According to the "Comprehensive Management Plan for Puget Sound Chinook: Harvest Management Component" just released by the state and tribes, "[t]here is no evidence of long-term or continuing trends in declining size or age at maturity for Puget Sound Chinook Salmon." p. 90.

I was surprised to see this statement, as it seems at odds with discussions I seen here and elsewhere. Perhaps it's because they appear to be only looking at data from the last 30-40 years, or maybe I'm missing something. In any event, I'm curious to get reactions, especially from current and retired fisheries professionals.

I know there's lots of other stuff in the plan that demands more attention, but this topic has always fascinated me. I grew up fishing P.S. with my dad beginning in the early 1970s and I recall stories from him and his cohorts about giant kings of year's past.

Brian

When that statement was first made, in the initial state/tribal plan, many bios commented rather forcefully on the draft. The authors found creative ways to ensure the comments were not made public or responded to.

You are correct that they took a short data base. That is a very good way to cover past sins. Not only in loss of age/size but loss of abundance. If you "forget"how big they were or how old they were then you never need to restore those. Shifting baselines.

All that said, other stuff is beginning to happen in the ocean that is shrining fish and it is not the fisheries that catch them. Food resources are vanishing. The super-abundant pinks, at least in relationship to the rest of the species, are out-competing them.

The most interesting, to me, is that the warmer water selects against/kills big salmon. Say that there is plenty to eat but a belly full nets you 1000 calories per day. At some point, basic metabolism (it goes up as temp goes up in cold-blooded animals) consumes more than that 1000. The result is that you eventually starve with a full belly.

I would say that almost everyone in the industry is in agreement that there has been a shift from a 4 year old dominant class to a 3 year old dominant class with an almost complete lack of historic 5 year olds.....

a chart on page 22 shows the commercial catch of Chinook in Puget Sound from

1980 to 1989, averaged about 225,000 chinook per year,
1992 to 2016, averaged about 90,000

This comments on numbers, not weight/siz as you originally commented, but I wonder what the correlation is and how fisheries managers interpret the data into policy.

Some of that would be changes in hatchery production (reduction). In the 80s, the return of Fall Chinook to Bellinghma/Samish was 100-125K. I suspect it is a lot less now. Similarly, lots of PS programs got reduced because of impacts to wild runs. Even more noticeable in steelhead (the reduction, that is).

Thanks for the response, Carcassman,

WDFW indicates NMFS will prepare an EIS to evaluate the plan. Accordingly, at minimum, there will be an opportunity to comment at the scoping stage and on the draft EIS. As you know, scoping comments inform what issues need to be addressed in the EIS, and NMFS will be required to respond to public comments on the draft EIS. The EIS process thus could be a good opportunity for the bios you reference to ensure their concerns are made public and responded to.

Of course, to avoid the "no evidence" response, the bios will have to produce facts and data that back up their concerns.

Us lay people don't usually have the fact and data, much less the expertise, to substantiate these types of concerns, so I hope you and others will press your concerns during the NEPA process.

That's the way it started last time. When WDFW staff raised age, size, and Marine Derived Nutrient issues WDFW was suddenly added as authors so that the comments were all internal. As such, they did not need recognition or response.

It was risky then to come at issues from the outside. Numerous staff were told that they could only profess the company line, regardless of whether or not they were on or off the clock. I doubt that situation has improved...

The huge difference in catches between the 1980s and the later 1992 to 2016 is driven by several factors. During the late 1970s and early 1980s there was a dramatic increase in the release of sub-yearling hatchery Chinook. The early period also was fortunate enough to have experience a much productive ocean; from the mid- 1990s average smolt adult survivals has been about 1/2 of that seen during the earlier period.

In addition following the ESA listing of Puget Sound Chinook the overall exploitation rates on wild Chinook populations have been reduced approximately 1/2.

Regarding the potential decreasing size of the Puget Sound Chinook. As discussed on earlier threads there is no doubt that the hatchery Chinook are getting smaller; fewer older fish, earlier maturing, and slower growing. The traits such as size, run timing, spawn timing, etc. for wild Chinook are shaped by natural selection process in their environment. Those forces operate in both the salt and freshwater habitats and include many factors including selection forces from fishing as well as spawning gravel size, flows, etc. in freshwater. Those forces often operate in contradicting ways. In the case those forces have shaped the current day Skagit Chinook which with the exception of lost of the oldest fish appears to have remain much the same the latest few decades. That however doesn't mean that the Skagit Chinook have not gotten smaller.

An old report for the 1920s (Smith and Anderson) report that a century ago an in-river commercial fishery on the north fork of the Skagit during the month of May caught approximately 18,000 Chinook (spring Chinook?). The interesting note was that the gill net used in that fishery had a 9 1/2 inch mess; in today's Chinook fisheries the standard gear uses 7 1/2 inch nets for Chinook.

Even if today's Skagit Chinook the last few decades have had stable fecundities that does not mean that the have retained the same productivity (ability to produce future adults) that they once had. In fact in the same report referred to by Brian the current productivity of Skagit Chinook is only a fraction (less than 1/4) they once were. Undoubtedly that productivity loss is a combination of both changes in productivity of both the habitat and the fish. I don't know the contribution of both factors to the over all changes.

Curt

As females get smaller, they become less fecund. They also are not able to bury eggs as deep. Given the same freshet, the smaller females will suffer more scour. Fewer fry produced.

Productivity is not a fixed point but rather moving as situations change. I keep using the AL/pink relationship. At a constant 60% harvest rate the coho produced 1,000-8,000 harvest depending on pink escapement for the fry.

