Salmo, I echo Larry's thank you for your information. My condolences to the loss of your steelhead smolts. But it is not surprising considering the large (and growing) Harbor seal population in the South Sound.

Lifter99 are you accepting it now because Salmo said it? If I were you, i would too. He knows his stuff.
Stonefish posted the numbers. Did you look at them? I reviewed them again and have looked at them many times. What do you see from 1990 to 2004 on the Nisqually. Or what do you see on the Cedar river? How about all of the other creeks on the list that have not been fished? You see a decrease in wild fish numbers on every stream, even for the smaller watersheds outside of the puget sound. So my point is that if you like fishing and harvesting then you need to support hatchery steelhead and salmon. In my opinion, you are a hypocrite if you are for preserving wild steelhead and yet at the same time you are advocating for catch and release seasons on rivers like the Skagit. You are only advocating for what suits you the best and you think that that should apply to everyone else. If you truly care about wild steelhead then don't fish on them and don't support a CnR season on wild steelhead on the Skagit. So have you done your research? If so then please explain yourself again in light of the numbers presented.
Those who are against hatcheries have drunk the kool-aid that the government has given you to think that the mixing of the wild and hatchery fish is what is causing the decline in wild fish populations. The department gave you this based on a poorly done outdated study from Oregon that does not apply. The result is that they have to produce less fish which costs them less money. It is a win win for the government to spend less on hatchery fish and it is also a win for farm raised fish. If the department is producing/raising less fish then there needs to be less employees working for the department. Interestingly though, there has not been a decrease in employees for WDFW but rather an increase at the cost of our hatchery fish.

Elijah,

It is pretty widely accepted that pinniped predation and marine survival are the most likely culprits limiting to PS steelhead. Some years yield excellent survival with a lot of fish returning, others do not. It is incredibly unlikely we will ever be able to harvest wild steelhead ever again, but it is most likely we will have opportunities to fish for them in catch and release seasons. Catching and killing fish is 100% mortality. Catch and release fisheries are a small fraction of 100% mortality and may be the only strategy to allow us any opportunity to fish.

Just because many of us are okay with that and you aren't doesn't mean you get to dictate what should be done. I will take a wild guess that if projections estimated 1 fish over minimum that permitted a fishery, you wouldn't hesitate to get your harvest on.

I'd rather spend my weekends (or weekdays) out on the water having fun instead of watching Football. I support hatcheries and preserving wild fish. You are a hypocrite and are only supportting what suits yourself. Look at yourself. You aren't any different. Since you acknowledge that Salmo knows his stuff, you might want to read where he suggests that the Nisqually be considered for a RMP.


Matt

Actually, there is evidence from a number of PS streams that steelhead respond very positively to significant increases in salmon spawning escapement. Noted in BC, too. Much of that was on brood years through about 2005; looking to expand that view with more recent data and see if the pinnipeds overwhelmed them recently.

In my experience there is no one silver bullet to solve the salmonid problem. Actually, there is, but removal of 90% of the humans is not an option. They need good habitat, and that includes not only passage/etc. but spawning salmon. As Jeff Cederholm said "Salmon are habitat". They need decent spawning numbers made up of fish that evolved in that system. They need that the predators be in balance with their (the fishes) population. They need food in the estuary and ocean. They need a cooler world.... They absolutely need that the management agencies responsible for their survival and flourishing to be fully funded.

Taken as one action, killing all the pinnipeds won't save steelhead, closing all the hatcheries won't save steelhead, even removing all migration barriers won't save them. We need a holistic program, which means that every impact be dealt with.

I'd put a dollar that shutting down commercial fishing would save them and they'd rebound better than Charles Barkley. Just saying.

Elijah, Sure I am going to support what Salmo said. He is a retired fisheries bio. His thoughts and the numbers from Stonebreath are basically the same ones numbers I saw. There was a short c/r fishery on the Skagit for steelhead in 2018 with another planned for 2019 I buy my license(s) every year so I do support hatchery production. I harvest hatchery fish. I support c/r fishing (with selective gear rules) when the numbers of wild steelhead support it. That is not being a hypocrite. I think most would agree that we will never be able to harvest wild steelhead again in Washington. I think that is wonderful.
Raising hatchery fish is so much more expensive now. Just operation of the hatcheries (feed,power,etc.) costs more You are going to get less fish for the money now. "Less bang for the buck" so to speak. Gov. Inslee has proposed more money for hatchery production in his proposal to save the SRKW.

I like the Steelhead discussion. Thanks for elaborating the details. Fond memories for sure. I really miss the opportunities that used to exist, which brings up a question. Why have their not been RMP's on the South Sound rivers like the Nisqually, Puyallup and Green? It seems it took lots of pressure just to get the Skagit CnR open a few days a month. Why is it so difficult to get moving on this? Is their a schedule on the books to complete them? I am a CnR supporter but also am a hatchery supporter and enjoy harvest. So disappointing not to have any opportunity for South Puget Sound Winter Steelhead.

RUNnGUN asked: "which brings up a question. Why have their not been RMP's on the South Sound rivers like the Nisqually, Puyallup and Green?"

And a good question it is. First, I'd say that steelhead RMPs at best, are a distant blip on the WDFW radar. Compared to all the fish management stuff the agency is required by law to do every year, steelhead are like an annoying fly in the oinment. The fisheries are small in total, not much money is involved, so no large lobbying efforts are made. We're talking about pocket change that's lost in the lint in a deep corner of the pocket. That's a lot of words to say that it is a very low priority.

