Alternative commercial fishing gears to be tested

WASHINGTON DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND WILDLIFE Print Version
NEWS RELEASE
600 Capitol Way North, Olympia, WA 98501-1091 RSS Feeds

August 11, 2010
Contact: Pat Frazier (WDFW), 360-906-6711
John North (ODFW), 971-673-6029

Alternative commercial fishing gears
to be tested on lower Columbia River

OLYMPIA – Starting this week, fishery managers from Washington and Oregon will test the feasibility of five types of alternative commercial fishing gears on the lower Columbia River.

Expanding on a pilot project conducted last year, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) will work with commercial salmon fishers to test purse seines, beach seines and trap nets.

In addition, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) will work with a team of commercial fishers to test commercial troll gear and tangle nets during fall chinook and coho salmon runs.

Additional types of fishing gear will be evaluated in the future.

This year’s test fishing, funded primarily by NOAA Fisheries and an Oregon legislative appropriation, will be conducted from mid-August through October at various sites downstream of Bonneville Dam. Tests will include five purse seines, five beach seines, two trap nets, two trollers and three different types of tangle nets.

“Our shared goal is to identify and develop commercial fishing gear capable of catching large numbers of hatchery salmon, while also allowing for the safe release of wild fish,” said Pat Frazier, regional WDFW fish manager. “These tests are a critical step toward achieving that goal.”

Gears that achieve that goal could be approved for future use on the lower Columbia River, where gillnets are now the primary gear used in commercial fisheries. While gillnets are highly effective at catching salmon, alternative gears may increase the ability to release wild fish in good condition, Frazier said.

“Because many wild salmon and steelhead populations are listed for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act, impact limits on these fish often curtail fisheries even when large numbers of hatchery-reared fish are available for harvest,” said John North, ODFW Columbia River Fisheries manager.

Development of viable fishing gear that can selectively remove hatchery fish would not only benefit commercial fisheries, but may also contribute to the recovery of wild salmon stocks on the Columbia River by reducing interactions with hatchery fish, North said.

In that regard, the results of last year’s pilot project were promising, said Frazier, who oversaw gear tests conducted by WDFW. Working with a purse seine, beach seine and trap net, WDFW project members caught and sorted 884 salmon, of which only one died during handling.

“The immediate survival rate was very good, but we need to conduct further tests to determine if these, or other gear types, are viable on a commercial scale,” Frazier said. “We also need to test them in different areas and under different conditions. That will be a major focus of this year’s tests.”

Should be all set to go about the time they cut the hatchery releases.

Yeehawww!!!..............
































Not.



















Fish on...

Todd

i agree, this is about as retarded as it gets, any sportfisherman who supports this is really stupid.

...and they are still testing tangle nets.....

Hmmm, so today's commercial gear is not viable on the mainstem Columbia River?

Not as viable as what they're hoping to do...which is kill the same amount of wild fish while harvesting three, four, or ten times as many hatchery fish...sportfishing will be so fukked if this actually works.

Fish on...

Todd

Hey Todd, I finally get this.
How about if the other rules change and total harvest is based not on ESA limits but other harvest limits such as total numbers or pounds of fish caught.. More ESA survival? and "better" allocation of hatchery fish?

Seems to me that the problem is not selective fishing but the method of allocation.

They want all the hatchery fish out of the river, so they are not going to limit how many the commercials can take. ESA limits is the only limit and will be the only limit.

Feds are cutting way back on CR basin hatchery plants, CCA is pressuring for commercial selective harvest.
What a mess this is going to be.
Send more money to Texas.

Rick, as long as there are hatchery fish for harvest and ESA fish in the LCR, the limits will be set by the allowable mortality on the ESA stocks...it's the only way it can be done under the existing regulatory schemes, and the only way out of it would be to stop planting hatchery fish, or massively reduce them...which, of course, would run directly counter to the whole idea of this "selective fishing" idea, which is to put as many fish as possible in the holds of the commercial fishing vessels.

Fish on...

Todd

So if the commercials switch to more selective gear are allowable impacts on ESA going to be reduced?

As far as hatchery reduction goes and the availability of Mitchell fund act money for hatcheries, Alt 1 keeps the status quo, alt 2,3,4,and 5 each have on the top of there list;
reduce negative effects of hatchery programs on natural origin salmon and steelhead.

If you like and want hatcheries you better find a way to rid the hatchery fish off the spawning beds with wild.. Even if this is just one problem that needs to be resolved to retain funding, I see this working together instead of being counter productive.

If you don't like hatcheries and don't mind not fishing the CR for many years to come ----that can happen also.

It would appear that two scenarios are possible, one is to remove the long standing habitat log jams and increase native populations to the point where harvest is possible, the other involves a little ball and a club.

Not a chance...that would directly counter the reason for the selective gear, which is to increase harvest for the commercial industry.

Fish on...

Todd

Ok, I will bite. Why do you feel this would be a bad thing for sport? I stand neutral on this as of right now, so am truly curious what reasoning is on both sides.

There will be no reduction in ESA impacts...i.e., the same amount of ESA salmon will die in the various fisheries. The commercial guys, if this works, will harvest far more hatchery fish than they are now.

That's the entire point, to put more hatchery fish in the commercial totes...see any mention of how great this is for fish or fishing in the news release? Notice the multiple comments regarding commercial guys being able to harvest more and more fish?

The "may help" wild stocks is just lip service...the only way that would happen would be if they lowered the allowable ESA impacts, and that is not going to happen, since it would reduce the amount of hatchery fish the commercial guys can harvest, which would run directly counter to the only reason they're even doing this at all.

Fish on...

Todd

P.S. And the amount of change in hatchery fish on the spawning grounds will be so negligible as to be almost "zero"...

I think we can all agree that, in principle, selective commercial fishing is better for the future of wild fish than gill-netting. Granted, this plan has potential to negatively impact sport fishing, and it is reasonable to assume it will not immediately help wild fish populations. That said, we should be careful not to lose sight of the fact that a permanent change to this type of fishing would get those hated, non-discriminating instruments of mass destruction out of the river.

If this does turn out to be the crushing blow to sport fishing opportunity many expect it will be, sport fishers should have a legitimate beef to take up with the Legislature so that something can be done to correct the imbalance. I don't have a lot of faith in our Legislators' inclination to act in any interest other than their own, which is why I believe it will be important for us to be organized. Unless they believe their re-election depends on it, they are not likely to veer far from the status quo, so we will need to show up in numbers. If that's not enough, we could resort to playing the game the commercials have apparently been playing for decades by putting money where our mouths have been. If our license fees truly do add up to a large amount more than those paid by commercials, simply not purchasing licenses one year would make a loud statement that could not be ignored. If the Legislature still chose to ignore us, we could pool the money we would have spent on licenses, hire a lobbyist, and make a few strategic "campaign contributions." That's the American way, right?

Believe it or not, as naive as it may seem, I am actually fairly serious about this. If we can't beat the system, we might do well to make it our ally. I'm sure there are other reasons why this would not work, but I'm pretty sure the biggest reason is that we sport fishers choose, time and time again, to get hung up on our differences of opinion rather than finding our common ground and standing united. Whether you're a member of CCA, WSC, Long Live the Kings, etc. or choose not to associate with any of the groups out there advocating for wild fish because you don't agree with every stand they take, if you like to fish for salmon, steelhead, and/or sturgeon, this should be a cause you can believe in. If we all stood together on the things we agree on (one at a time, if that is the best pace we can muster), I believe we could rapidly turn this in our favor.

Gee, it might be time to invest in a Columbia River commercial fishing permit. I haven't been catching all that many on hook and line anyway.

Sg

If NMFS believes that opinion then there will be major cuts in hatchery funding. We all better find another location to fish in the future.

" Considered by the National Marine Fisheries Service, but all of it comes amid grim environmental news. Hatchery fish interbreed with wild fish, making wild fish more prone to disease".

Been saying this all along 1 group wants to go selective only, while another group wants the hatchery's gone. Obviously the 2 plans won't work well together, and it's pretty obvious why the tribe's haven't jumped head first into selective fishing when the pool is about ready to be drained.

There is more that one group that want to go selective only and subsequently want hatcheries to supply those fish.

The Colvilles are building a $41 million hatchery and plan on utilizing the most out of returning fish. Their quote:

"Additionally, and importantly, the Colville
Tribes have embarked on a well-funded program to
develop, test and deploy live-capture, fishing gears so
that we can harvest the substantial majority of our
ceremonial and subsistence fish (including spring
Chinook, sockeye, steelhead, and summer Chinook)
selectively by harvesting the marked hatchery-origin
fish while releasing wild fish unharmed to propagate
future generations.
The Colville Tribes will harvest selectively because we
believe the best available scientific information clearly
indicates that sufficient escapement of wild fish is
required to restore and promote the health of
anadromous salmonid populations and provide the
broodstock for our hatchery programs".

Seems like the only thing a few people here are concerned about is how many damn fish they can catch. We just had one of the best Spring Seasons on record with low impact rates.

Right now the Steelhead are going thru in record numbers. I have personally released more wild fish than ever but guess what? They are marked and cut from passing thru the walls of death. And all we hear is "Whahh I'm not going to get to catch as many fish as I did before." Thats right! Leave the nets in and kill undetermined numbers of wild fish and Steelhead. As long as you have those hatchery fish who cares?

All a few can think of is how many hatchery fish the commercials will be killing with 0 to 1 percent impact rates on wild fish.

Do they really believe the Departments are going to shut the sports off when they are the major source of funding? Read the Statutes before making statements that the commercials will get "all" or even the majority of the fish. Right now neither one of the groups can even begin to harvest all the hatchery fish.

As long as I can remember the sports have been pissed about the gillnets and trying to get them off the river. Why some here even suggested harvesting at the ladders! Talk about no impact rates! Golly do you think they would get all the fish in that scenario?

The Tribes are already under pressure from the Colvilles to consider low impact gear. The only reason they use gillnets is because the lower river kill netters use them. We taught them well!

Bottom line is the nets are killing wild fish in undocumented numbers. Each year scientists come up with new figures and managers try to justify the ancient, antiquated, indiscriminate gear. Wake up! It's not only killing hatchery fish! Its killing wild Salmon and Steelhead or injuring them so badly they can't spawn even when they do reach their destination. No one at the hearings want to talk about drop out rates, or even how many fish get tossed over the side and never recorded under cover of darkness.

Do you think Russia banned the use of gillnets so the commercials could get more fish?

Ghost nets are just another part of the equation. don't need to go into that. Anyone who can read knows what they do.

Selective fishing with tanglenets (gillnets to Steelhead) is a joke! But no one is laughing.

you are 100 percent wrong, if they get it down to a 0 to 1 percent release mortality rate it will just take them longer to kill the esa take that they have been allocated, plus, they will never get a 0 release mortality rate.

No kidding. Unbelievable!! Why on earth would a sportsfisher be concerned at all about being able to catch multiple fish they can take home and share with their family and friends? It just boggles the mind.

i dont think they will shut us off but they are going to make sportfishing suck and when this does happen afew of us here will have no problem saying "i told you so"

The point is you can. And at the same time you can support a system designed to NOT kill protected species. Or does that just go over your head?

That would really be in the Department's best interest now wouldn't it Boater? Have you ever sat on a committee of any kind? Or do you just sit behind your computer and pot shot CCA?

By the way I like your Avatar. Thank god we don't have any of those in our chapter. They actually go out and raise money instead of holding up a sign and begging for it.

I would re frame it like this: the selective gear would decrease harvest of native fish as a % of total fish caught. It is really hard to convince me that that is ever bad. I know it is more complicated than that, but that reaches my gut.

Logically, the commercial harvest is a related but not dependent variable. Commercial harvest can scientifically and practically (maybe not legally) be set by limits other than ESA impact.

Maybe selective commercial gear down low, with hatchery fish harvested en mass at terminal fishery sites? As much as I hate the hatchery brats that shoot right back up to the hatchery (and don't hold in the natural spots in the rivers) maybe that is the best long term. (I can see it now, reserved fishing sites on the piers going out into Reiter ponds) and harvest weirs just above. Uff Da.

Let me be clear on at least one point, I ultimately think gill nets should be eliminated from the CR. The ESA mortality is just too high. The SAFE zones will prove out within a couple of years whether they will work as a "terminal" fishery.

Also, I think one of the elephants in the room is the 13% ESA mortality the tribal co managers are entitled to with the remaining 2% split between non tribal commercials and sporties. Maybe a state or fed buy back of permits is the way to go.

Good conversation, thanks.

Decreasing allowable ESA impacts int that context works for me.

in that news release it says "“Our shared goal is to identify and develop commercial fishing gear capable of catching large numbers of hatchery salmon", how can that not effect sportfishing ?

thats only on the spring chinook run, there are other esa take amounts that the tribes get way more than the non-tribals

What it says to me and any other quick thinking individual who has monitored this fishery for the past 35 or so years is exactly that. Catch large numbers of hatchery salmon. And at the same time leave harmless the endangered species and protected species. Again large numbers of hatchery fish are left on the table after sport efforts to remove them have been exhausted. Case in point. the Willamette experienced large returns of hatchery salmon this spring. Sports caught their two fish limits over and over and quit fishing long before the fish quit coming. And the season and opportunity never closed. A neighbor of mine who is a very good salmon fisherman filled two hatchery tags and boated over 50 salmon. Other boats reported boating over 50 fish. Not guides either. Now I ask you again, How many damn fish can you eat? The reason we need to get those fish out of the river is to save wild fish. I'm not opposed to commercial fishing but I hate gillnets and what they do unintentionally to the wild resource.

POSA is coming! Be very afraid!

Boater,

In Oregon the state employees are legally bound to consider and support commercial fishing interests. It made financial and political sense when the laws were written, when there were larger commercial harvests attainable and sports fishing was just a hobby. That is at least a big part of why the CCA sponsored bill was written to continue commercial harvest selectively, there was/is no other legal alternative. I don't speak for the CCA but try to follow all the various arguments as best I can.

