In response to the West End Bait Ban thread, I thought it seemed like an interesting idea to try and look at the likely future of steelhead fishing in Washington State.

We should examine the range of potential fishing regulations and restrictions – “the good ole days” 2 steelhead per day, 4 in possession, 30 per year. First, a word about the good ole days. They aren’t coming back. They aren’t coming back for several reasons.

First among them is the relentless growth of the state’s human population. My best estimate is that the state passed the mark of harvestable numbers of self-sustaining wild steelhead somewhere between 1968 and 1972 when the human population was about 2.8 million people. That date varies, of course, by river system and mostly geographic location, with the OP rivers generally being later to still producing harvestable wild steelhead. But when the Columbia River basin and Puget Sound rivers are included, it was decades earlier. With a human population now around 7 million and no end in sight, the future is not promising in terms of restoring or recovering huge increases in wild steelhead.

Even though only a fraction of the new state residents will fish for steelhead, everyone places some degree of burden on development of the environment, and thereby, the habitat that is essential to the production of wild steelhead. Our society is dedicated to giving the highest quality lip service to protecting anadromous fish habitat, all the while continuing at the local, state, and even federal levels to approve projects that at least incrementally continue to degrade, rather than improve it. With these plain as day facts before us, how can anyone envision a future where wild steelhead are abundant enough to sustain harvests even close to the “good ole days?”

If not wild steelhead, then how about hatchery steelhead? Anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock is aware that hatchery steelhead stocking in Puget Sound area rivers has been cut in half or more. A large part of that reason is the ESA listing of all Puget Sound and Columbia River basin wild steelhead. Both the real and alleged negative effects of hatchery steelhead on wild steelhead stocks makes it unlikely that we will see hatchery steelhead stocking returned to former numbers any time soon. Further, hatchery steelhead program levels are subject to Hatchery Genetic Management Plans (HGMP) that are subject to ESA consultation and are presently limited to five scaled back programs in the Puget Sound region.

Another factor, less mentioned, about the hatchery steelhead programs is the much reduced smolt to adult return (SAR) rates the plants have shown in recent years. Programs that formerly delivered SARs of 5 to even 10% (if the anecdotal stories are true) now struggle to perform at even a one (1) percent level. This makes the cost of producing one adult hatchery steelhead more than 5 to 10 times more expensive than in the programs’ heydays. So even if there were no ESA or biological constraints, it’s doubtful that the agencies producing hatchery steelhead could or would afford the immense costs of producing hatchery adult returns experienced two and three decades ago.

At the far other end of fishing regulations like the good ole days is something like the ZEC rivers in Canada’s Gaspe’ peninsula in Quebec. There are over 100 rivers in 29 zones, and regulations vary by both river and the zone within a river. A fishing license costs about $40 for resident and $110 for non-resident, plus you must have a daily fishing access pass that costs from $30 to $100, depending on the quality of fishing pools in the zone. Rivers and zones can be restricted or unrestricted, which limits the number of anglers per zone per day, or not. Fishing in a restricted zone is subject to a draw. Half the draw is in the winter well before the season begins, and half are 48 hours prior to the fishing day. Unrestricted zones are the cheapest to fish, but they also have the most anglers fishing in them.

Catch limits vary by river and season, but a license holder may keep up to 7 salmon per season, distributed across rivers that allow retention, to strict CNR. Fishing with bait is prohibited, and many, but not all, waters are restricted to fly fishing only.

So, a look at the far other end of fishing restrictions include: higher cost, a lottery to obtain fishing days, and more restrictive fishing methods and catch limits. There would be no free drifting, side drifting, boondogging, or bobber-doggin’ from drift boats or jet sleds, to say the least.

I think the most probable future conditions lie somewhere between the extremes. I base that on observations of WDFW’s fishing regulation behavior. Along with cultural differences between here and the Canadian maritime, WDFW traditionally pays no attention to the quality of the angling experience in adopting regulations. And it will adopt the least restrictive regulations necessary to comply with resource conservation requirements.

