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#973921 - 02/26/17 06:07 PM Re: Future of Washington steelheading [Re: Salmo g.]
milt roe Offline
Spawner

Registered: 01/22/06
Posts: 925
Loc: tacoma
While my experience as a professional biologist for over 30 years is primarily in the forested landscape, I do think that it is premature to write off any of the Puget Sound and Hood Canal watersheds as non-viable systems for wild steelhead production. Marine survival is clearly driving all Puget Sound steelhead adult production regardless of wild or hatchery origin. Even heavily impacted freshwater systems such as the Puyallup produced sufficient returns in the recent past to support harvestable numbers of both wild and hatchery origin steelhead. Arguably habitat is improving there, at least in many areas, in spite of continued development of the lower watersheds. Other systems such as the Nisqually have not seen a negative change in freshwater habitat to explain corresponding decreases or lack of recovery in adult returns. Recent science is suggesting that biological influences such as parasite infestations, avian and other predation are responsible for an order of magnitude decrease in marine survival compated to the 1980s. What would a 10 fold increase in marine survival do to adult returns in these systems?

Regardless if you agree or not, should we write off the existing land use regulations and other ESA protections there based on speculative assumptions about freshwater production being lost beyond repair due to physical habitat degradation? I have measured decent wild juvenile rearing densities in many areas sufficient for me to question the nay-sayers. What do we gain by tossing in the towel on these systems? Should we relax the habitat protections and restoration funding in place there now? Seems to me the final answer about the freshwater habitat quality will come after marine issues are more fully understood and accounted for. Wild steelhead are actually quite resilient to changes in freshwater habitat.

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#973928 - 02/27/17 07:41 AM Re: Future of Washington steelheading [Re: 5 * General Evo]
Jason Beezuz Offline
My Waders are Moist

Registered: 11/20/08
Posts: 3440
Loc: PNW
Originally Posted By: Evo
in 2008, 98 Steelhead spawned in the Puyallup system... last year, 1629 wild fish were counted....

tack a few on for the rats that poach the fish as well...

to me that looks like they can, and will, come back.....

if people let them....



Errrrrrrmeeeerrrrrghhheeerrrrrdddddd....

Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiirrrrrnnnn.....

Brrrrrrrrooooowwwwwwwwwwn......
_________________________
Maybe he's born with it.

Maybe it's amphetamines.

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#973929 - 02/27/17 08:19 AM Re: Future of Washington steelheading [Re: Salmo g.]
RICH G
Unregistered


It's basic comman sense; manage the runs to take every single extra fish for harvest under optimal river and ocean condition assumptions, year after year on systems all ready far below historic carrying capacity. What happens? Within a few generations you hit critical mass. Look at the Hood Cannal as as example, pristine environmental conditions yet even with massive intervention from humans in the Hamma Hamma project the can't get the run to come back. look at the Queets, well below carrying capacity barely makes escapement yet pristine habitat.

Salmon and steelhead will spawn in a ditch if there is no more room in the river and be successful, oil and fuel runoff and all. 150 years of massive comercial harvest takes nature's safety net out of the equation. There was a reason for massive abundances, fertilizer was a big reason, I'm sure our forests are going to run out of nitrogen at some point due to being starved of it for the last handful of decades. Our rivers should be packed from bank to bank 9 months of the year with all species of salmonoids. The rivers and habitat are capable to produce that even today. A massive abundance of fish creats a massive abundance of bugs and then more fish.

I was correct about the Bundys as well not to mention Bigfoot and probably Gnomes....

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#973930 - 02/27/17 08:46 AM Re: Future of Washington steelheading [Re: Salmo g.]
Salmo g. Offline
River Nutrients

Registered: 03/08/99
Posts: 13521
Milt,

I don't want to write off freshwater habitat in the PS region. I've been convinced for several years now that the PS wild steelhead plight is a matter of low marine survival rates. Increasingly, data are reported that steelhead smolt productivity has remained fairly consistent despite some record low adult spawning escapements. In some cases, like the NIsqually, it's possible that smolt production has been sustained by contributions from resident rainbow trout. If so, that's truly a testament to species resilience.

A 5 to 10-fold increase in marine survival would result in adult returns as large as any we observed in the 1980s. All from the same degraded freshwater habitat. Speaking of habitat, even though human development pressure continues, there are bright spots of recovery. One large tributary in the Skagit basin that was nearly devoid of steelhead in the 1980s is now full of them year after year. With most of the timber clear cutting complete, and the improved forest practices resulting from the Timber, Fish, & Wildlife and later the Forest & Fish initiatives, some streams are showing signs of improvement.