I do not yet know the WA regulatory legal system to know what is enshrined in law or not. I missed that news release - is there a link?

check the rcw`s title 77

Might want to take out a calculator and figure out what % 8000 is out of 400000 before you think that removing the non tribal gillnets is going to have a huge impact on recovering the spring salmon..

For some, this idea seems a little hard to grasp...but the math is easy, so I'll explain it for the fortieth time.

Assume that the gillnets they currently use have a 30% release mortality.

With the newer gear, if they knock that release mortality down to 5%, they will then fish long enough to catch SIX TIMES AS MANY WILD FISH, resulting in the EXACT SAME AMOUNT OF DEAD ESA SALMON...and much longer commercial seasons with many more hatchery fish harvested.

If you think that is good for fish or fishing, I've got a bridge to sell you, too.

Fish on...

Todd

sorry to tell you this but in order to do that we need to install weirs

And I suppose you are assuming that hasn't been considered?

Not sure which post you are responding to. Seems pretty clear.

HSRG reported less than 1.5% morality rates when they made their presentation at the Oregon Legislature last session. I defer to their figures until you or anyone else can prove otherwise. 5% handling rate is high for a seine capture. 12.5% is way low for tanglenets also. You continue to assert or assume that they will still be allowed to kill as many ESA fish as they have been in the past. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe by impacting fewer ESA fish the rates can then be lowered? Continuing to do the same thing and expecting different results is pure stupidity on the part of the managers. Yes your math works there.

I'm not blind to what you are saying. Its just that you are convinced the ESA allowable take will remain the same. I'm not but if it happens I'll buy you a steak and a drink to wash it down with. I have seen the mood changing slowly since CCA came into the picture. Like it or not Todd, they are the gorilla in the room and they are no longer ignored. CCA members. and not just $25 experts, now sit on most advisory groups and committees alongside other preferred groups. Many of them are retired biologists and scientists. I'll gladly pay the $25 until someone convinces me otherwise. So far they have not.

I saw this same nit picking, side choosing, back stabbing crap go on 25 years ago and told some guides the same thing. Keep fighting amongst yourselves. We are our own worst enemy and the gill netters love it.

As for the bridge, keep it, you may need it.

One more thing then I'm done. As the market gets saturated with fish the price goes down. They know it and they are not about to let that happen.

You're not going to saturate any market with fresh Columbia River spring Chinook...there's far more people and places that want it than there are in the entire river.

This would still be a loser for sporties and negligible, at best, for wild fish even if Mother Theresa had come up with it...it has nothing to do with the CCA or anyone else...just as a good idea doesn't care who has it, the same goes for a bad one.

Fish on...

Todd

P.S. I just used numbers for illustrative purposes in my previous post...if it's really only 1.5%, then that just means they'll encounter fifteen to twenty times as many wild fish before they are closed down, and will catch fifteen to twenty times as many hatchery fish as they do now...and the ones that die in the fish friendly seines are just as dead as those that die in the "walls of death"...

Thanks guys for the really "Good Stuff," but as much as I am loving this, really true, I have to go to bed. The morning comes ringin' a'early.

I think these dialogs are what bring us all along, and so, reluctantly, I go to bed.

Very, very,

Ok Todd I'll give you the last word on this. Now has anyone seen that dead horse around anywhere?

This argument is pointless. Its not going to be settled on the pages of PP or IF. Fortunately!

So this is what I'm getting currently the spring non-tribal impact is 2.2% or less depending on run size. The primates are convinced that by reducing that to say 1.4% that this is going to spark the recovery that has been alluding us for years..Thanks but I'll support Redden and a few other groups that are alittle more evolved.

We all want the same thing. Why are so many people hung up on the fact that this solution isn't perfect yet? At the very least, one argument I can safely make is that wild fish are certainly no worse off for this development. If all commercial fishing were going to continue with gillnets, I could not confidently say the same.

We all agree that gillnets need to go, right? If that's true, then we should all be celebrating the fact that successful test runs of this alternative gear will spell the beginning of the end for walls of death. True, sports fishing may suffer in the short term, but haven't we all got enough life experience to know that an elephant needs to be eaten one bite at a time?

Let's get the gillnets out of the river while we can and use the political power we DO have (provided we stand together) to take the next step and get the allowable ESA impact levels reduced. The issues surrounding salmon and steelhead recovery are far too numerous and complex to be dealt with in a single piece of legislation. Let's grab whatever momentum this gives us and build on it.

where are you getting your info that says they wont use gillnets after they have this new selective method perfected ??

You really are cynical. Seine fisheries are already common in the salt here and Alaska, they just are not requiring the separation of wild fish. Which means the dept has ordered seine nets. In respect to your question, the Youtube video of the selective harvest legislation, the gillnetter told Blake, NOAA already told them, selective or the plants get cut. But, then you might have missed that, since you cropped the video times to suit your agenda. You cut off witness on the front and the back end.


I also find it amusing that no one from California ever bothers to chime in on these monthly cry baby sessions. About the time Washington and Oregon made gillnets the only legal gear on the CR. California banned them altogether. Guess there isnt any sportfishing in California.


Maybe the Lawyer/mathematician could explain how the harvest allocation would change, if only safe areas were used with the .10 mortality (and the unfortunate increase in URB that followed all the pen fish into the safe areas) Tell us what the difference is and why they wont catch more and more hatchery fish. Right now the safe areas are not part of the split with the tribes. In order to have the harvest you claim the commercial will get, they will need to replant the more lower tributary and upper tributary fish in the safe areas, because in effect, they are fishing more selectively. That is, if you can get every boat into the safe area. Of course if any permits are retired, the per boat harvest goes up and the allocation remains the same, something that has not been explored. The lawyer wants to kick them out of the CR. Well so do the rest of us. But fishing off the mouth of the columbia requires selective gear or some other changes to eliminate wild fish mortality. Apparently in the ocean, the 2% is not part of the equation. LCR Sports will always need an impact. "Tribal and Commercial fisheries should be required to reduce impacts as much as possible. It falls under corporate and environmental responsibility, not you get all the fish if you dont kill all the wild off.
Too many get caught up in the Past time, handed down thru generations BS. Well so is every other business and they all have to tow the line in environmental and technological changes. This whole thing stinks of a stealth commercial lobby on PP


Might also be interesting to hear the L/M on how Dam removal will/won't change the harvest allocations of hatchery and or wild fish, since there would be more wild fish and more impacts, cause as you say, the same amount of fish would die. You can skip the diatribe about me and just answer the fking question. Id also like to see the law, that says it cannot be changed.

Of course the other part of this is about all west coast ocean fishing, because BC and AK are catching our fish in seine nets and whatever is swimming next to them. I called Ak F & G. They dont sort. They should be sorting and fishing near the terminal bays in order to reduce lower 48 bycatch. with all the extra fish coming back, it could easily change the equation.

Given the crab issue, the state is finally looking at the money brought in by recreational harvest. Id still like to meet the politican who would run on that platform, he will get sport votes. Id like to see any politician stand up and defend Todds position and expect to win. We should do nothing and let the Pew Trust and Packard, with a little help from OUR OCEANS, just shut down all fishing period.

I doubt the questions will be answered since they dont fit into his agenda. But then with all the groups like Wild fish conservancy, its hard to decide, whether to support them, when they want to push Marine protection areas, and NOT doing anything about 15,ooo seals in Puget Sound. There were about 40 people at the aquarium who heard that.

In regards to the plant cuts, maybe the feds planned it all along. Have the tribe produce more fish and reduce funding somewhere else. Its also possible they may be using the threat of cuts to hurry the process along. They are adding a LOT of fish to the pens and so if they are subtracting from the main stem fishery, its pretty much the same thing as raising their allocation. For every thousand fish they take from the main stem tribs, we lose about 550. But, since they get 45% plus all the fish in the safe areas, they already could be taking more hatchery than the sport allocation.

If you need time to think, just call me names... see ya all next month for the boater cry session. Boater, do you have periods?

The power industry doesn't like any group that could pose a threat to their goals of cheap power and less spent on behalf of the fish.


Amen...and every plan I've seen fit's this perfectly.

I can appreciate what you are saying, but all sports and conservation organizations aren’t created equal. Some wouldn’t have a snowballs chance in Hades to even think about removing gill nets let alone attempting to ban them. There are diverse coalitions that range from sports and conservation orgs.,to gill netters, purse seiners, and commercial trawlers that are partners all rolled into one coalition. What appears to be sports bickering on the outside really could be something different all together.

Yet again a thread that proves recreational fishing will continue to suck hind t!t because sportfishers are collectively dumber than a box of f'n rocks. Well done folks.

Sg

I don't feel any need to respond to stupid conspiracy accusations...I'm pretty sure my reputation with both the sportfishing and conservation communities stands by itself...not to mention my reputation with the commercial industry, which is not viewed very friendly, not by a long length.

The usual "you must be a commercial fishing lover" garbage always comes out when people run out of anything useful to contribute to the debate, so I guess that's where we are, again.

Fish on...

Todd

At the hearings, the commercials demand 50% of the harvest, or 50% of the ESA impacts. To them that's 'equitable'. And total equity with sports, if not better, has been their goal.

To sports, giving that much to 200 commercials is an outrage.

The commercials haven't gotten their goal, and that's what the fightings been about - the same fight that spawned CCA.

When the commercials can fish with 1% mortality and anglers are at 10% you can bet that SalmonforAll will be at the front of the room demanding a larger share in return for fishing selectively -- as opposed to those filthy, greedy anglers that kill 10%.

Since the below Bonneville catch of upriver fish is firmly linked to and capped by catch-balancing with the Tribes, there will not be any overall increase of the TOTAL kept. We will only be fighting about who catches them - us or them - the allocation battle goes on, and the commercials will have a new compelling argument.

On Spring Chinook, with catch-balancing locked into place, if you want more upriver hatchery fish removed, it's better economics to accomplish this through full sport seasons and increased bag limits. Not giving the commercials an even stronger prescence on the Columbia.

Both the ocean commercial fisheries and the Tribes increasingly selling commercially have developed since the time when the gillnetters ruled. Let the trollers and Tribes now supply the market (that also kicks the legs out from under the fearful argument that without netters there's no hatcheries, complete BS).

We don't need commercial fishing in the lower Columbia, period.

And that ought to be the real question - why commercial fishing at all?

That is the approach CCA takes in other fishery battles, according to TIDE magazine.

Not spending public money to create a kinder, gentler, more entrenched, more dominant commerical fishery.

could you go into alittle detail on how that would work ?

The hatchery fish aren't going anywhere, the tribes produce all the fish needed for market...there's no justifiable reason for a non-tribal commercial fishery except to line the pockets of the few at great expense to the rest of us, and the fish.

Fish on...

Todd

...I agree, or any other commercial fishing technique that has negligible conservation benefits coupled with increased commercial harvest. The low percentage per encounter that die in seines die just as dead as the high percentage per encounter deaths that occur with the gillnets, and the greatly increased encounter rate being contemplated with the seines will result in the same amount dying, just as dead.

The fact that the non-tribal commercials can sell fish is not in any way a justification for them being there to do so...they could sell wild salmon, steelhead, and eagle eggs for omelets, too, but that doesn't mean it makes any sense conservation-wise.

Fish on...

Todd

Selective fishing, including selective commercial fishing, is a great tool, when it's used appropriately. Using it in the LCR in a commercial fishery that is constrained by one thing, and one thing along...allowable ESA impacts...is a waste of time so far as conservation goes, and will definitely make sportfhsing worse.

It only works if it makes more wild fish hit the spawning grounds, or significantly limits the amount of hatchery fish on the spawning grounds, and on the LCR it will do neither. It's sole function will be to reallocate a portion of the sport fleet's hatchery fish to the commercial totes, and no other.

Fish on...

Todd

YUM! Where can I get some eagle egg omelette's at?

http://www.cbbulletin.com/394852.aspx


Any bets on which one is going to have the highest mortality rates?

Tangle net will most likely have the highest mortality rate. What do I win?

How's 'bout instead of theories, we see if WDFW will answer point blank questions about both the intent (which I think the news release has already done) and most probably result on sport fishing from the development and implementation of selective LCR commercial fishing gear? Anyone want to bet that they waffle?

Sg

Salmo, they've been very clear in every single news release about the "experiment" from day one...the intent is to grant increased access to hatchery fish for the commercial fleet.

They don't even bother pretending otherwise, except for some very vague "may help" wild fish for some reason or another, usually by tying in the removal of about 5% of the hatchery fish off the spawning grounds, which outnumber the wild fish already by about 5:1...removal of a few more percent of them from the spawning ground won't do dick.

Whoever thinks the DFW's will say "Geez, you commercial guys have done so well at reducing your mortality per encounter, we've decided to reduce the allowable impacts (which is a fed issue, not a state issue), and give a goodly portion of your current impacts to the sporties so that they can continue to kill upwards of 10% of their wild fish encounters" is expressing so much naivete as to be laughable.

Fish on...

Todd

Coho could be a toss up since you can basically say boo at them and they keel over dead. Probably right on the Kings though.

In case you didn't notice, this debate is basically the same old rerun every month.

I propose we just post this whole thread for September and call it "the best of " and call it good.

A "full season" is not the same as "plenty of fish around to catch"...we can fish all month right behind the commercial guys and have a "full season", full of lame fishing.

If the non-tribal share is fixed, and the commercials get more, where do they come from?

It's not from the Easter Bunny...it's from us.

Fish on...

todd

Go ahead and test your theory. I'm curious.

Somebody please tell me where I can get some eagle egg omelettes!

Like he said, they've already answered the question...repeatedly...just not directly.

Fish on...

Todd

Wow. Really?

Fish on...

Todd

Aunty,

Could you go in to some detail about how that "share will increase in order to catch more hatchery fish?"