Paker suggests that steelhead fishing on the OP would be more improved by limiting fishing guides, having a limited entry fishery, or limiting guided fishing days than by banning bait. I agree with him that regulations that reduce the number of other anglers on the river will do more to improve the quality of my fishing experience than a bait fishing ban.

I think it’s important to call out the two dependent variables that get at the heart of the matter. The first is the health and status of the wild steelhead resource. A suite of regulations that ensures that enough steelhead survive to spawn successfully is the first and foremost order of fish management business. The second is that the regulations create a predictable and orderly fishery of high enough quality that enough of us will want to participate in it. Some combination of too many (pick your poison): guides, guide days, anglers, fishing methods, fishing areas, fishing times, and fish encounters (take, or harvest) will impair either or both the quality and the health of the fishery.

The concept of triage was mentioned and advanced by some who posted. Certain of the more urbanized PS rivers (Green, Puyallup, Snoqualmie) will never recover wild steelhead to fishable numbers, so why not write them off and turn them into hatchery fish factories? First, they could recover to the point of supporting CNR fishing, but I agree that they, along with all the others in PS, are not going to ever recover to sustainable harvestable runs. If for no other reason, the PS steelhead ESA listing prevents writing off any wild steelhead population – even while the ESA environmental regulatory process continues to approve additional incremental losses to those populations. And the hatchery steelhead programs on those and the other rivers are limited to levels that won’t adversely impact the wild populations. And as I mentioned above, large hatchery programs don’t mean large adult returns in this era of very low SAR. For instance, hatchery releases of 100,000 smolts in the Nooksack and Puyallup systems returned only a couple dozen adult returns each within the last few years. Not the kind of program you can build a fishery on unless and until SAR rates climb back up to where they used to be.

Poster Myassisdragon says there are as many wild steelhead in some PS rivers today as there was in the 1970s. This is correct, but on average all but a couple of those rivers remain below established spawning escapement goals. We aren’t fishing any of those populations, but that can change as conservative management plans are developed and approved by NMFS. The problem that I foresee is that many anglers are not going to like the kind of fishing that can be allowed and stay within the ESA take limits. How do we best limit that take so as to remain within the limits? The usual Selective Fishing Regulations, with no bait, single barbless hook, no motors, or no fishing from a motorized boat while under power? No fishing from a boat? No what?

I attended a crystal ball gazing meeting last week to discuss what some future fishing regulations might look like and include. I don’t know what will come to pass, but the long-standing Selective Fishing Regulations are probably a given. They are precedent. Anglers are used to them. Monitoring for ESA reasons, like the mid-Columbia area, is also a given. The funding for that monitoring isn’t. So a North Sound Endorsement, very much along the lines of the Columbia River endorsement, is a distinct possibility. But how much will we pay for it in order to cover the monitoring/enforcement costs?

Under monitoring, when the allowable take limit is reached, the season closes. That could hurt, when one considers that the Skagit season extended to April 30. Anglers I know enjoyed fishing to the last day of the season and want to regain that option. A host of options were presented. Limiting guides is a popular one, but WDFW claims not to have authority to do so, making that option a non-starter. A bill introduced in the WA Legislature this session that was aimed at addressing guide limits on the OP died in committee so went no where.

One thing that is within WDFW’s purview is the catch limit. But how do you do that when the seasons are already CNR? Well, back before there were CNR seasons, the daily steelhead catch limit was 2 per day. That was 2 per day, whether you retained or released your catch. Not much enforcement of that went on that I know of, but it got me to thinking. Enforcement would push back because a catch limit in a CNR fishery is unenforceable. True. But enforcement pushed back when Sparky’s Law – you know, the one where you cannot remove a fish from the water if it must be or you intend to release it – was introduced either. Anglers on this forum made all kinds of negative comments about it being stupid both because it was unenforceable and unnecessary to the survival of released steelhead. But you know what? In the interval since Sparky’s Law was adopted, on average I’ve seen much improved handling of fish that are being released than before. I don’t think that’s coincidental. Anglers are taking better care of the fish that they release. Enforceable or not, I think most of the anglers follow most of the regulations most of the time. With a limited fishery like the Skagit was, and will be again, the army of angler eyes on the river tend to make the fishery relatively self-regulating.

