All the posting on Chinook salmon got me thinking about the Elwha River and if there is current data "on the recovery of this river"

I live at the other end of the OP and have no need to drive to that area, I really should. Can others fill me and others what is taking place as far as type of fish returning, and numbers of returning fish. This will be an example of 2 dams removed and how quickly the whole environment rebounds....


Is the tribe, netting???? I remember there was a time frame.


Thanks, for anyone that comments......

Thanks for posting these Evo, my perception is that the natural history of salmonids has always been one of colonization. Give them areas to spawn and they will find them. For all of those that say that we can mitigate for dams causing fish blockage, the overall trend on the Elwha will give some heartburn. IMHO.

Return Year Marked Unmarked Total Percent Marked
2009 292 6 298 97.99%
2010 256 12 268 95.52%
2011 962 28 990 97.17%
2012 104 10 114 91.23%
2013 820 41 861 95.24%
2014 753 30 783 96.17%
2015 793 55 848 93.51%
2016 523 23 546 95.79%
2017 1039 40 1079 96.29%


Number of fish sampled at the weir (2009-2014) and spawning ground survey/hatchery sample (2014-2017).

Lower Elwha dam removed early 2012 (first 3 year old adults return in 2015 that could access habitat between dams).

Glines (upper dam) removed August 2014 (first 3 year old adults return in 2017 that had access to upper watershed).

All interesting and informational, thanks for posting. Are there any "big chinook" that might keep have the genetic history to someday have a chance to return 100 pound fish to the Elwha?


In Grays Harbor there have been 50+ Chinook caught, since I arrived in the area, 1968, but the stories of these large Chinook are fewer as the years pass, are we headed, like in Willapa Bay for overall decrease in size, to where a 35 pound Chinook is a "big fish" ?????

hard to say if the 50lbers dont exist anymore because they spend the longest in the ocean and have a high probability of being caught before they reach max size or that the genetics were lost in the watershed when it was cut off. probably a bit of both.

there is 50+ pound fish that come up the Carbon every year, so i wouldnt doubt that they are coming in other rivers as well....

probably just more elusive than the others, hard to say....

Blenny has it right.

We won’t be seeing 100+lb Chinook on the Elwha Rv until the fishing pressure in the SE Alaska/Northern BC fishery goes down considerably.

The reason we don’t see these large Chinook anymore is because they don’t live long enough. They get caught before they can reach their terminal body size. Nobody releases a 50lb Chinook in the ocean hoping it will grow to 80+lbs (even though it might). Those 50lbers get bonked and filleted.

https://www.opb.org/news/article/chinook-salmon-size-shrink-orca-oregon-washington/

Only when there is a serious reduction in ocean harvest will we see really big Chinook on the Elwha. Or the Columbia. Or the Fraser. Or the Chehalis.

Only when there is a serious reduction in ocean harvest will we see enough large Chinook to help feed the Southern Resident orcas.

Only when there is a serious reduction in ocean harvest will we see enough large Chinook on the Columbia to restore the ‘June hogs’ upstream of Grand Coulee.

Only when there is a serious reduction in ocean harvest will we see enough large Chinook anywhere on the Pacific Coast that resembles what used to be fairly common.

My point is not new to those of us who have been on this forum for years.

100% agreed Cohoangler. If politicians were serious about the SRKW they would curtail ocean fisheries and promote terminal fisheries. Instead we do both. Kill the chinook in mixed stock fisheries in the ocean and then mop up the rest in terminal areas. What we get is barely enough escapement and dismal native returns. Larger sized chinook would increase the hunting efficiency of killer whales whereas now the whales need to catch a number of "dinks" to get a meal when one or two would do in years past. Terminal fisheries would take fish only after they've passed by the Orcas.

Mixed stock fisheries and bycatch in canada and Sw alaska need to be modified if we want more wild fish and bigger ones too. a handful of pairs of well fed 6+ year age class Chinook can produce a hell of a lot more eggs and fry than and equivalent # of their younger counterparts. for a wild run to be strong there needs to be multiple life histories present in the system this allows the population to hedge its bets in the event that certain life histories do not return well or if passage to spawning grounds are blocked. this is especially true for spring and summer returning chinook and steelhead.

hatchery supplementation does not do a good job at producing multiple life histories of chinook and steelhead because it would be highly complex to rear the fry under the various conditions as well as maintain the genetics in the hatchery stock to accomplish this. in hatchery systems all fry are reared in similar conditions for cost and ease of operation - even if the genetics are there the fry require epigenetic changes during rearing in order to express all of their behavioral life histories.

the only hatchery that can produce all the types of fish required for a healthy population is the environment and the only way we can get all of the fruits of that natural production back is by limiting mixed stock fisheries. the fish we are getting back right now wild or hatchery are exactly what humans are selecting for via our policy and behaviors regarding the environment.