The shares don't really have to change at all for sport fishing to suffer. If commercial gear is more selective, and can catch 5,000 chinook in a 24 hour opening instead of 1,000 for a given number of ESA encounters, the sport fishing upstream of that point is going to be less successful, regardless of what the "share" is.

More of the evil hatchery fish can be harvested, but if the commercial harvest increases significantly, then regardless of shares, the sport fishing will occur with fewer fish in the river, and sport fishing success is positively correlated with salmon abundance. Increased commercial harvest means lower fish abundance, which translates directly into lower sport harvest per unit of effort. I don't see how it can be calculated any other way.

Sg

It can't...which is why "selective fisheries" are a gift to the commercial industry, not a boon to sportfishing or the resource, so far as the LCR springer fishery is concerned.

As I've said dozens of times...CnR, just like selective fisheries, are great tools when used in a situation when they benefit the fish and the fishing, and are useless if the situation is not appropriate for them.

In this case, it's wildly appropriate...if you're a commercial fisherman. Otherwise, it's six of one, half a dozen of the other to the resource, and a definite loser for sportfishing.

Fish on...

Todd

it amazes me how you think, when the commercials have a new method with a lower mortality rate than tangle nets for spring chinook it will take them longer and allow them to keep more hatchery fish before they reach there allowable esa take, does that totaly go over your head ??

then we have this commercial selective crap targeting hatchery coho, fall chinook, heck i wouldnt be surprized to see it in willipa and grays harbor, this is a recipe for sport fishing disaster in this state unless you like to fish and not catch anything.

At least we'll have a longer season to catch few fish...

Fish on...

Todd

Kinda like area 10 open for albacore all year with no limit.

...or a six fish limit on the Cowlitz when there are seven fish in the river...but, hey! It's a long season!

Fish on...

Todd

I don’t know about the rest of your theories, but I’m going to test my theory in the coming years by still catching Chinook on the CR without gill nets just like I’m accustom to now. Please excuse me now I’m having a craving for some cake.

In other words - the fishing sucked but the opportunity was awesome.

Which is precisely what the DFW's have been giving anglers with a 45 day 'season' that opens on March 1.

That is very funny. Sad but funny. Irony.


LuckyLouie, there is always something different brought to light when this thread repeats itself. When I first got on this list, at least 5 or 6 people would be cursing and spitting by now, and this time around people are challenging the ideas and not the individual. That's progress for us.
We are a little like sand paper, rubbing off some of the rough edges with each encounter.

Toddster, I understand the argument about how selective methods commercially would lead to more hatchery catch and potentially less for sporties. I think that allocation method is flawed given the changed dynamics of the fishery. We have to do better. Precedence is one thing, engaged decision is another.

SalmoG, Part of the problem, a big part, is that we don't have any clear indication of intermediate and long term plans by WDFW as to how the state actions would change given various outcomes of selective methods research. Yes, the stated intent is to increase harvest of hatchery fish via selective methods, but what is the planning for the numbers of hatchery fish released in the future depending on the outcomes? This is not a transparent process.

It is clearly not "fair" that sporties and general public taxpayers foot the bill and sporties contribute greatly to the financial weal of the state, and that commercial interests are "subsidized" by that. Yes, the public benefits by being able to eat caught fish, but the financial costs are carried by many and the benefits go to the few.

Not really a "free" market.

A big player in this is NOAA. Do they have the necedssary body parts to force meaningful recovery? We need to get hatchery fish off the spawning grounds, at least where the interfere with natural spawners.

That can be done by catching more of them. This would/could include nets, traps, hook and line, and so on. As has been pointed out, any of these methods run up against the incidental mortality. If you lower that rate, you can ramp up catch. But, you still kill the same number of protected fish.

If you can't lower the mortality rate in the fishery, then you lower the encounter rate of hatchery fish by reducing the stocking. This, actually, is a real problem because as you lower the amount of hatchery fish you increase the encounter rate with wild. Which will demand even lower release mortalities. Lowering hatchery production would/should kill off the mixed stock fisheries, especially the non-selective as more of the population would be wild.

After reading 9 pages of this it's apparent there's 3-4 people that understand the consequences...

*I don't care what group's back the theory of selective commercial fishing, I don't want to give up the extra hatchery fish to commercials.. Call me greedy but one thing I've noticed in life, every time you give something up you never get it back....

What I don't get is, didn't they already do some testing in the CR with these selective nets, Merwin traps, etc?

Why more testing? Is there actually a chance the states will veto the idea do to the fact that the selective fishing isn't productive enough? Why else test it? They already assume the low mortality rates...

Keith

if they plan ??, personally i don't have to ask

Guess ODFW is getting calls from upset people already about the 2 trollers working inside Bouy 10, and there reply is this is what the sports community wanted.

Seriously? I don't buy that for a minute....

Keith

Bet steelhead plants are going to be at the top of the hatchery cuts. There constraining both non and tribal commercial fisherys and sports can't keep them off the spawning beds.. Its coming!

There's no doubt in my mind that will happen.... Like I've said before, we're 5-6 years from disaster in the fishing world for sportsman... You can thank all the gungho morons for hitting the FF button and perhaps making those days come quicker....

All for a majority of wild fish that IMHO 90% of are mix-breeds, mis-clips, etc.... Sure there are some wild fish left but reality is we're a day late and $$ short from saving the true genetic strains of some stocks....

Keith

You don't seem to have much knowledge about fish genetics.
Any idea what the return rate is on hatchery/wild breeding fish?
If you guessed zero then your not very far off.
So what do suppose the return rate is on the F2 generation?
It is also near zero, so how on earth can you make those kinds of ridiculous statement about fish genealogy, when it's fairly clear you don't really know much about it at all.
That's the problem, it's a frigging black hole every time a hatchery fish breeds with a wild, nothing comes back.

Seems to me that the folks who want to restore only "pure", "unsullied", never been near a hatchery fish for wild fish had better concentrate on bull trout and Dolly Varden. The rest of them either have had or may have had a hatchery fish somewhere in the past.

Most of the studies will show a poorer survival for hatchery fish when they spawn in the wild. The reverse is equally true for wild fish in a hatchery; they do worse.

If we stop letting any hatchery fish spawn in wild, if we let what survives in the wild spawn, they will adapt. They will evolve to be the optimum fish in that environment if we give them the chance. If we keep wild escapments down and keep letting hatchery fish out there, of course survivals will go down.

I want to see the streams full of naturally spawning fish. If it takes using Chambers Creek steelhead to start it, and then what comes back stands on its own, that works.

Remember that 15,000 years ago there were no Puget Sound salmon at all, there were no Fraser River salmon. The Columbia was getting flushed with the Bretz Floods. The diversity we see is recent.

But, to say that we we want to only save the pure stocks means we have lost already.

Thats good Boater! You don't have to ask? Can you let the rest of us in on your highly developed line of inside information? Come on, we're all awaiting!

Black helicopters? Thermal devices? Holographic images? How do you know?

Help explain this, Kalama River as an example.....

Status: WDFW has submitted natural and hatchery draft management guidelines for Kalama fall
chinook that will be used in the interim until the TRT recommendations are developed (Fall
2003). In Washington, the LCR chinook ESU includes all naturally spawned chinook populations
from the mouth of the Columbia River to the Cascade Crest. Native fall chinook have been
reported in the Kalama, but a distinct stock no longer exists. The Kalama River fall chinook
natural spawners are a mixed stock of composite production with a significant portion of the
natural spawners hatchery produced fish. Kalama fall chinook are rated healthy because
escapements have usually exceeded the escapement goal of 2,000 adults (SaSI 2002). Natural
spawning abundance has exceeded 20,000 spawners, with spawning escapements from 1986-2001
ranging from 1,420 to 24,297 (average 6.287) but escapement levels have normally ranged from 2,000 to 4,000 since 1990. Although final escapement objectives have not been established by
the NMFS through a recovery plan, WDFW has established draft interim minimum escapement
objectives. The minimum fall chinook MSY escapement goal is 400 to 450 adult spawners passed
above the weir (based on habitat between the weir and Kalama Falls Hatchery). Since some fish
swim through the weir, this would lead to an escapement of 444 to 500 spawners in most years.
In addition, there is a significant amount of spawning that occurs below the Modrow weir.

So how do you explain the bold statements above? Never mind me though I'm just a moron that has no clue about the fishing world or politics...

Why is it that a distinct stock no longer exists?

Keith

A little more info for you freespool.....

Lower Columbia River Coho (Oncorhynchus kisutch) is proposed as threatened on June 14,
2004.
Status: NMFS concludes that the LCR coho ESU includes all naturally spawned populations of
coho salmon in the Columbia River and its tributaries from the mouth of the Columbia up to and
including the Big White Salmon and Hood Rivers. Twenty-one artificial propagation programs
are considered to be part of the ESU as NMFS has determined that these artificially propagated
stocks are genetically no more than moderately divergent from the natural populations (NMFS,
2004b). Currently Kalama coho programs are not one of 21 artificial propagation programs
proposed for listing (NOAA 69 FR 33101; 6/14/2004). Late stock coho (or Type N) were
historically produced in the Kalama basin with spawning occurring from late November into
March. Early stock coho (or Type S) were historically produced in the Kalama basin with
spawning occurring from October to mid November. Columbia River early and late stock coho
produced from Washington hatcheries are genetically similar. Kalama River wild coho run is a
fraction of its historical size. An escapement survey in the late 1930s observed 1,422 coho in the
Kalama River. In 1951, WDF estimated coho escapement to the basin was 3,000; both early and
late coho were present. Hatchery production accounts for most coho returning to the Kalama
River. Natural coho production is presumed to be very low. Electrofishing for juveniles in the
Little Kalama River (a major tributary downstream of Kalama Falls) in 1994 and 1995 showed no
coho but good numbers of steelhead. Coho have been planted in the Kalama basin since 1942;
releases were increased substantially in 1967. The coho program at the two Kalama hatchery
complexes was greatly reduced in recent years because of federal funding cuts; the remaining
coho program is about 700,000 smolts released annually, split evenly between early stock (reared
at Fallert Creek) and late stock (reared at Kalama Falls). (LCFRB Kalama Subbasin Report
Volume II, Chapter 10).

Odd huh?? Is that suggesting interbreeding?

Keith

Oh so now we are talking about coho?
When wild steelhead spawn with hatchery stocks, the return is nearly zero, and with every generation the hatchery genes grow less prevalent, until they disappear.
It's called natural selection, hatchery genes are not suitable for survival in the wild, fish with these genes don't thrive to survive, they just fade away.

No, not specifically about coho, Fall Chinook were noted too.


But as usual you cite your steelhead information.... Sure it's been Catch and Release for them for over 20 years in SW WA and there hasn't been much recovery on wild stocks in most streams.... You want to know why?

Because sportsman of all kinds get to fish for them year in and year out. The only populations that show any recovery are those that don't have consistent fishing pressure such as the Wind river. It being a bug chucking river, there's overall less pressure and less fish being caught/handled throughout the season therefore more fish hitting the spawning beds and less SMOLT being caught and handled which means more SMOLT headed for the ocean.

You shut down SW WA tribs (like the EF of the Lewis for 8 years and it will be climbing with wild winter steelhead. Look at the Toutle River/Green River.. They are....

Point to the story is, if you want wild steelhead recovery. Quit fishing for them and that means CnR too........

Keith

So how do you account for the limited harvest of wild steelhead in southern Oregon?
They have allowed a limited harvest ( 5 fish annually ) for over 20 years now, yet their numbers are healthy enough for harvest.
Why are these stocks stable, yet their northern cousins are ESA listed, and haven't recovered in spite of 25 years of C&R and no commercial harvest?
Are you blaming C&R?

Well great question...

Personally when you compare basin to basin you're talking about 2 complete different watersheds... For example all the LCR Wild Winter steelhead enter "smaller" tributaries with a ton of access points to fish for them. Not only that but you have higher populations of humans utilizing these SW WA streams than you do on your southern Oregon Coast rivers...

For example one of the best escapements of wild winter steelhead is on the Grays River yet it's the furthest away from human populations and get's the least amount of pressure with very few access points to the fish.. See what I'm saying.

This is the same reason the #'s of wild winter steelhead will and have crashed on the Olympic Penninsula... Heck I remember nearly 20 years ago going up there on a weekend during the peak of the season and the pressure was light to say the least. Now you can't even find a parking spot let alone a rock to stand on...

You close rivers like the Toutle River and Green River (trib of the Toutle) like they did and you get more than escapement back...

I'm not blaming CnR, I'm blaming over fishing them no matter the tactic....

Keith

Stopping fishing will only help if fishing is the limiting factor...which it's probably not for most every steelhead population in Washington State...though fishing over depressed stocks doesn't do them any favors, to be sure.

Fish on...

Todd

Have you ever read any stock assessment studies done by state and federal fisheries biologists?
Pay close attention to the "Limiting factors for recovery" section, there's where the scientists list, in order of severity, the factors that limit stock recovery.
In dozens of West slope and coast range studies the factors are almost always the same.

1. Water quality (elevated summer temps.)

2. Lack of stream complexity.

3. No large woody debris recruitment.

4. No over wintering back channel/alcove habitat.

5. Poor estuary habitat.


You won't find over harvest, or poor stock genetics as limiting factors for recovery, so scientifically speaking you are incorrect.

nope, its not that hard to figure out.

Scientifically speaking, if they knew wtf they were talking about our rivers would be flooded with wild steelhead...

Is it ironic that Forks, WA was technically undiscovered 10-15 years ago. Meaning the world didn't go there in masses as they do now? Is it ironic that as those Forks WA streams became more popular the steelhead #'s have diminished? Pretty scientific isn't it? What's changed in the last 20 years in Forks, WA that would correlate to your 5 reasons?

We had the same trend here in SW WA about 10-15 years prior.. In the 70's SW WA had great steelhead fishing with lots of big wild fish. Then Vancouver/Portland are booming towns with zillions of people that fish. You been to a river lately, find a parking spot.....