I didn’t want to venture off topic here, but I think the Skagit and the mid-Columbia tributaries are as good an example as we have of what future steelheading regulations and conditions might be. Just thought this topic deserved a thread of its own so as not to divert the west end bait ban thread.

Sg

Salmo g - Your comparison to the Eastern Provinces of Canada are probably more correct than you realize. As you know, the life history, productivity, and habitat requirements of steelhead are remarkably similar to Atlantic salmon. With the notable exception of spring spawning vs fall spawning, the two fish species are very similar. And their life history and productivity are waaaaaay different than Pacific salmon.

Indeed under the right circumstances, Pacific salmon are one of the most productive fish on the planet. If in doubt, just look at those pics of spawning sockeye and pinks in Alaska. You NEVER see aggregations of spawning steelhead like that…..

So in my view, we ought to be regulating steelhead the way we regulate Atlantic salmon. For starters, future management of wild steelhead in the PNW should be completely different than Chinook, coho, or any other species of Pacific salmon. Future management should focus on the quality of the fishing experience, and the privilege of hooking and landing a wild fish.

I realize this notion may get very little support on this BB. But if we want truly wild steelhead to be available in the future for anglers, we should get used to a very different angling experience than we have now.

Salmo has a great idea and we really need to do the same exercise for all resources. Couple thoughts to add.

With the exception of WB there are the Co-Managers. Not sure they would agree to a triage scenario. At least not without a lot of money throw at them.

For PS, I would suggest that the Skagit, Stillaguamish, Nisqually, and probably the west side Hood Canal rivers as wild. No hatchery steelhead (should be all species) at all. Probably C&R but I would suggest that if the runs rebound to where some dead fish are acceptable then hold a lottery for wild fish. I would also impose a C&R CRC with all fish brought to hand recorded.

The other major systems like Nooksack, Samish, Snohomish, Green, and Puyallup would have major hatchery programs. I would set the planting goal at least at 100,000K as it seems that the currently successful steelhead programs on the Pacific Coast are large. Broodstock would be collected from each stream and each stream would stand or fall on internal returns. Mark all fish so that if one shows up in the wild streams they can be killed and kept.

We also need to significantly invest in public bank access to the streams as it should not be a requirement of steel heading to have a boat.

I am not sure about the Straits, but Elwha and Dungenesss should probably be wild (Elwha for sure) but I would resurrect the Lyre.

As to regs, the hatchery streams should be wide open. For the wild streams I would lean to single circle hook with bait, lures, or flies allowed. The wild CRC could tell us what they are caught on, if desired.

I recall discussions with WDG wardens and the regs did limit the daily catch to the bag number whether killed or released. I remember when we bios recommended that if one fly-fished and released fish that they would not count in the limit. Vote was all us to 2, with 2 being the leadership. The motion lost/

I've always thought the end game is pay-to-play on an extreme level. We'll try a bunch of stuff between now and then but eventually it will be a supply and demand equation increasingly controlled by private, rather than public, entities. Guides might be mandatory. Similarities in some big game hunting or exclusive golf courses.

Time to build a pond and stock it.

If our rivers were managed on a watershed by watershed basis, we could then have seasons that reflected the data which would be available for each system and have our seasons accordingly to recent escapement levels. Lack of management and understanding is what's driving all the hypothetical nonsense here.

No matter how successful a system is; the for profit groups (guides) should be capped for each system and from there special regulations would mirror the health of the watershed and it's steelhead. The healthier the system, the more liberal the regs. If a system was healthy but not reaching the upper threshold then stricter regs would be needed. If a system was not meeting goals then it's closed.

One thing that needs to happen is more enforcement and regular creel surveys for all system's!

At the rate things are going now, in 10 yrs it will all be over. The least they can do is build us a steelheaders memorial/museum.......that would be cool

Brood stock has proved to work, without help our runs are failing and will continue to fail........
And if you don't think netting is the main culprit of our demise, just look to the south, Umpqua 30-50k native escapement yearly, a watershed, where logging runs rampant, farmed all along it's banks, and habitat problems like most of our waters, fished to death..... But no nets. The Queets far less habitat problems, but can't even make minimal escapement most years...... But it is netted to death.

