery, which would definetely improve the sportfisheries due to the marked fish requirement and the low number of hatchery fish clipped (wire-code program only).

personally, i sure would like to see all the tribal hatcheries jump on board with the fin-clipping program. imo, this could open up the ability for their members to selectively fish when killing the by-catch would close their fishery (of course, they couldn't use gill-nets, but if we could put a man on the moon 30 years ago, we can figure out how to fish without killing by-catch). marking is the future.

of course, i think the best way to get tribal hatcheries to comply with marking is to contact your congressman and senator and ask them if they could possibly include funding to the tribal hatcheries to allow them to mark fish... because potter is correct that it takes money to mark fish, and even though marking jobs are tedious and don't pay extremely well, i'm sure it wouldn't be difficult to find people who would want the work, especially if it would help the fisheries.

cb

There are alot of issues surround the Queets but it it has to be one of the prettiest floats you could every make. I floated Saturday, beautiful weather,flow was very low
fishing was OK!!!!

Topwater,

You are correct in asking the tribes to clip all their hatchery fish, especially those funded with federal money. Unfortunately, their fish managers have a different view on fin clipping. NWIFC and CRITFC both have come out against marking of hatchery fish. They state their reasons as a funding issue (which is bogus since most sportfishing groups have come out and said they would volunteer labor). They also cite a mortality issue (which is very small). Another issue they raise about marking hatchery fish is it might bias some of the scientific methods that are currently or have been used in research purposes. If you ask me their reasons are very weak. As I have said on here before, all hatchery fish should be marked and all wild coho, steelhead, and chinook stocks should be harvested in a selective manner.

DaveD

dave, i agree that the tribes are currently opposed to mass-marking. but i think that if a hatchery uses federal money, the federal government can require that the hatcheries they pay for clip all their steelhead, coho, and chinook.

i plan on writing a bunch of letters after this election (gotta know who to write to, hopefully we'll have a new senator <G> )... because the sportfishing economy really requires a high rate of marking for the selective fisheries to be successful and minimize our impacts on wild fish. if we can make a push for the feds to find the funding for mass-marking and force any facility that uses federal money to raise fish to clip them i think it would be a step in the right direction for all of us, even if the commercial sectors are slow to jump on board.

more marked fish equals more opportunity and results in less hatchery fish competing with wild fish on the spawning beds. just think, if the tribe marked all the salmon river steelhead... the regulations could protect the early-timed winter natives while still allowing plenty of harvest opportunity. i think that would be much better than the current regs.

cb

Bottom line is they need to clip all the coho,king's and steelhead.But they won't cause it will put dent in there netting harvest.Goodluck,, STRIKE ZONE