Keith

Keith, I don't think increased fishers on the OP is so much the cause as the effect. It is most likely that the same things that are causing decreased returns on the OP are the same things that caused the declines on the mainland and that fishers have left the most depleted areas in search of less depleted. Declined OP runs are most likely not caused by the relatively mild increased pressure.

Seriously though. I remember in the younger years seeing people fishing, 90% of them were clueless and not a threat on any river for any species of fish. Now in 2010, there are a lot of skilled anglers (self taught/internet savvy/etc)... Just the sheer #'s of increased anglers/better anglers is crushing the #'s of wild steelhead.

The trend is there if you want to recognize it, if you don't then no biggie........

Keith

No question on the trend and I think you know what you are talking about. It is what is causing the trend that I question. Is it mainly pressure or are other things involved? I think legal sportie pressure as the answer is not complete.
What are the other things involved that also contribute? Has there been increased tribal harvest? Illegal harvest? Changed ocean conditions? (everybody blames this when they are clueless, a nice scapegoat,). Changes in logging/habitat? Weather? Hatchery release numbers?
Prolly not dams.

And Keith, I understand your thoughts about the next 5-6 years events and I can't disagree. But I just can not roll over, and I don't see you doing that either.

The only thing I can do is come to the most complete understanding possible, work with others, and do what I can. I am feeling really down about the directions of the fisheries right now but am too involved to back off and find another "pastime."

Not my happiest mood. My dark side.

Scientifically speaking, if they knew wtf they were talking about our rivers would be flooded with wild steelhead...

It's not that the science is lacking or unknown, the problem is the political will to make the sacrifices needed for recovery. The biggest limiting factors are OFF THE TABLE. We're left with tinkering around the edges.

Keta is spot on, the problem with recovery is a political will issue, not a scientific short fall.
FYI numbers 1-3 are are a direct result of poor logging and land use practices.

I understand what Keith is saying we've gotten alot better at catching fish, cell phones, internet and constantly improving gear and people holding seminars on how to use them are taking there toll..Sorry but I didn't used to be a fan of MPA's ocean and inriver but I don't see another way around it. This idea that we can go out and catch every fish and them sort through them is going to be short lived at the best..

Over fishing, Over harvest whatever you choose to call it gets my vote along with all these other factors mentioned including ocean conditions starting with A in the alphabet of Acidification http://www.ocean-acidification.net/OAdocs/SPM-lorezv2.pdf and moving on to the other letters of the alphabet from there. I'll add disease and pollution to the list started.

Cancer harms the body when damaged cells divide uncontrollably to form lumps or masses of tissue called tumors.

IMO overfishing was the start of this cancer that began the weakening process and all the other factors or pieces of the puzzle could be the death blow if not managed correctly.

So weak, that since we have moved out of the CR to the OP I’ll add PS to the list where a quilt of woven gill nets across these tribs or rivers could and has extirpated runs of fish.

So why would fisheries scientists ignore over harvest as a limiting factor for recovery?
Clearly hundreds of scientific stock assessments show habitat as the limiting factor for recovery, yet you say it's over harvest.
Other than a gut feeling, can you show any data that shows where this is really a factor.

Its one of the problems but if you look at listed steelhead from California to Washington there's alot more going on than tribal nets. Large population area's and associated habitat loss, pollution and of course its convenient to fish close to home seems to be the key.

I'm not rolling over.....

But face the facts, when the higher powers get involved and hatchery #'s get cut for the sake of assumed wild fish then everyone suffers. It's pretty simple, you start going gung-ho to save the wild fish by cutting hatchery fish plants and there are less hatchery fish to fish on which result in shorter seasons and less hatchery fish that return.

Keith

Are you serious? That's the real problem with our fisheries. They're managed by paper.... It's accepted that these LCR tribs meet low escapement #'s set on paper....

Shut down a LCR trib or two for 6-8 years and see what happens. The Wind River is a prime example. Eliminate gear fisherman and you'll elimate 75% of the pressure... Not that I want to see it happen, I've come to realize you can't have your cake and eat it too....

So much goes on in these tribs that people don't see, it's sick. Everyone assumes as an honest fisherman the fish just come back, some get CnR'd and then they spawn and go to the ocean. Over the years being on the rivers 250 days a year you see a lot of [censored].... Examples, people fishing closed waters, people retaining wild steelhead, finding gillnets in rivers actively fishing and gillnets along shore lines that had been fished... So much goes on that people don't know about, it's sickening.

Keith

Shut down fishing and see what happens? Isn't that exactly what we did with wild steelhead?
So what do you think happened?
Nothing, that's what, in spite of over 25 years of no retention and no commerical harvest, no ESA listed steelhead stock has been delisted.
So why in the world would we try that failed recovery option again?

no, habitat loss is the reason we are where we are at today.

History .

Fishing was in full swing in the 1800’s on the CR in the NW territories. Before the time WA entered into the union there was already cries of more fish being caught than could be replenished from spawning grounds. WA became a state in 1889. The beginning of building of hatcheries to supplement the runs occurred before 1900.

The CR fish were only intercepted terminally, with no dams, plenty of habitat ,water quality, no urban sprawl.

I’m not here to dismiss your top 5 list would be nice to see again, but the documented tonnage taken from the CR was over fishing according to the people of that time and also F&W starting 1889 and supplemented with hatchery fish.

It's not rocket science, I don't know what's so hard for most to understand....

People are on this kick that if we take hatchery fish away, the wild fish with come thriving back.... One limited factor though, we're still fishing for them and handling them...

Keith

What about the healthy southern Oregon steelhead stocks that have been harvested for over 20 years, yet their numbers are robust compared to other stocks in the PNW.
What set these stocks apart from ones on the edge of extinction?
It's clearly not harvest, or ocean conditions, could it be a river with a high carrying capacity?
The answer is right there in front of us, why the blinders?

over harvest would be a problem if all natural habitat was intact, the problem is it wasn't all intact and the carrying capacity was going down and they were still trying to harvest the same amount as if that wasn't happening.

Give it time... As populations increase in those areas, that will change.... Oh and what's the last time they commercially fished those rivers?

Keith

Dr. Rick,

On page 3 you asked about WDFW's near and long range plans for fisheries. I regret to inform you that gov't. does not lead; it follows; or more accurately it reacts. WDFW doesn't have any long range plans for our fisheries, and what planning it has is developed around variations of the status quo. Presumably when the status quo doesn't pan out, as it won't, then WDFW will react to the then extant prevailing condition. To be clear: WDFW does not have any long range plan for either commercial nor recreational fishing in WA state. The Department has the existing RCW for guidance, and we here recognize it as obsolete, but that recognition changes nothing.

Keith,

If overfishing is limiting any wild population, then by definition eliminating or reducing overfishing will result in population increases. For most of SW WA rivers, where fishing mortality has been reduced for two decades, the expected increases haven't occurred. That is pretty strong evidence that habitat is the limiting factor. It gets more complicated to parse out the factors when both habitat and overfishing are contributing at near the marginal rate, whatever that happens to be, to population limitation. Perhaps it's the latter condition you're observing with respect to the Wind, Toutle-Green, EF Lewis, Grays.

I do believe you're correct however, in that reducing steelhead hatchery plants in Col. R. tribs won't have any measurable effect on recovery, while having remarkable social effects on recreational and treaty fishing.

Sg

Shut down fishing and see what happens? Isn't that exactly what we did with wild steelhead?
So what do you think happened?
Nothing, that's what, in spite of over 25 years of no retention and no commerical harvest, no ESA listed steelhead stock has been delisted.
So why in the world would we try that failed recovery option again? [/quote]


You have the policy wrong, but your not in Puget Sound. Tribes harvest steelhead. Bycatch in non tribal in the ocean with silvers? C&R of wild steel was promoted on fishing shows and in the magazines, in the 90's. Then you have everyone trying to get a picture of one for the scrap book and the bulletin board in the tackle shop. People that dont know how to handle a wild fish and guys who use lousy gear that breaks of or run up to the head waters of the green in the summer with a 12 foot noodle rod, before anyone knew what a noodle rod was and spend the day hooking fish on 4 and 2 pound test leader.

Keith, 6-8 years? They are not magically going to get around the tribal nets, or get past the recreational fishery down stream of the tribs. 6-8 years is barely two generations of the initial brood stock in the closure experiment.

SG?
How much spawning goes on below the dams? How effective is it with mass fluctuations in water level? If the wild fish are not spawning down below on the lewis and cowlitz, then how are the hatchery fish jeopardizing anything? All we see right now is large blanket of hatchery reduction in rivers that, may yield no increases. I dont know what the spawning activity is in the NFL below the dams, but since the collectors are $50-100 million and they are working on the first one, its going to be a long time before that experiment is going to yield results, since there are three dams. I do not know what collection facilities are in use now.

The steelhead mgt plans being developed? (which may have openings) Should be focusing on rivers without dams, which have the best chance of success, in the shortest period of time. The cowlitz in particular doesnt have good collection and all the good spawning water above the dams is going to waste. We need designated hatchery rivers like the cowlitz in order to keep recreational fishing going, while some of the other rivers are managed in other ways.

We have plenty of plans in PS that need to be tweaked. The Green river plants are limited to Soos creek, shutting down perhaps 40 miles of river for hatchery steelhead. The sky gates will be left open and a couple rain events will help push them into the gates.

Whatever is done for recovery, it wont make any difference if the fish cannot get back to use it.

SG?
How much spawning goes on below the dams? How effective is it with mass fluctuations in water level? If the wild fish are not spawning down below on the lewis and cowlitz, then how are the hatchery fish jeopardizing anything? All we see right now is large blanket of hatchery reduction in rivers that, may yield no increases. I dont know what the spawning activity is in the NFL below the dams, but since the collectors are $50-100 million and they are working on the first one, its going to be a long time before that experiment is going to yield results, since there are three dams. I do not know what collection facilities are in use now.

[/quote]

All spawning is below the Merwin Dam in the NF of the Lewis... There is a broodstock program starting in action as we speak... We'll see what happens... Sure has helped the Kalama River....

Keith

There are at least two kind sod scientists working on salmonid recovery. There are the managers, who by and large believe in MSY and that fish populations/species are independent of each other. That is, for example, management of coho has nothing to do with steelhead.

The second group is the ecologists, who see the world as interconnected and disruptions of one part of the ecosystem show up elsewhere.

The management agencies are dominated by the MSY group; ergo fishing is not a problem.

Speaking about steelhead, we have seen up in BC that when you increase a stream's productivity (they use fertilizer and, later, wild pink salmon) that the steelhead responded. Even in poor marine survival years, the increased productivity produced more smolts which gave more adults back. I have been told that the same thing is being seen in the Puyallup watershed as pink escapements climb.

Switching to coho, there are some ongoing studies in Alaska that looked at the relationship between catch of coho from a stream and number of pinlks spawning there. At zero pinks, the catch was about 1,000. At about 2 kilograms of pinks per square meter of stream the catch was about 6,000. What this says to me is that a stream has a productive capacity that is directly tied to amount of salmon that spawn there. If we want to manage for few spawners (MSY) we get some catch. If we want to manage for the ecosystem, we may get more catch.

So, the fact that SW WA or teh coast have not rebounded under little of no steelhead kill doesn't say that harvest is not the problem. It may say that steelhead harvest is not controlling. Even then, I wounder about what the actual kill is.

Data that I have seen from the coast suggests that there used to be pinks, chum, and lots more chinook and coho spawning there. IF increasing productivity of the streams will increase steelhead then overfishing remains a big problem.

C-man,
We saw on Fall Creek in the Willamette system that after a couple years of dumping carcasses in the biologists told us that there was more everything from bugs to resident trout. It made a difference in that one little waterway.
We have stripped the forest covering, cut returning numbers to a fraction so there are no nutrients, and then, as Keith points out, we fish the bejeezus out of what's left.
While the differences of opinion about the effects of selective fishing and hatchery catch may persist, I think we all agree that habitat restoration is a no brainer.

PS The carcasses chop up better in the shredder if they are still frozen. What a mess.

nice loop. Charting the dates of steelhead hatch and nutrient loads in the river is something Id like to see. One carcass is feeding other species.

The pink return in 09 came to more than 5 million fish on the green. The counters were having a lot of trouble find KING redds.

http://www.kgw.com/lifestyle/grants-getaways/The-Last-Wild-Run-94002944.html


Nice little clip

Things that cause one to say HMMMM!

As alluded by Lead Bouncer the Green River over the last decade has seen a spectular increase in pink salmon abundance and at the same time has seen a steady decline in both Chinook and steelhead. Adding nutrients is not a magic bullet but rather a way to address one of the many of the pieces limiting anadromous fish production in our local rivers.

Tight lines
Curt

Would be nice to know if salmon are also part of that river to determine the source of the nutrients. Is there any information about what percentage of wild steelhead die after they spawn?

Only about 12-15% make a second spawning run, virtually all females...I suspect quite a bit more than that don't die immediately upon spawning, but make it back out to saltwater and are either too weak to escape predators, or just plain too weak to survive...

Fish on...

Todd

http://www.wildsalmoncenter.org/pdf/salmonberry_white_paper_2008.pdf

I think the King fishery has been hammered into oblivion, by the internet gang to the south.


http://www.dfw.state.or.us/resources/fishing/docs/2010_Coastal_Fall_Chinook_Seasons.pdf

The rail has been losing money and they had to give up land right of way to help pay the bills.
Increase logging over the years has contributed to the slides. The Federal taxpayers have been pouring money into a losing business venture. Even the artificial raised bank to accommodate the rail is increasing the water speed and errosion.

Its a black hole.