To me, that says that our current situation, with somewhat degraded habitat, regulated flows, lack of MDN gives one level of productivity. Change any ONE of those and you move productivity to a different level.

If we want those 18,000 springers in the Skagit then we need to recreate the conditions under which they lived and this would include the whole ocean as well as land. If we don't want to do that, then we get something different.

There are plenty of non-WDFW/NOAA/Tribal folks that are willing to push these issues but who lack the technical knowledge. Those with knowledge, even if otherwise conflicted, need to help get these issues addressed. One way would be to feed information to folks that can and will push these issues during NEPA, plan development, NOF, etc.

Pure and utter BS.... BUT....

"Long term" and "continuing trends" may be the weasel words that make the statement true.

Any gawdam fool knows the PNW kings of today are hella'smaller than their historic size. How does any thinking man doubt the evidence of his own eyes. And it's not just Puget Sound. It's everywhere!

Perhaps because the fish have become so small that they can't possibly get any smaller without crashing the entire population. Mebbe that's the basis for their warped thinking.

Or they're simply just liars.

In order to change the age and size there need to be significant changes in how the ocean is managed. NO harvest on immature fish. That's the easy part. Then you have to stop destroying the food base.

Plus, there are many fisheries where the actual catch of Chinook is minuscule compared to the target stock. Gonna close a trawl fishery that catches tens of thousand (millions?) of pounds of the target and incidentally takes a few thousand Chinook? Nah.

The productivity of our fisheries in the 16-17- and maybe 1800s had to be due, at least in part, to the fact that the high seas were pretty much left alone. How much damage are we doing to the ecosystem by taking, even at "sustainable" rates, resources that have not been harvested until now? They did not exist in an ecological vacuum.

Too many mouths to feed.

wsu-
While there may be a number of non-WDFW?NOAA/tribal folks willing to address the shrinking Chinook issue the reality is that to date those folks do not seem to have engaged in the debate. That issue has been brought forward in NOF as well as on various boards. In the case of the NOF process in spite of the issue being placed on the table a number of times over the last decade those participating in the process or the sport fish advisors have been unwilling to even discuss the issue.

While as CM suggests the issue potentially require a global approach there are local (Washington) acts that could be helpful. First and foremost would be the winter blackmouth fishery which impacts substantially more sub-adults than the summer fishery. Perhaps an area that might provide the most immediate benefits to the fishers would with the hatchery Chinook. Every year there are several Puget Sound hatcheries that have significant surplus rack returns (from 1,000s to 10,000s). For those programs it would rather straight forward to apply some reverse selective on the brood stock ; that is selecting for larger/faster growing individuals.

Curt

As long as we keep fishing on immature fish we will significantly impeded recovery of big old fish. How do the get big? They are aggressive feeders. Makes them easier to catch.

Although it is trout, the experiance on the St Joe with Westslopes is useful. They put a 13" minimum size on the fish, selective gear so they would spawn once, and let 'er rip. Got really good recovery and creel checks showed the average size of harvested fish was something like 13.1". On Kelly Cr, with purely C&R, you got fish pushing 20".

We had these huge fish when the primary (close to only) fisheries were in the bays and rivers on adults.

Ideally, we should close down all kill fisheries on all juvenile fish. Once we see what happens and what the stock do we can ramp up harvest. I believe that as long as we tweak the current fisheries we just fiddle with the rate of extinction.

Well, this proves they aren't at all afraid of lying to us, in case any of you were still questioning that.

Has there ever been a fishing revolution? If not, I think it's time to get one rolling. These "Co-managers" are clearly not worthy of our trust, and they are clearly not willing to make the decisions that must be made to get back ANY of what has been lost. Lying to us won't make the problems go away....

Cough...bullchit...cough.

Everybody knows trophy hunting (and fishing) removes good genes

So,

stop lying (NSFW)

Maybe yes, maybe no.

Trophy hunting for antlered game will generally take males at the "peak" of fitness. As they age, antlers get thinner and lose mass and points. It does seem that the Quality Deer Management, at least as applied to whitetail, works over a span of a decade or two. Can be done, just would take severe restrictions and put most of the harvest on females and really messed-up antlered males.

Horned game has the horns growth throughout life. It is at least theoretically possible to harvest a past-reproductive prime animal and still get good horns.

With predators, the trophy is skull measurements. I don't think the skull gets smaller with age so, again, you can take an animal that has at least had a few years of breeding.

Fish is trickier as some species spawn once which means you do remove the "trophy" genes completely from the next generation. Consequently, severely limiting take and accessing only mature fish could work.

Limiting take is pretty key. IMO - you really can't have future baby BIG kings if you kill BIG mama egg barge before she hits the gravel.

But for the WDFW to say that fish aren't getting smaller overall is hogwash. The evidence spans 100 years.

Yeah, but not the last 15 minutes. There has to be no effect because if there is, then the Feds and Co-Managers have to do something about it.

You have to start with the answer you want and then work backwards to craft a plan that meets those needs.

I shouldn't, perhaps, be so pessimistic. The loss is age and size, historically, is yje marine mixed stock hook and line fisheries. There is politically (almost) no way that BC and AK will give those up. Too important economically to them. It would probably cost us (WA) Fraser sockeye and pink and that's off the table. Since nobody takes AK's fish, so there is nothing to trade, all it will take is money to buy them out.

Since we can't fund schools, infrastructure, mental health, or much else down here just what tree will we pluck to get that boatload of money?