Sg

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#973934 - 02/27/17 09:25 AM Re: Future of Washington steelheading [Re: Salmo g.]
Carcassman Online   content
River Nutrients

Registered: 11/21/07
Posts: 7413
Loc: Olema,California,Planet Earth
The rebound in the Puyallup and White systems occurred simultaneously with the surge in pink salmon. At the same time, age data showed that the smolts got younger (more 1s, fewer 3s). As smolt age got younger, the R/S for the brood went up. On the White, last time I looked, the regression line predicted an R/S of 1 when smolt age averaged 1.5. This pretty much concurs with the Keogh data.

The Keogh also measured more smolts when the smolts were younger so if we decrease smolt age we increase smolt numbers for a given stream.

Where steelhead diverge from salmon is the reliance on repeat spawners. A salmon run with and R/S of .8 goes extinct. If the steelhead runs has somewhere between 10 and 20 % repeats, that R/S is sustainable.

When we calculate "allowable harvest rate" (at least when I was involved) the number was (say) 5%. We can take 5% per year. But, every steelhead killed in year 1 also kills some fish in year 2,3,4, etc. as that fish can't repeat spawn. So, the exploitation rate is higher.

IF westside steelhead behave like eastside summers then provision for enhanced fall flows (and associated cooler water temps) is actually selecting for the resident life history. An observation (as yet untested) has been that the streams where minimum spawning flows for salmon were set resulted in benefits to salmon but decline in anadromous rainbow.

Steelhead are a hell of a lot more complex than salmon. Couple that with a life history that may take at least 6 years to get ONE data point on the return from a single brood year and one can see that there needs to be a very long-term investment in monitoring that needs to be annual. If it takes six years to get one point, then missing one year in that six compromises six years of data.

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#973939 - 02/27/17 10:56 AM Re: Future of Washington steelheading [Re: Salmo g.]
Carcassman Online   content
River Nutrients

Registered: 11/21/07
Posts: 7413
Loc: Olema,California,Planet Earth
In the anadromous zone the "resident" and "anadromous" rainbow are the same stock. A pair of residents can produce a smolt with the converse being true, too.

Anadromy in rainbow seems to have a strong environmental component. It actually seems that really good freshwater conditions-high rearing flows and low rearing temperatures-are the choice of residents. Being anadromous appears to be a response to problems in FW-land.

If, on the other hand, you subscribe to the idea that the residents and anadromous are genetically different, then going to sea and/or growing large are not stock-sustaining choices.

As with teenaged males, the goal and purpose of life is to reproduce. What survives to spawn is what is successful. If the only rainbow that can successfully spawn is a resident then that's what we'll get.

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#973951 - 02/28/17 05:31 AM Re: Future of Washington steelheading [Re: Salmo g.]
Smalma Offline
River Nutrients

Registered: 11/25/01
Posts: 2844
Loc: Marysville
It is wonderful that it has been recognized that resident rainbows are an important part of the O. mykiss diversity in our anadromous streams!

Not only are those resident fish part of the historic diversity of the species it is becoming clear that they help provide long term stability of not only the species but the anadromous portion of that population that is of so much interest to many anglers.

The good news is that it is know how to recover that resident life history in PS streams. Tried and true fisheries management efforts to re-establish those resident fish seems to be more effective boosting the wild anadromous population. At in the North Sound region of Puget Sound the typically resident rainbow in the larger tributaries and main stems typically mature at age 4 with those first time spawners in that 12 to 15 inch range. They also have demonstrated the ability to be fairly long lived; up to at least 10 years of age and spawning as many as 6 times.

All that it takes to reclaim that important part of historic O. mykiss life history to prevent angler mortality; no kill and bait bans get you there. The harsh reality is that for many decades the fisheries management paradigm on the region's steelhead streams has been stacked against the resident life history.

Curt


Edited by Smalma (02/28/17 05:32 AM)

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#973955 - 02/28/17 07:37 AM Re: Future of Washington steelheading [Re: Salmo g.]
WDFW X 1 = 0 Offline
My Area code makes me cooler than you

Registered: 01/27/15
Posts: 4549
It's obvious that hatchery straying is having a huge impact on the Cowlitz river smelt.

Obviously straying isn't the problem.

Plant fish to mitigate man's impacts!!!!!!!!

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#974387 - 03/06/17 03:58 PM Re: Future of Washington steelheading [Re: Salmo g.]
Get Bent Offline
Juvenile at Sea

Registered: 05/13/03
Posts: 232
Loc: Vashon/Grayland
After last week out west I can confirm that the future is not conventional gear or Washington state anglers. At the take out on the "Q" river were 3 Montana 2 Idaho and 1 Colorado 2 Washington plates. There may have been a few ahead of me but as far as I know most were fly angling. Middle upper "H" was much the same story out of state plates and guilds. I really don't think a bait ban is nessisary it's naturally being phased out by current evolution much as retention did a few years back. Pretty much everybody just quit bonkin em and have switched to fly gear.
The bright spot was the lower Quinault, water was perfect and a fair number of fish. 4 of the 8 were hatchery that were all low to middle teens. Too bad THAT can't be what the future looks like for Washington state.

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