You ever check out the Grays river? It's very similar. Logged to death all through the headwaters and slides every year. Heck if we get 3/4's of an inch of rain it goes to 1-2 feet of visibility and sometimes blows out color wise at regular flows.... Fact is, that river still meets escapement. Why? Doesn't have the steady fishing pressure of the rest of the readily available, easy accessable SW WA streams.... Beat the fish to death and you wipe them out.... SO don't preach to me about the habitat factor, its smoke up my ass... Although it has some merit, it's very little.

I won't be suprised when the seasons get shorter on rivers like the EF of the Lewis, Washougal, etc.... They get HAMMMERED..... The only thing that will save them is to cut the hatchery plants to next to nothing if nothing at all. At least that keeps the meat hunters at home.... But sadly enough, you cut the meat hunters you typically cut the gear boys out... For some screwball reason the bug chuckers try and take the river over..... Explain that??

Keith

I have seen 95% of the female steelhead that went upstream come back down. Males are much lower as they essetially spawn till they die. been records of a few of them getting stuck in low water and spending the whole summer in the creek.

An interesting piece of information coming out of the acoustic tagging is that a steelhead my spawn in river A and come back the next year in river B. Up in BC they saw a male spawn in two separate rivers the same year.

The strongest steelhead populations appear to have 20-30 and p to about 70% repeats.

As to pinks on the Green, or other places, the carcasses need to be where the target fish rears. If the steelhead rear in the upper watershed tribs, the 10 kazillion in the middle/lower mainstem doesn't help them.

There were some recent papers that looked at the relationship of N Pacific pinks and Chinook. The relationship was essentially inverse. More pinks, fewer Chinook. As I recall, the mechanism was unknown. Could be the pinks cleaning out the larder when the leave. Could be that the estuary/ocean conditions favor one over the other.

Think about what that river could do with some "moderate" habitat improvement!! Those must be some incredible genes, or incredibly lucky genes. I'm not taking away from the "beat 'em to death" part, I'm adding to it. The numbers from late 1800s through mid 1900s bear that out just fine. But, geez, just give those suckers a landing spot and what could happen.

Bug chuckers are used to fishing but not catching, many of them anyway.

Precisely, and now you have the Wind River with significant increases in wild fish.... Odd isn't it?

Keith

This has been an interesting thread with some real discussion for a change. Please keep up the good work.........thanks

in the last couple years however, i've seen the pressure on the grays system go way through the roof. 10 years ago you rarely ever saw another guy fishing it. not uncommon to see 20 or 30 rigs at the hatchery these days(mostly oregon plates), and cars at every pullout(ok, it's not like there's a ton of access), despite the fact that the hatchery plants got slashed big time.

i will agree that those rivers have quite a certain jethro element that "fish" them...the area between wahkiakum county's eastern border, to the ocean, to willapa bay is kind of like "land of the lost"

Both the Grays and the Washougal have weirs part of the year.

So your saying that hundreds of stock assessments by state and federal fisheries biologist that say the leading factors for recovery are habitat related issues are all full of crap?
It just strikes me as odd that your solutions don't seem to show up on any scientific radar screens.
What makes you right and them wrong?

Nothing makes me right but I'm not an armchair biologist.. Just a fisherman that's spent a few days on a few streams catching a few fish..... I'm just saying....

It sure is funny after nearly 25 years of CnR that #'s haven't changed much....... Don't ya think?

It sure is funny how other systems that are so far behind with human populations are now faultering as their populations and popularity grow.. Kind of ironic, isn't it??

Keith

140 years of commercial harvest bias? Its not us, Its not us.
Ask any hatchery bio if he happy about the hatchery reductions. Its the very reason the commercial are paying for hatchery fish.
That leaves Dams and various issues like culverts and errosion

Blame is not the same as evidence. 4 Hs seals, birds, pollution, nutrients, biomass

When a tire goes flat, it could be the tire delamination, holes, valve, stem or a bad rim, or your neighbor. Some want to stand around and blame the bottom half of the tire.

As much as we fight about it, we seem to be the only user group willing to tackle all of the evidence. Three years after I woke up, people are still fighting over which is worse and which to fix first. When you realize that no organization is going to solve all of the issues at the same time, you may find some inner peace and work on the issues that interest you.

Remember that the factor of "making escapement" is directly tied to the habitat productivity of the system...

"Escapement" numbers are based on the carrying capacity of the stream, the carrying capacity is based on the habitat.

A river "making escapement" right now might still only be producing 5% of the fish it produced historically before overfishing and massive habitat loss...and if habitat were significantly improved on a river, then by all rights the escapement goal should go up, too, along with the actual escapement.

Fish on...

Todd

Guess my point with the salmonberry clip is would it make more sense to close and protect small area's like the Nehalem to any type of fishing.Than trying to fix the whole PNW at one time, of course Manzanita has some of the most expensive property on the Coast and I'm sure the deep pocketed home owners would say Flock that and its the tribal gillnets up there that are the real problem not us.

For the sake of discussion, I personally think smaller tribs like that should be closed off to fishing. More than not, those areas are spawning grounds. It's similar to Rock Creek and Copper Creek on the EF of the Lewis. It's where a fair % of the big winter nates go to spawn. They'll hang in the EF until they're ready or until there's a good rain storm to allow easy passage in the creeks. Although the Salmonberry is a tid-bit bigger, it's known for great spawning grounds for the big natives too....

On another note, I personally think some of the deadlines on the tribs in SW WA should be moved down river from Jan 1st through April 31st. Even though most SW WA tribs have lower river spawners in will decrease the handling of these fish.

Keith

Somewhere here in this thread, someone said that the best steelhead rivers left, had a lot of fish surviving to make a second and third spawning run. The tribal nets catch fish going up and back down the rivers. Now if we could put weirs on those rivers and traps, our native counterparts could just take half the fish out of the traps and pass on the other half up river, remember 50% right. Oh yeah, if they wanted to show us what great conservationists they are, maybe pass more natives up river to help build the run back. This would work on the penninsula rivers as we are very constrained about how many natives we are allowed, while they have a wide open gill net fishery. I might point out that if the weirs were set low in the river, the native fishery would be guaranteed their 50%. In other words without tribal help and cooperation on the penninsula, restoring steelhead is just a frustrating dream. Without fish, habitat and all the other problems if solved would do nothing to bring back the fish.

Hate to say it but when your to the point of trying to separate the hatchs from the high finners you might be years to late..

Curtailment of harvest hasn't recovered the steelhead, in spite of over 25 years of "NO FISHING", yet we have dimbulbs saying that is what we need to do to recover dwindling stocks.

You never answered the question about "your" favorite southern Oregon rivers... What's the last time they netted them??

Keith

Let's talk the Kenai for a second...........

Why are their king runs crashing?

Water quality suck?

Does the river lack stream complexity?

Does the river lack woody debris?

Poor estuary habitat?

Help me understand why the Kenai's kings would be crashing..... Then when you finish explaining the Kenai, explain the Skeena/Babine/Kispiox and why their steelhead returns aren't what they used to be....

Is there a better example of a pristine watershed than the Skeena?

Keith

Continuing on…

A few cut and pastes from history pages;

“In the mid-1800s, stocks of salmon on the Columbia River began to diminish quickly. Scientists advocated a hatchery program in the 1870s,
Canneries
Fresh, salted, dried, and smoked—these were the options for preserving and eating salmon before the spread of canning technology in the mid-1800s. William Hume, his brother George, and their friend Andrew Hapgood established the first cannery on the Columbia River in 1866.
Other companies followed, as did fishermen, laborers, and merchants. By 1883, there were 55 canneries on the Columbia, and the Pacific salmon industry was among the most valuable fisheries in the world. That year, the best ever, the canneries piled up 630,000 cases of salmon—30.2 million one-pound cans.
Other immigrants, a large percentage of them from Scandinavian countries and the Balkans, caught most of the fish processed in the canneries. Cannery owners rented small boats and nets to the fishermen. The two-man boats, powered by sail and oar, dragged long gillnets -- generally at night so the salmon wouldn't see them -- on which the salmon were caught by their gills. Historian Richard White notes that while one gillnet boat's catch was small, the fleet of nearly 2,000 boats "covered the river below Portland from May to August. Their nets formed a vast floating barrier to salmon -- 545 miles long by the late 1880s if connected and stretched end to end" (White, 40).”

Scientists advocating hatcheries in 1870's because of dwindling stocks and the largest catch was caught in 1883. Sound familiar? It sounds like overfishing to me then and similar circumstances today.

The overfished depleting CR stocks were only fished and caught in the mid 1800’s from the CR. Unlike their ancestors of today running the WA,BC and AK gauntlet before returning to the CR.

Because of this gauntlet only small percentages of PS Chinook are returning to their streams to spawn today to keep with this threads statewide concerns of CR,OP,PS and GH.

OK Keith, you're on to something that could work for me. Stop planting hatchery steelhead and restrict steelhead rivers to fly fishing only. That provides "opportunity" but is equivalent to no fishing since the bug chuckers either don't catch fish or don't kill the ones they do catch. I'm willing to give that plan a try for the next 25 years.

Sg

Here's a post I put on another board this morning...and it's easily the 20th time I've had to explain the most basic fundamentals of setting seasons on the Lower Columbia River for spring Chinook. If more sportfishermen would internalize the facts about how seasons are set, I think they would feel very differently about using commercial selective gear on the lower Columbia for spring Chinook.

*****************

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The take of hatchery spring Chinook in the LCR is not based on a quota of hatchery fish caught, it is based on how many hatchery fish can you catch while not exceeding your quota on allowable ESA mortalities.

Without changing the "allocation" one iota, if the commercial guys cut their mortality by 50%, they will automatically double the amount of hatchery fish they are able to harvest while killing their exact same quota of ESA fish.

This is without changing the allocation at all.

We allocation battles that take place every two years regarding the spring Chinook fishery is not a battle over hatchery fish...it's a battle over what percentage of the non-tribal 2% allowable ESA impacts gets allocated to us, or gets allocated to the commercial guys.

When we get a 60/40 split in our favor, we don't get 60% of the hatchery fish harvest...we get to use 60% of the allowable ESA impacts on the wild fish. Since our mortality is roughly 1/3 of what the commercial guys do with gillnets, we end up with a lot more than 60% of the hatchery fish...we actually get a whole lot more.

Look at it this way, for example:

The non-tribal share of ESA impacts is 2% of the wild run.

Also just for illustrative purposes, let's assume the entire run of spring Chinook is 100,000, and that 10% of them are wild fish. That means that there are 10,000 wild fish in the run, and the non-tribals altogether get to kill 200.

With the 60/40 split, that means we get to kill 120, and the commercial guys get to kill 80.

To kill our 120 wild fish, with a 10% mortality on released wild fish, that means we have to encounter 1200 wild fish. To do that, we'd at the same time encounter (harvest) 12,000 hatchery fish.

That's our take of hatchery fish, 12K.

For the commercial guys to kill their 80 wild fish, with a 33% mortality, they will encounter 240 wild fish. That works out to harvesting 2,400 hatchery fish.

There is only one variable that is different between the two groups...release mortality on wild fish.

If the commercial guys drop their mortality down to 5%, they now would have to encounter 1600 wild fish to hit their limit...that's their mortality rate multiplied by encounters...to kill their 80 ESA springers.

1600 wild fish encounters comes with 16,000 hatchery fish encounters, i.e., 16,000 fish in the totes.

With absolutely no change whatsoever in the quotas or allocations, they have just increased their harvest of hatchery fish by 667%.

This happens downstream from you, you who already complain bitterly about how bad fishing is behind gillnets...think it's bad now, wait until they catch almost seven times as many hatchery fish before you even get to fish for them.

As I've pointed out dozens of times, this is with NO change in the allocation.

If the allocation were changed to 50/50 on the allowable impacts, or worse, then just plug the numbers into the formula and you will see just how much worse it gets, and fast.

There are undeniable benefits to wild steelhead, and probably to sturgeon, too, if they are able to reduce their mortality to 5%...without a doubt.

If the people supporting this change said "we know this will screw spring Chinook fishing badly, but we think it's worth it to save the steelhead and sturgeon that die in gillnets", then they'd be honest about the effects of this change, and then we could all decide if we want to support this or not.

However, mainly due to ignorance about how LCR seasons are set (based on allowable ESA impacts, not hatchery fish quotas), many supporters of this think that the commercial guys will catch the same amount of hatchery fish, far less wild fish, and everything will be super duper...but they'd be very, very mistaken if they believe this.

Others suggest that the DFW's will somehow magically change the allowable ESA impacts...which is naiive for two reasons. First, they're set by the feds, and not by the States, and the States are always trying to get the allowable impacts raised, not lowered, to provide better access to hatchery fish. It's not a state issue.

Second, even if the allowable impacts were lowered, then they lower for everyone...it would just reduce the total catch for everybody, not just the commercial fleet.

The most important take home message from this is: harvest rates on hatchery fish in the LCR spring Chinook fishery are not based on how many hatchery fish you catch, they are based on how many ESA fish you are allowed to kill in your fishery. The lower your mortality rate, the more hatchery fish you get to catch. The same amount of wild fish die, but as you lower your mortality rate, your hatchery harvest rate goes up.

Fish on...

Todd

There was some sarcasm in that post of mine, I've got some bug chucking buddies and I've even closet chucked a bug or two .... The right bug chuckers certainly can hammer out some #'s of steelhead, I've witnessed it....

Keith

You can't say it any better than that Todd.....

Keith

I wish that everyone involved knew how seasons are set, and what changing any one of the variables does to the final numbers...but no matter how many times I explain it, there are not only many who need to be told, but many who need to be told repeatedly, and still don't get it, or even bother to try and get it...

Fish on...

Todd

Like I said before, you dont live in Puget Sound. Tribes net in most of the rivers and they run gillnets or seines in the bay. I can remember back in 97 or 98. The department closed the humptulips for kings and then turned around and let the tribes net. Before we had a gamefish status for steelhead, non tribal was havesting them. Tribes came along and as soon as they fished with the force of the Boldt decision, the fishing trips to the skagit were reduced from limits to mostly skunk outings.
We didnt even have full no retention regulations in the PS rivers here until some time this last decade, so people were still catching and keeping wild steelhead. Then you have the poachers. How likely are we going to hear about steelhead bycatch if they cannot keep them? All it does for them is to light off a flare, that the dept will eventually be forced to respond to.
Its 2010 and some of these guys are still finding restaurants and grocers selling wild (hifins).