We know what the problem is, yet we continue to point fingers every where else. Without major intervention, they will perish as they are doing now......

The second problem in the sound is, with both Salmon and steelhead, is we net most of the bait fish. The sound is our nursery, and we send the out to find little to no food in the nursery, years ago all summer long it was a Bait fish Mecca, now you have to search for bait. They don't survive because the fridge is empty....

it is true that over harvest is the problem and always has been the problem. I remember years ago I was at Bob's house and he told me about a book he either had or had read which was written by the UW fisheries department and published 2 years before the Bolt Decision in 1970. The book was a survey of the Quileute system and cited that it was the healthiest and most productive system in the state and even in 1970 less than 1% of the available spawning habitat was being utilized.

My dad knew a guy who died in his 90s in the early 1990's, he lived in Port Townsend and and actually died in a car wreck on his way home from fishing the west end. He started fishing the West End Rivers back in the early 1930's. He told my dad that you could stand in one hole all day, any day of the year it was not overloaded with spawning salmon and hook steelhead one after another.

Look at much of ALaska, huge runs of salmon and honestly very volatile river conditions, lots of silt and 4 months worth of available habitat to the fish VS 12 months down here yet empty rivers here compared to there.

I believe habitat and the pollution issue plays much less of a role than we are told. Salmon will spawn in a ditch alongside the road, I saw pinks and sockeye do it up in Alaska when I was a kid. If the fish are present they will find a way to complete their life cycle. If they are not present they can't reproduce. It's as simple as that....

Now that Rich G has weighed in, we can rest in confidence that habitat health and ocean survival conditions are not a problem when it comes to salmon and steelhead abundance.

BTW Rich, the Boldt Decision was in Feb. 1974, so exactly which year was it that the UW fisheries department book you referred to was published?

Rich has had more predictions come true than you. Too bad you never sought his advice or wisdom. We might have some more steelhead if you had.

"A gamefish is too valuable to be caught only once". - Lee Wulff

Well, that'll work for half of them..........

"If it ain't one thing, it's a mothafuckin nother."

-Snoop Dog

Other than the Trump win, what has Rich G accurately predicted? Sasquatch? No. Gnomes? No. SHTF on Tuesday? No. Market collapse? No. So what else then?

I think "Dimples" beat him to it, Coley.

Seriously funny, and worth a listen.... even if just once.



"My fukkin 2-bit job went on strike...
I put up with a lot of crap I don't like...
And to add to my woes...
This UGLY woman named Sadie...
Called and said she's havin' MY baby

Lawd, have mercy!"

Speak

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....

Evo-

The last two years the Nisqually has had an up tick in wilds steelhead returns as well. In fact the 2016 was the largest in 25 years. Could it be that the marine survival issues for PS steelhead are turning around? Guess we will know in a few more years.

curt

Had to comment-probably as it's raining hard out and a guy as old and sweet as I could melt under these conditions. I used to steelhead fish a lot from the banks of small wadeable creeks and rivers on the peninsula and hood canal: Duckabush, Dosewallips, Morse creek, Salt Creek, Lyre River, East & West Twin, Deep Creek, Pysht and Clallam.... you get the picture. Only the Pysht and Clallam were netted then. Now, if you look at the regulations you will find only some are C & R or are open when steelhead are not expected to be present or for hatchery only. This looks good on paper until you realize there have been no hatchery plants for a number of years on these rivers which are too small to float. C & R is just not an option on these small creeks-witness the lack of a number of cars/trucks you see along side parking areas at those streams open to C & R. WDFG and their biologists have systematically made those streams non-fishable. One way to make them fishable again is to plant them and open them up to create more diversified areas to fish for when the fish return. Habitat and population have not changed in the last 50 years in those areas. If each of you open and read the regulations, you will find similar situations in areas you know and 'used' to fish!

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.

Errrrrrrmeeeerrrrrghhheeerrrrrdddddd....

Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiirrrrrnnnn.....

Brrrrrrrrooooowwwwwwwwwwn......

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....

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

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.

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.

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

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!!!!!!!!

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.