Couple things to remember about Chinook. Originally, they were big water fish. They grew to large sizes because it was necessary to be that big to successfully reproduce. More eggs in a big female, the redd is dug in bigger gravel, the redd is deeper which protects the eggs from scour better.

Unfortunately, our escapement goals are almost always based on numbers of fish and 20,000 Chinook averaging 20 pounds are going to perform a lot differently on the grounds than that same 20K at 40 pounds.

To add to blennys comments, we now know that coho will smolts as fry and fingerlings to the estuary, as fall smolts to the marine waters, will use lakes and ponds to produce incredibly more smolts than a creek does and yet our escapement goals are based on spring smolts produced in a stream.

We are cutting out myriads of life history trajectories because they are inconvenient to our activities.

Agreed. Let’s also recognize that ocean harvest takes Chinook while they are actively feeding and growing. They have not yet reached their terminal body size. Those fish will continue to grow until their genetics tell them to stop, and then start heading for home.

Conversely, harvest at the river mouth takes Chinook that have grown all they’re going to. At that point, they’ve reached their terminal size, and aren’t getting any bigger. Plus, as has been pointed out, the orcas will have taken all the Chinook they can. So limiting harvest to terminal areas will provide larger fish, more fish, and more larger fish. For everybody.

There are lots of reasons why ocean harvest is both wasteful (short circuiting future production) and inefficient. Yet it continues…..

I would also note that the Chinook originating in the Elwha Rv should still have the genetic ques to stay in the ocean longer so they can achieve the body size necessary to ascend the Elwha Canyon Rapids, and spawn in the mainstem Elwha. If those fish can live long enough to achieve 50+lbs, we may yet see those fish return to the Elwha.

Another thing about marine harvest is that it is fuel-wasteful. Why chase something that is going to come to you?

Burning fuel, yes, but to answer your questions why?
Tweakers breaking into cars
"Combat Fishing"
Human feces closing shellfish beds at the Skok.
The pain of watching snaggers at work.
Watching anchors and waders and 4x4's rototil redds.

What about a middle point? Open within 3 miles of a terminal location.

Your points of terminal harvest are well taken, but from a sporting viewpoint, I think open water is more sporting than river fishing (concentration of fish). Not saying either is better, just that there are pros and cons, 2 sides to a coin, to each their own, etc.

(And Yes, I have a 21' Wellcraft.)

stonefish:

thanks...….I got my email......guess I should have waited a few days, this thread wouldn't have been needed.


Glad they are waiting for a few for years.....might will help in the long range recovery????

Ned – I would consider fishing within a few miles of the tribs to be terminal fishing. My point is about commercial/international fishing in the Gulf of Alaska, and offshore of SE AK and Northern BC. These are the feeding grounds for Pacific salmon. Likely out of reach of your 21’ Wellcraft (even with twin Evinrude 200's).

We should leave the fish alone while they’re out there.

Understood. The points about maximizing size and the low holing analogy were spot on for me.
We've all seen the stats about how many fish are caught up north at our expense (hatchery operation costs to produce, habitat expenses, income to WA economy from recreational fishing, etc). Those, coupled with your points, add up to basically a HUGE SUBSIDY that we are providing the northern fishers at our expense.

(and, oh, my buddy's boat has twin 300's. Just one of those would sink my wellcraft!)

Ecosystem Monitoring of the Elwha River - Youtube

This is a great video that describes all the ways this watershed has changed after dam removal. Having the complexity of tributaries and the fact that this river & tributaries are in a pristine undeveloped habitat mean that there is a good chance that the river could become a premier fishery in the next 10 years or so.

There are both summer run and winter run steelhead that have made it deep upriver and coho and chinook are beginning to colonize the upper reaches. Pink and chum which historically had large runs on that river are not doing as well due to the sedimentation and they have not made it as deep into the river system as some of the other fish. Kokanee in lake Sutherland may revert to their Sockeye life history now that fish passage is possible which is very interesting.

I heard an interesting take by a biologist who was not happy with the indian supplemental coho and chinook hatchery production because they raise those fish to much larger sizes and release them in a huge bolus into the estuaries instead of staggered and steady release- those large chinook and coho fry eat a lot of the smaller native fish smolt that are rearing in the estuary as well as displace and compete with them for food during rearing. The development of the river's runs may be slowed somewhat due to the tribes intention of fishing the river as fast as possible. I think that they have agreed to limit coho production at least for the next few years.

I imagine we'll find that, despite its pristine habitat and storied history, the Elwha will see escapements very similar to those in neighboring streams (which is to say disappointing or worse). Habitat dictates how many smolts a river can produce; harvest plans limit how many will make it back to the river as adults. Nobody will be fishing the Elwha proper, but the Elwha's fish will be caught in the ocean at the same rate as every other river's fish...

Spawning and rearing habitat has everything to do with how many smolts leave a river to feed in the ocean, but next to nothing to do with how many fish return to a river to spawn. That's up to ocean conditions and human harvest.