I take issue with your statement, that No FIshing has existed for 25 years, but others will have a better recall on the dates and time periods I referred to. Once again, even no fishing, isnt enough for recovery. The dimbulbs just are not going to ignore harvest issues anymore. There is a lot more at stake than your safe areas. Commercials manage to catch plenty of our fish in Ak and BC with seines, gillnets and trollers. If WE cannot show responsible harvest management, the folks that want to create Marine Reserves will have a much stronger case.

Continuing on...

The guantlet exists and here is an example from just one hatchery in PS where 89.61% of chinook where caught in BC/AK.


Table 5. 2001-2006 average distribution of fishery mortality, based on coded-wire tag recoveries of Kendall Creek Hatchery fingerlings (CTC 2008).
Alaska 9.26%
B.C. 80.35%
US troll 2.85%
PS net 2.22%
US sport 5.32%

You going to answer the question Freespool?

Keith

Instead of thinking up ridiculous scenarios as to why our fish runs are dwindling, why not do some research and find out for yourself?

Rediculous ideas?? Me do the research??

All the information is right under your nose and your finger tips.... Ironically you're favorite steelhead streams (Rogue/Umpqua) haven't seen netting/HARVESTING since the 1930's and 40's...

Just because nets don't harvest fish doesn't mean they don't handle them with a estimated 40% mortality...................

You still think those rivers of your's would be thriving with steelhead if they had nets to swim through?

Keith

I have no idea what your point is, all I ever hear you say about fish recovery comes right out of the back of your boat, nothing your saying has any scientific backing, just like the crap I hear on the river, baseless assumptions being made by uninformed anglers.
If your going to be an armchair fisheries biologist, at least say something that they agree with.

more than 41 million pounds on average. Taylor points out that this would make the aboriginal fishery “fully comparable to the industrial fishery during its heyday between 1883 and 1919, which surpassed 41 million pounds only nine times.”

http://www.nwcouncil.org/history/IndianFishing.asp

Are you that stupid?

Of course you don't know what my point is... You're like one of those people that hears what he wants to hear and just rules everything else out...

So your Oregon rivers haven't been netted for nearly 70 years and they have runs good enough for small harvests. Do you think the LCR tribs would be in the same boat they are now if we didn't have commercial netting on the LCR for the last 70 years?? You telling me the netting has had no effect on the wild steelhead? Hell, just short of 10 years ago over 20,000 wild winter steelhead were handled in tangle nets....

Keith

i do and the handwriting is on the wall that when this selective commercial trash happens sport fishing will suck

I think you guys should either get a room or spend a weekend together fishing.

It may be the case that that would happen, but I am not sure. I am sure at the point where what we have been doing hasn't worked and am ready to try something else. To continue to do the same thing and expect a different outcome is nuts.

I support selective fishing and think it will change the dynamics a least; maybe speed things up but maybe force the issues. The current direction is not working. And I understand the ESA argument and agree with the logic, but that policy is goofy and must be thrust through the heart and burnt with fire.

what is so different ?, other than the commercials getting more fish and screwing up sportfishing and still killing the same amount of esa listed fish how will this help ?

Environmental and cultural consequences
The dam had severe negative consequences for the local Native American tribes whose traditional way of life revolved around salmon as well as for the original shrub steppe habitat of the area. Grand Coulee Dam permanently blocks fish migration (barring construction of a fish ladder)[20] removing over a thousand miles of spawning grounds.[21] By largely eliminating anadromous fish above the Okanogan River, the Grand Coulee Dam also set the stage for the subsequent decision not to provide for fish passage at Chief Joseph Dam (built in 1953)[11]. Chinook, Steelhead, Sockeye and Coho salmon (as well as other important species including Lamprey) are now unable to spawn in the reaches of the Upper Columbia Basin. The extinction of the spawning grounds upstream from the dam has prevented the Spokane and other tribes from holding the first salmon ceremony since 1940.[11] Grand Coulee Dam flooded over 21,000 acres (85 km²) of prime bottom land where Native Americans had been living and hunting for thousands of years, forcing the relocation of settlements and graveyards.[22] Kettle Falls, once a primary Native American fishing grounds, was inundated. The average catch went from a historical average of over 600,000 salmon a year to nothing. In one study, the Army Corps of Engineers estimated the annual loss was over a million fish.[23] The town of Kettle Falls, Washington was relocated. The Columbia Basin Project has affected habitat ranges for species such as whitetail and mule deer, pygmy rabbits and burrowing owls resulting in decreased populations, however, it has created new habitat in the form of wetlands, reservoirs, and riparian corridors.[24] The environmental impact of the dam effectively ended the traditional way of life of the native inhabitants. The government eventually compensated the Colville Indians in the 1990s with a lump settlement of approximately $52 million, plus annual payments of approximately $15 million.[11]

It's nuts to think selective fishing is going to recover the Columbia river runs but what the hell its keeps everyone busy and that's the real plan..

Grand Coulee Dam started being built 1933 producing power 1941.

On the time line we sort of jumped over the wild CR salmon that were caught by the walls of death in the Columbia to being caught in the ocean as well.

The marine factor is one of the components of where the 2% ESA which is established by the feds which in turn impacts the amount of encounters we can have on some of the CR wild fish.

Ocean caught wild fish still plays a role in what happens in terminal fisheries including the CR. Just because we don't see them being caught doesn't mean it isn't happening.

EDIT: After rereading the 62 page report by the feds,

any bets that anderson is dealing with what koening was dealing with ??, this selective rubbish isnt about recovery its about hatchery funding

Fish managers are already overstressed at the thought of potential funding cuts if they don't solve the hatchery surplus question soon.

http://www.newsdata.com/enernet/fishletter/fishltr111.html#1

Thanks and so the tribes are hoping for 5 million fish in 25 years and the Feds just want to cut hatchery production and let the Sealions and the Cormorants finish it off..I know who I 'm supporting!

Changing the harvest method for commercials under the present allocation process will completely screw sport fishing.
WTF are these idiots thinking? Change the way commercials harvest and hope the federal government changes the way they manage CR ESA mortality guidelines?
This might work, if the feds had any track record of actually helping ESA listed stocks.
Their record speaks for it's self, they spend money like a drunk sailor, yet they can't point to any successes in recovering any stocks, in fact two of the original 5 CR listed stocks have declined.
Let's hope the politicians step up and stop this train wreck.

Not sure what's causing the change but I'm talking to a lot of people down here and there all saying the same thing, lots of high fins..King and Coho, so what ever this can be attributed to we need more of it..My guess its the old judge and his foot in the ass of the BPA..

I think Boater's got a point about Anderson (WDFW) sacrificing sport fishing quality, that is if he even cares, to get hatchery harvests significantly increased to maintain Mitchell Act hatchery funding. There isn't much state money spent on Col. R hatcheries, mostly federal.

Judge Redden and other actions that tweak the edges of fish productivity will help, but meaningful recovery remains unlikely as long as the root cause of low productivity (dam passage) is not significantly reversed.

Sg

It's all going to hell in a hand basket..........

Keith

I'm guessing since were dealing with very small numbers compared to what the Columbia used to produce pre-dams any improvement shows up as a big % gain..

a good example is last years coho on the lower columbia, the non-tribal gillnetters had around 4.17 percent esa take and sports had around 3.33, the gillnetters were modeled to catch about 30k "any" coho and sports were modeled to catch about 100k "hatchery coho", any guesses as to how many "hatchery" coho the gillnetters could catch if they had a lower release mortality rate with the new methods than sports do ??

It seems to me that sportsfishermen are worth a lot to the state of Wa and should be to WDFG. As such wdfg would be putting their jobs on the line if they can not keep the sports folks happy. Imagine a major loss of license sales and its effect on wdfg's budget, and the loss of jobs statewide related to sportsfishing. Anyone that totally ignores sportsfishing is crazy. I was on the Skok this morning, yes the skok with eggs, nada with three bites, there were at least 3 to 4 hundred fishermen approx on the open river, just add up the costs for them alone on one small river, then imagine what the C R losses would be if no sportsssssssss

NW Panhandler,

You make a serious mistake of overestimating the importance of sport fishing licenses for salmon and steelhead. WDFW can live without it. The majority of fishing licenses are sold to anglers who fish lowland lakes for resident trout about five times a year, at most. We hard core anglers cost the Dept. more than we pay. Boater has lousy social skills, but you should try to analyze what he's saying.

Sg

Well, page 10 and since this thread is entitled alternative commercial fishing gear, I suppose it's time to add a few of my thoughts to that subject.

Commercial selective fishing;
1) Purse seines
A) I’m sure they wouldn’t want to fish next to sport fishers (conflict with nets around boats) as well as we wouldn’t want to fish next to them or in front of them
B) Bouy 10 to a deadline for sports above deadline to Bonny for seiners.

This keeps both fishing and away from each other.

2) Fish traps
A)We can fish around them and in front of them. I suppose I could pretend to be a goalie and anchor in front.
Here comes the fish I catch and put into the box. Fish trap DENIED.

3)Trollers
Just another boat on the water depending on how many

4) beach seines tangle nets etc.

Commercial selective gear is going to be tested and some implemented regardless of what you and I say on here. Just add or delete to the list the areas and gear type in those areas preferred and see where it ends up.

Oh this ought to be good.

I would hardly call this selective fishing idea a done deal, perhaps politicians will now get involved and tweak the concept in favor of the sport angler and our region's economy.

So one question I had....

The states are in the mode of "TESTING" the selective gear.

What happens if they find the selective gear to not be effective enough at removing hatchery fish. In other words, what happens if the selective tactics aren't successful enough?

Do they stick with gillnets?

Keith

There is more than licenses on the line. The state economy comes to mind.

http://wdfw.wa.gov/publications/00970/wdfw00970.pdf

I like collecting spread sheets. Would you be willing to share the break down of license holders in this state?

even if this selective stuff works i have not read anything about discontinuing the use of gillnets,

Frazier said the pilot study is likely just the first step in a multi-year effort to identify – and likely modify – commercial fishing gear for possible incorporation into the fishery.

http://wdfw.wa.gov/news/release.php?id=aug2809b

also,

“Commercial boats could actually catch a lot more hatchery-reared salmon if we can find new ways to reduce mortalities of protected wild fish.”

reducing mortalitys and reducing the allowable esa take is 2 diferent things.

The feds factor the gill net at 40% mortality rate on released fish.

If this years numbers comes close to last years on commercial selective gear tested, there is no reason to believe gill nets are needed let alone accepted by the fishing community. Along with the gill net 40% mortality rate is also the by catch factor.

Then there is new selective gear not tested last year in which I'm interested what mortality rate they come in at when tested this year.

LL,

If I had it, I'd send it. I'm just going on non-current reports by WDFW regarding recreational fishing distribution. Maybe it's from the USFWS 5-year surveys.

Stlhdr1,

Remember, WDFW can't eliminate or reduce gillnet fishing, cuz according to unsworn testimony, the rate of drug use and youth suicide in Wahkiakum County will significantly increase. You don't want that, do you?

Sg

The selective testing results I seen showed some low #'s of fish they caught and handled.... It was apparent there wasn't much effort in the study.

A person would think there's opportunity at some big #'s though in the right place at the right parts of the tides...

Keith

Too funny......

Keith

I think that a well positioned fish trap and a purse or beach seine in the right locations could put up some good numbers. However, the return per dollar spent won't be as high as gillnetting. Nothing beats the low operating costs of gillnetting with its fairly good catching effectiveness, which no doubt is why there is so much resistance to changing. That and of course the drug use and suicide in Wahkiakum County.

Sg

so if the new method has a release mortality rate of 10 percent and the esa take was still lets say 5 percent, how many wild esa listed fish will get saved with the new lower release mortality rate if they fish up to the 5 percent esa take amount before the season is closed ?

The idea of terminal fisheries sounds interesting. Seems like fishing in terminal areas would minimize non targeted by catch, both non clipped and other upriver fish.

WDFW is sure going nuts with an idea that as far as I can tell has never been proven as a recovery method and even the HSRG report clearly states won't recover anything but speeds up the process as new habitat is reopened..Want more wild fish take down the dam's faster..



The HSRG also concluded the hatchery and harvest reforms alone will not achieve recovery of the listed populations in this ESU—habitat improvements are also necessary. In addition, the effectiveness of habitat actions in this ESU will be greatly increased (more than doubled, under the HSRG assumptions) if they are combined with hatchery and harvest reforms

Like we'll just give up on gillnets? They dont need to fish in the river. If Oregon and washington banned commercial fishing, they would just wander north, or take the buyout. You dont think Alaska would sell more permits if we banned commercial fishing? They get 3% on the catch. The wild fish killed in the ocean are just like the dead ones in the river, only a little smaller. Thats the crazy part. These clowns go after the herring and sardines, (food source) catch fish that are not mature, catch lower 48 fish that are not mature and have to catch more, to get the same poundage. If they fish near the terminal areas, avoid and separate lower 48 fish we get more fish and they are bigger. Bigger fish, same poundage less work. Christ we mights as well just eat the fking smolts. We can all switch to snoopy rods. Are you tired of paying for fish for Alaskans to catch and sell here? We should send them a freaking bill.

So how many springers do you suppose they catch?

Im sure there is a trap here. I will buy you the scuba gear and you can follow them.

tell you what. Go trade the springer for all the other fish.

You keep the springers and they get everything else.

How many of our coho would you guess they harvest?

Typical Barney.

Idaho fish
Washington fish
Puget Sound fish

Not just Oregon.