Second, unlike the Skagit, where even the low returns have been near or not much lower than the spawning escapement guideline, steelhead returns to south sound rivers have been far below escapement goals, except for 2015 and 2016. It's harder to justify the time and resources necessary to develop RMPs for river systems when run forecasts suggest that there are not enough fish to support a fishing season most year. I was probably overly optimistic about the Nisqually. It did look promising those two years, and I haven't sought the escapement estimates for '17 and '18. I think we need a basin by basin deep dive spawner-recruit analysis to see what the future for PS steelhead fishing might look like.

Thanks again, Salmo. Do you think it is NOAA just being slow on the permitting process to allow a c/r fishery or is it the numbers returning just aren't large enough to allow a fishery. On the numbers I saw for 2015, the Puyallup had more returning wild spawners than the Nisqually. I think it was a little more than 2000 for the Nisqually and more than 2300 for the Puyallup. I did see where in 2005, only 98 wild steelhead returned to the Puyallup. In 2015, the wild steelhead return on the Puyallup was the highest in 25 years. I agree that steelhead RMP's are not a high priority.

RUNnGUN, you have to doubt that there will ever be hatchery steelhead planted in the Puyallup again. One of the last years that it was planted only a couple of steelhead returned the Voight's Creek hatchery out of a plant of 200,000 smolts. Kind of a waste of money for WDFW. Sad.

Agreed, the returns to Voight were pathetic.
I think one year they got like 9 fish back on a plant of 150K or so.
I believe the tribes run a hatchery broodstock program on the White River.

Having a early run of hatchery fish again on the Cowlitz would be nice to see again it the future.
That would take pressure off a lot of other systems and increase winter steelhead hatchery harvest opportunities.
I doubt it will happen but I thought there was talk about something like that in the past.
With the barrier dam in place, I can’t think of a better place to insure that hatchery fish can be separated from whatever they are trying to accomplish with the later returning fish.
SF

My short term memory is still fairly good and I recall that the grand pronouncements for the revitalized Puyallup hatchery included 300k steelhead.

Edit: When asked how those steelhead will contribute to our fisheries the response from WDFW was that they will be part of a recovery effort. That means no fishery. Kind of like the 800k White River springers they plan on propagating there. We may benefit from any Coho if they ultimately decide to raise some Coho. Orca recovery may change those plans.

Hatchery salmon are no longer being recycled into the river for nutrients on many of the rivers in Washington state in favor of them being sold to fish buyers. Just another compounding problem to the decrease in both salmon and steelhead.
My point is that hatchery fish must go on and be supported if you all would like to harvest a fish as opposed to the catch and release folks.
Raising hatchery fish does not have to be as expensive if they were not mated randomly. The survival rates would go way up if the department would do away with this gene diluting policy and do thier own natural selection.

I know on my nearby river(Puyallup) a large portion of the chinook and coho carcasses from Voight's Creek hatchery are put into the upper Puyallup for nutrient enhancement.

Lifter, a large portion would suggest more than 75 percent. Those fish were recycled by us volunteers on 2 days and did not represent a large portion. How many would you estimate we recycled out of those that returned? Again please do your research before making statements.
Voights is unique and in the minority. If you do your research you will be surprised at how many rivers are no longer putting the dead fish back into the river. Please let us know if you know of any others.

I had friends who volunteered there the last couple of years and they recycled fish on more than two days. Both kings and silvers. Do you research? Maybe you volunteered for two days but others worked more days. Kings early and coho later.

Well, I talked to my friend who headed the recyling at Voight's and they recyled 4 days for kings and 4 days for coho. More than 2000 fish of each species. They have a permit to recyle that many. Gary Loomis and his group handles the southwest Washington Streams. Haven't heard yet about up North. You need to do more research.

I forgot to mention that the Puyallup tribe recycles there fish also.

There is a last little bit about steelhead and hatcheries that isn't often talked about, even by the researchers. I have tried to get them to consider it, but....

For years, the WDG steelhead model was to incubate and rear the eggs on the warmest water possible. This promotes faster growth so age-1 smolts are easier to achieve. Basically, they were cultured on groundwater. Salmon were basically cultured on surface water which more mimicked natural conditions.

As cold-blooded animals, their enzyme systems are not only genetically inherited but often selected for temperature ranges. A fish that lives in 50 degree water year around will not function well in 35 degree and it is genetic.

So, in order to develop "local" stocks we, for example, started to culture the Puyallup steelhead at Voight's rather than Chambers/South Tacoma. They performed poorly because they simply could not function well in the water temperature regime. I think that this is one reason why hatchery steelhead perform poorly when asked to function as eggs and juveniles in the wild. Not all the reason, but big part.

That is interesting. I know that prior to the relocation of the Puyallup Steelhead hatchery operations to Voights Crk.....I forget the year? the Puyallup's steelhead used to be raised at the Clarks Crk hatchery, a spring water source. I fished the Puyallup through the 70's until it closed. It seemed returns were better there. Out of Voights the run tanked. Marine survival played a role but maybe ground water sources do work better? At least on the Puyallup. Hopefully the Clarks Crk. hatchery renovations and 300,000 steelhead to be raised there will turn things around, get a Puyallup RNP, and open it up again right in time for my retirement!