We also raise Tule kings for BC

After further review of the 10 CR chinook stocks involved, it excludes CR springers and Snake R. summer chinooks. So I'm updating this previous post.

You can add steelhead and coho to the list of foreign commercial ocean unexploited stocks.
So from No Head Just Lead post of "Alaskans and Canadians are getting all our fish", we have fall chinook, which a good portion are of Tule stock.

Ok, Freespool is on record against selective harvest in the Alaskan and BC waters, in addtion to Washington and Oregon.

Want to boycott California cause they banned gillnets?

What was the amount of money the US sent to BC to let more of our fish get back here. 30 million? So we paid to raise the fish and paid again to make sure noone caught them.

US gov bought off the tribes with 900,000,000 to drop the lawsuit against the dams. So we paid for the fish, the dams and the treaty got more expensive. Then they send money to local politicians to influence their votes, like dumping the commission, so they only have to influence the govt and the director. Representative govt at its best. 900 mill could have bought a lot of wind generation and solar panels and done more to stimulate the economy than paying off the tribes. 900 mill probably could fix every culvert in the state.

But, selective harvest is the problem, because they have selective hearing or reading skills and refuse to acknowledge getting fish back to the beds is one tool. Just like keeping unwanted fish out is one tool. (60% is not all our fish airhead)

Nope, I'm against idiots making false statements concerning our fisheries, and how they should be managed.
And you seem to be the dimmest of the dimbulbs in that regard.

got something crawling under your skin?

when do you think this will happen ??, on one hand we have the feds wanting hatchery fish out of the system because they jeopardize wild esa listed fish and on the other hand we have the hsrg wanting to put hatchery fish into the system to help them.

The HSRG recommends a small, integrated, conservation program at the Grays River hatchery (94,000 uniquely tagged, but not adipose clipped, to avoid selective harvest) to sustain the population until natural productivity and abundance has improved to sustain the population.

http://www.hatcheryreform.us/hrp_downloa...ok_01-31-09.pdf

So were going selective and now the plan is to not clip certain hatchery stocks in order to build that run of hatchery stocks...What can I say other than..

So whats new here? Its called 4 H

Yup the 4 H's, harvest is the only one NWPC doesn't have control over..

http://www.cbbulletin.com/395572.aspx

Interesting article, but this looks like your trying to change the subject.


The boogey man conspiracies should be worth a couple pages.

How would it work best to disconnect hatchery harvest from ESA harvest? Assuming it can be done.

If selective commercial harvest would increase the number of hatchery fish caught relative to the number of commercial ESA harvest,
and if that did increase in commercial hatchery harvest would subtract from available sportie harvest (commercials catch more, sporties catch less) what, in an ideal world, would be the desired laws around ESA fish and/or hatchery fish?

In other words, if changing to selective fishing means commercial folks catch more at the expense of sporties, what regulations would be needed to rectify that?

I am a wild and crazy guy!

the goal of the wdfw is to get more hatchery fish for the commercials so they can justify hatchery funding and once that happens there will be nothing we can do about it.

You could'nt get out of a paper bag.

In two states right? That would be one helluva compact.
Wa state will just ignore putting 13,000 jobs and 900,000,000 dollars in business in jeopardy in this state.
They sell 236,000 crab licenses. why stop at one initiative when you could write two or three.

How many signatures are needed to qualify an initiative or referendum?
Based on the number of votes cast for the office of Governor at the last regular state gubernatorial election, the number of signatures required for initiatives is: 241,153 and the number for referenda is: 120,557.



"While the Commission has several responsibilities, its primary role is to establish policy and direction for fish and wildlife species and their habitats in Washington and to monitor the Department's implementation of the goals, policies and objectives established by the Commission. The Commission also classifies wildlife and establishes the basic rules and regulations governing the time, place, manner, and methods used to harvest or enjoy fish and wildlife.

The Commission receives its authority from the passage of Referendum 45 by the 1995 Legislature and public at the 1995 general election. The Commission is the supervising authority for the Department. With the 1994 merger of the former Departments of Fisheries and Wildlife, the Commission has comprehensive species authority as well.

Through formal public meetings and informal hearings held around the state, the Commission provides an opportunity for citizens to actively participate in management of Washington's fish and wildlife."

OK, so the game is fixed.

How do we switch to a different game?

What do we tell our reps and senators? Assuming, just for fun, that it matters?

What are the goal's your trying to achieve Doc Rick?

Need to clearly define goals. If the goal is to put more/lots/enough (all of which need definition) naturally reproducing fish on the spawning grounds, then you need to not only allow them to live to spawn but have to reduce the hatchery fish on the grounds.

You can reduce hatchery fish by reducing the number stocked or by fishing more selectively.

As has been noted earlier and often, though, we have to stop killing the non-hatchery fish in order to increase their numbers.

It would appear that the goal of WDFW, NOAA, and the Tribes is to at least maintain the current fisheries and prevent the naturally produced fish from getting any rarer. I don't think recovery is really a goal unless it can be accomplished under current fishing patterns.

This includes the Alaska and Canada fishing patterns where they take lower-48 fish.

Both Oregon and Washington have state statutes directing the fish and wildlife agencies to provide for both recreational and commercial harvest opportunity.

Oregon State Law (ORS 506.109) directs the Fish and Wildlife Commission to provide for recreational and commercial harvest opportunity and to "manage food fish for optimum economic, commercial, recreational, and aesthetic benefits". Drift nets are currently the only legal harvest gear for commercial salmon fisheries in the Columbia River. However, ODFW and WDFW have the authority to regulate gear requirements, hours of fishing, and times and areas open for harvest, and use all of these to manage the fisheries.

The question of whether commercial fisheries should continue on the Columbia River is primarily a social, rather than a biological, issue. Commercial and recreational fisheries are both managed to ensure that the incidental mortality of wild fish resulting from their handling in fisheries falls within limits established to ensure their survival and recovery.


WASHINGTON
§ 77.04.012. Mandate of department and commission

Wildlife, fish, and shellfish are the property of the state. The commission, director, and the department shall preserve, protect, perpetuate, and manage the wildlife and food fish, game fish, and shellfish in state waters and offshore waters.

The department shall conserve the wildlife and food fish, game fish, and shellfish resources in a manner that does not impair the resource. In a manner consistent with this goal, the department shall seek to maintain the economic well-being and stability of the fishing industry in the state. The department shall promote orderly fisheries and shall enhance and improve recreational and commercial fishing in this state.

The commission may authorize the taking of wildlife, food fish, game fish, and shellfish only at times or places, or in manners or quantities, as in the judgment of the commission does not impair the supply of these resources.

The commission shall attempt to maximize the public recreational game fishing and hunting opportunities of all citizens, including juvenile, disabled, and senior citizens.

Recognizing that the management of our state wildlife, food fish, game fish, and shellfish resources depends heavily on the assistance of volunteers, the department shall work cooperatively with volunteer groups and individuals to achieve the goals of this title to the greatest extent possible.

Nothing in this title shall be construed to infringe on the right of a private property owner to control the owner's private property.

Just to throw gasoline on the fire, the RCW talks about preserving the commerical industry in WA, not the non-Indian commercial industry. While WA can't regulate the tribes, it can ensure that their commerical fisheries have fish to harvest.

You could'nt get out of a paper bag.

[/quote]

why do you think the wdfw is testing different selective commercial fishing methods in the lower columbia river ??

I agree I don't see any cleary defined goals here, if NWPC and NMFS saw the nontribal gillnets as the problem they could easy buy the fleet for less than 15million. Peanuts to these guys that are dumping 100x's of millions in to various recovery projects, I'm sure they just view it as an allocation issue and would be a waste of money..

they need to spend equal time developing new gear for the sports side, right now all effort is on getting the commercials more fish with new gear.

# Develop, promote and implement alternative fishing gear to maximize catch of hatchery-origin fish with minimal mortality to native salmon and steelhead.

http://wdfw.wa.gov/commission/policies/c3619.html

To me, the writing is on the wall....

First they'll test selective methods... Success rates won't be as high as expected to sustain a full force selective fishery...

The big wigs will step in because we aren't getting enough hatchery fish out of the river and off the beds and hatchery plants will be cut even further....

Just a thought.... Time will tell...

Keith

i dont think failure of this new gear is an option, i`d say they will figure it out and catch more fish and thru some new mathematical formula they will convince the feds that with the new amount of fish they are catching it will make a difference on the spawning grounds and very little if any hatchery funding will be cut, the commercials will be viewed as the saviors of the fish.

NOAA :: National Marine Fisheries Service
Promotes sustainable fisheries, recovery of protected species, and the health of coastal marine habitats in the USA.
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Seems pretty clear to me.

it`s really a transparent policy that can be manipulated in several ways.

why do you think the wdfw is testing different selective commercial fishing methods in the lower columbia river ?? [/quote]


WDFW? Cause they were told to. Didnt NOAA go around Koenings and set up testing with the tribes? Their goal is to save wild fish, without kicking commies out of the river. There is too much push-back from local politicians. You notice all the politicians who preach selective harvest yet let everyone else do the work. Ya, they exert some influence in funding, but they are not kicking them out of the river. It would not matter if they did. They just fish somewhere else and I have no information on the impacts in coastal waters.

Your supposition of why these departments are doing this is wrapped up in conspiracy. I suspect they would rather not deal with any of it. You have a defeated attitude and expect to get screwed. Unfortunately, you see nothing positive about the changes. You think, we lack the ability to persuade and have no case. You are wrong.

I agree with the manipulation comment. That is why its important to have fishing orgs and voters involved. Yet, the people who are not members seem to know all about, what the organizations want to do or intend to do than the members. Every election, fish advocacy gives way to petty differences about business and social issues. For once, just get this done.
I found a democrat [outside my district] for fish and he is an incumbant, he even said we have too many seals. But, I was the person who told him how many we have and the damage they are doing. I have 3 in my district and only one of them is for the fish. These people are spending too much and raising taxes. It isnt likely to change, but the fish are running out of time. Go find out where the candidates stand. If they don't know its a problem to their constituents, they won't ask questions or get involved.

We get the crumbs because we haven't been proactive enough, before the elections and find out where candidates stand. Other than the Candidates for Governor, what local candidate has taken a public stand on our fisheries?
The Jacobsen, Haugens, Hargroves, Hatfields in commercial fishing districts, are not confused who their constituents are. We vote our business or social issues and role the dice on everything else. Its no wonder that Slade Gorton was so successful in this state.

Twice as many Senators, 33-15 voted to get rid of the commission as keep it. Is that a reflection of constituents or ignoring that direct representation is more important, than a commercial fishermans paycheck? Some people don't deserve representation?

Fact is, only a few people had the heads up, the meeting took place and most of the hunting clubs either were not involved or never considered what anglers wanted. The Senators in the YEA column never considered what anglers wanted. Thats our fault, too.

Is there a sportfisherman on this site, who would throw hunters under the bus and not support their hunting opportunities?

I don't know if you found a loophole, but this shows that the sports aren't getting 50% of the take.

2266 would change some of the language in that law. It would have to be introduced again.

Just need more sport friendly legislators. Dont depend on one governor to provide a fish friendly commission. It can disappear as quickly as it was created. If the commission gets heat for standing up for conservation and sports, we have to stay in contact with our reps. People may have forgotten the reactions of a few Senators when they were confronted at a public forum, during the session in 2009.

if you dont believe me call the wdfw and ask them.

thats because we are going to get screwed.

If the target is lower river hatchery coho and kings its going to have a hard time passing the viable test with the mark rates I'm seeing.

That's why they are testing commercial selective gear to bring the 40% mortality rate down of gill nets. Trying to help eliminate some of the waste of drop out and by catch along the way as well, while trying to keep hatchery off spawning beds.

I read that sports could/should try to drop their mortality rate as well on this thread.

Probably not a popular idea, but using artificial bait only like C&R rivers to help with less mortality issues. What the mortality rate number drops to ---- I have no idea---- but it does keep some rivers open for fishing in this state that would be normally closed.

Just watch the gnashing of teeth by sporties, who widely decry all user groups but themselves, when someone even mentions perhaps going to barbless hooks, much less no bait. The hypocrisy is so thick you could cut it with a knife...but it would take a big knife to get the job done.

Fish on...

Todd

Sport anglers have taken steps to lower their release mortality rate, none adipose fin clipped fish must now stay in the water while being released.
But the hypocrisy is their mortality release rate of 10% was not adjusted down to reflect this new release technique.
The failed CR barbless hook rule didn't include lowering the sport release mortality either.

no problem, just tell me who you talked to so I can verify it.

Why is it a failed barbless hook rule?

Oregon used the best available science, which says barbless is not the deciding factor in mortality, but rather where the hook penetrates the fish.

Hypocrisy is continuing to rail against selective harvest while continuing to kill wild steelhead by catching and releasing them to die, all while decrying that person whom decides to exercise his lawful right to harvest one wild steelhead a year.

Jesus you must get dizzy spinning your head around trying to see which side of your mouth your speaking out of!

Fishy

Not a tough concept, given knife and gunshot wounds.


But they had the chance to outlaw treble hooks and didnt do it.

Baseless feel good rules that don't lower sport mortality percentages might seem like a good idea, but the science on the issue says otherwise.
If WDFW doesn't like the science, then they should budget a study on the matter, Oregon doesn't seem willing to throw out their science in favor of a feel good rule.

Perhaps we need a hook website survey on salt water fishing in Washington, where barbless hooks are required to fish and in some cases have a season at all. Many of the saltys I know are using circle hook, that apparently dont hook too well in the areas that kill fish. I see no reason they could not be used for herring in the CR.

You and SBD often site reports which may prove your comment, but fail to post them. Who paid for the study is also a consideration.

ODFW funded the extensive hook mortality study, many refer to it as the "Toman Study".

Then there is the new math 40% gillnets + 18.5% tanglenet =25% mortality rate instead of 29.25%.

Hey careful, that could pop up on ifish. Their commercial members have no shame and they dont hide.

Simple common sense.....

Keith

The difference is easy to see for those who wish to, rather than just b!tch and moan...

I acknowledge what should be an obvious fact...fishing is a blood sport, and fish die when we fish for them, even the ones that we are not intending to kill.

Show the LCR spring Chinook sportfishers the facts...that they kill far more wild ESA springers every single year than the commercial guys ever do, and not only do they do so, but they spend all winter arguing in front of the Commissions to have the right to do so...and you'll hear whining about how they never kill fish, how it's all the nets' fault, and how I must love gillnets.

Hypocrisy is doing something you have said you wouldn't, not doing exactly what you said you would do, even if some dumbass can't or won't tell the difference.

Fish on...

Todd

Cat's out of the bag boys and girls... At least Todd is capable of saying it....

I couldn't agree more...

This whole crew of CCA and all is throwing boomerangs... All this pushing and shoving is about to bite everyone right in the ass..... Backing the sportsfisherman right into a corner....

Keith

Toddisms:

Hypocrisy is doing something you have said you wouldn't, not doing exactly what you said you would do, even if some dumbass can't or won't tell the difference.

Pot meet kettle.

Hypocrisy meet Todd.

Pot, meet someone who can't tell the difference between an apple and an orange...hopefully he's not a migrant worker

Fish on...

Todd

i still have not read where they are giving up on gillnets and making them illegal, have you ?, infact, it looks like they want to have a study done on net drop out by the year 2050

http://wdfw.wa.gov/publications/00036/draft_framework_20090131.pdf

Pre-season and post-season estimates of fishery-related
mortalities are accurate and complete for all stocks in all
fisheries, accounting for:
- landed catch
- by-catch (discard mortality)
- catch and release
- net drop out
- selective fisheries

SBD,

That is a very good, and basic and difficult question.

My original intent was to see what could be done if we started all over and could separate the ESA requirements out and away from harvest levels, and how that would be possible, if at all. I don't see how, and if it were easy, we would have done it.

Personally, I would like to allow native fish to spawn and make lots of babies. I would like to either move all commercial fishing out of the river or at least to selective methods or terminal areas. I would like to see the carrying capacity of the rivers increase. I would like to see us move away, somehow, from the death spiral of maximum sustainable yield. I would like to be able to continue some vestige of my hunter/gatherer genetic drive and catch and eat fish.

The problem is that population, politics, and honest differences of opinion all intrude on my perfect world 8^D

I think we will either figure this all out, or not. If, and when, a good solution develops it will later appear as obvious to all concerned. Just right now it is not clear.

...is there a problem with barbless hooks and no bait...? I can't remember the last time I rigged up a herring.

Too funny. Maybe true, but still funny.

It all depends how serious WDFW is when they are tasked to reduce hatchery fish from spawning beds. Gill net mortality of 40 % is going to tag along. If 40% works for their goals---- why test other methods?

Are you implying there are commercial individuals pretending to be sport people on PP . I'm shocked

That would be lower than a prokaryotic cell.

Ya, like I'll be alive then. I dont give flying fk what their jobs program is. You realize all people working there would be retired by then? I guarantee the wild fish lawsuit will happen long before that. Worse yet is the Marine protection areas they already want. It only takes 10 years to build a nuke plant and the dams would be unnecessary. Gas fired electrical plants are common and will become more common, because we have so much natural gas in the lower 48, AK and Canada that is just waiting to be tapped. Natural gas prices are not priced like Oil is. We set our own in the US. They are low.
SBD can bitch all he wants about energy companies, but Centrailia is currently running a coalfired electric plant and the soot is covering parts of Mt Rainier. So do we get acid rain too?

Go ahead and stick with the diatribe put out by a few managers.
So, whether you like it or not, you have few options and the dept does not either. They no longer run the show by themselves and they told me so.

We have more power than the dept does, as long as we exercise it.

So, what do you have against prokaryotes? You gotta problem?

Yeah.... I see a problem with it... Personally I wouldn't be terribly excited about giving up bait... I enjoy my dozen or more springers I put away every year. Great table fare...

Most Canadian streams have no bait rules yet their runs are collapsing too....

I see hook size restrictions before I see bait or barb restrictions....

Keith

i have alot of options, i dont have to fish in washington for salmon there are plenty of other places

Todd,
That is what I like about the commission. A place where both commercial and sports can be heard.
One of the reasons sports backed Ref. 45. that was passed by WA voters was for a voice in the process. It took awhile, but it is starting to work as intended and I’m glad to see it happen.

Whining goes both ways. The commercials crabbers were in Olympia complaining a couple of weeks ago that the sports take of 6% VS. 94% for commercial crabbers in the state of WA should be kept as status quo because apparently 6% is such a big number and it could be a hardship on their already part time job in the PS area.

The commercials have had their way for quite some time and sports are learning the game.

So the sports call that whine of the commercials and raise the pot with another concern.

Keith,

Yes the cat is out of the bag.

CCA has came to WA and OR and is working not only on CR problems but problems that concern other areas of both states as well.

Again, I’d been looking for a Org. that could fit the billing and I’m very glad to see CCA come to my town in WA.

you mean learning how to give the commercials more fish ??, i`m not included in that group of sports fisherman.

I understand CCA and it the group has potential in the right places.... CR is a little to big for them.... I thought the original game plan and statement from the CCA was to rid the CR of gillnets?? Now we're headed down a road of selective commercial fishing and pretty much giving the commercials more of the sporties hatchery fish...

I'll pass on their bunk ideas for the CR.... Is it too late for them to head back to Texas?

Keith

Who is going to fight off the MPA's? You? You gonna drag your boat down and try to get an appointment with two legislators and a senator who in most cases dont know you exist?

WDFW needs to get the hatchery fish off the spawning grounds or loose fed hatchery funding seems to be the problem.
So you must prefer hatchery cuts? and then fishing over those shrunken numbers of fish.

There seems to be a catch 22 involved like I said 12+ pages ago.
Hatcheries= damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Nobody...the sporties, the commercials, the tribes, or the States, actually want to recover wild stocks in the Columbia River.

If overharvest and too many hatchery fish on the spawning grounds are significant problems, then the solution to those problems takes one sentence, a couple of strokes of a pen, and not only is cost-effective, but actually would save millions of dollars...

Don't put in so many hatchery fish, and don't kill so many wild fish.

You won't find any of those four groups supporting either one of those goals.

They all start with the premise that we must have high amounts of hatchery fish (which is the cause of the problems, both overharvest and spawning hatchery fish)...they intentionally and vehemently support the policies that cause the problems, then they intentionally create halfass "solutions" to the problems, solutions that don't solve $hit...

...and due to all parties having an addiction to hatchery fish that makes meth-heads and heroin junkies look like casual users, everyone seems to happily accept the fact that they are the problem, not the solution, and just ignore it.

Fish on...

Todd

i`d like to see them get into testing more weirs out, that is the only true way they can control the amount of hatchery fish on the spawning grounds unless you believe they came up with some new formula to predict fish numbers ??, how can they harvest hatchery fish down to a number that would make a diference on the spawning grounds when they cant predict how many are comming back in the first place ?, to me this is all status quo junk science that they are using and nothing will get any better than it is now.

MPA's on the CR? So your saying we should be thankful of CCA's efforts to completely fuk up sportfishing on the CR? Because after their done "fixing sportanglers opportunities" on the CR, they are going to fix the MPA issue?

I think, Ive got paint on me. Its painful. But at 55, I dont have the right to exterminate a fish, and throw everyone behind me under the bus. Im irritated that many of our fathers did not take on the issue or the groups. But many of those people were saved by social programs etc and they had a different view of govt. I could tell, it bothered him. In the old days beginning in January, they fished the skagit with Bud Meyers every two weeks. It was a six fish limit. For a while, there was no limit. Hatchery fish were so common, the boat hooked 17 fish in ONE hole. Then Boldt came along. The fish were gone. By 1979 the tribal fishers were so rich, that one of them bought over 22,000 dollars of jewelry from a local store.


Doing what is necessary takes too long given the structure of the govt and the various user groups. Both Condit and Gold Ray had lawsuits over the loss of lake habitat, including the critters that really didnt flourish in the cold fast rivers. Well, it sucks but if they expected the lake to be there forever then they set themselves up for disappointment, just like those who thought we would have wild fish or hatchery fish forever.

Our addiction, is a dependency created by bad mgt solutions of wild fish, while expanding the business of fishing.
The govt made choices between business groups. Commercial over Tribes > commercial vs fish sustainability, then Electricity vs Fish. Had hatcherys never been possible govt would have made better decisions. Eat all you want-we'll make more is not a long term plan.

I actually think you will push the process along faster with your current position, rather than taking issue with one organization. From a scientific standpoint, Ive not seen much about the ramifications of extinction. We are lucky Alaska is so remote. .02

LB,

Sooner than later you're going to realize that all this you are pushing for and pounding your chest about is out of your league as well as CCA's league regarding CR issues...

The states and Federal Gvmt have their agendas and will fulfill them.....

Keith

You are such a dumbass. This objective had been in the works long before cca showed up. Just because you bought into safe for salmon to protect your back yard gives you no guarantee, you would be able to fish it forever. Shutting down the river to all fishing is just as easy as creating an MPA. You forget about NSIA and Our Oceans- a subsidiary of the Pew Trust, who got some folks to agree to some things and then stabbed them in the back. So dont lecture me about cca. They have fought MPA on the east, south and now the pacific coast. But financially sports are out gunned. But their members showed up to oppose an MPA last year that would have restricted kayakers but allowed commercial fishing. You start shutting down areas on the coast and the CR is going to get real crowded. Ignorance is bliss. From the same guy who thought tribes only fished ONE percent of Washington state. The same guy thought he was going to live off the govt fish nipple his entire life.

Perhaps you'd be better suited driving the short bus, or perhaps riding in one of the open seats.
Fisheries issues seem to be way over your head.
Thanks for being a CCA poster child.

You'll never really know what has been done, since you either dont want to believe you got the help, someone made a difference, or have the capacity to give them credit. Like SG said, govt doesnt lead. So whether its those who propose MPA or locking up the forest or those financial interests who benefit from one policy or another, at least a few organization are showing up to these meetings to keep the other interests from completely shutting us down or taking the allocation for themselves. The fight never ends.

You have a common theme about cca and the fact is, you dont know who is helping out. You still think its run out a a vacant bathroom. Thanks for the pep talk Dad.

When fuel shortages and pollution from cars were a problem, did we make less cars? Did we stop driving? Did we close off roads to save fuel?




It's not so simple, not cut and dry like your example.

I like the idea of testing weirs and hope that they use that experiment on the White Salmon when the dam comes down. I would be curious on the results in coming years.

Dont get caught up in Todds big picture explanation. He isnt talking to other fish heads. They already KNOW.

A fine example of your ignorance and your bigotry of people. Those you cannot find agreement with in debate are compared to those, who are the most challenged from birth. I guess if you continue to waste your time with individuals like myself, expecting different results then you should seek an evaluation.

Yes, it is...if we want to do what we say, which is reduce the problems of overfishing and too many hatchery fish on the spawning grounds.

It would be refreshing if everyone involved would at least say the truth...fishing comes first, fish come second...instead of paying lipservice to the fish and then forming every single policy around the premise that first we will not stop or reduce our fishing, and then we'll see what we can do to tread water with the rest.

There's no reason to be so dishonest about it...anyone with half a brain can see it...may as well get it out in the open.

Fish on...

Todd

What happened to the initiative that was going to outlaw gillnetting on the CR? CCA still working on that?

Keith

Never could understand why someone having a different opinion makes them a dumbass, or having your opinion makes you smarter.

As you know, it doesnt take forever to change the lanaguage. They can bring it back at their discretion. So can Washington.
Oregon is a very job protection oriented state. They have very liberal strip club policies, gas station attendants and if you head to the your other stomping grounds, they have a post, that shows the commercial fishing industry is all about keeping active permits by law. I get the feeling these people would pave over Yellowstone if they could put people to work.

You spend a lot of time complaining about something that has many hurdles to jump.

Some people on here must not be aware that CCA didn’t:

1)establish the 2% ESA mortality rate

2) if you believe the post above about getting hatchery fish off the spawning beds to preserve hatcheries

3)subsequently CCA didn’t cause the problem of having to rid the salmon off the spawning beds either

4)CCA didn’t allow gill nets with their 40 % mortality, by catch, and drop outs Etc..to be allowed on the river.

5)There is a solution to the possible protecting hatchery funding problem and that would be to commercially fish selectively ridding the CR of 40% gill net mortality along with the other aspects of gill netting noted above, and getting more hatchery fish off the river to try to protect hatchery funding or --just cut funding to hatcheries and forget about it.

Beautiful day out, so ---

I'm not complaining. I'm just stating the point that the CR is too big for CCA and before they screw it up even more than we already have it perhaps they should take a step back and realize what we have left....

Oh and what's the next idea for the CCA and the Big C? You seem to be on the up and up, have you got a clue?

Keith

Jerry, funny you dont take issue with others who use that word. Do I think he is a dumbass? No. My fault for not taking the time to find a better description.

If you want to clean up the prison yard, go ahead its a big yard. Im sort of surprised anyone needed your protection, from little ol me.

According to some... no.

i dont think you understand whats going on.

Todd,

Sustainable fisheries (which is in no way dishonest or misleading) can be accomplished using (and/or including) options other than reducing harvest and hatchery production. We are not bound by your narrow opinion to achieve solutions. "Solutions". The plural version.

How did we get there with cars Todd? We improved the engines for increased efficiency, the bodies for less resistance, made the fuel cleaner to reduce emissions, better tires, better design from top to bottom. Sure we could have reduced the number of cars, or blocked off roads, and yes it would have saved fuel or the environment. But it wouldn't have been sustainable now would it? Neither is a future dependent on reduced harvest and reduced hatchery production. Ideally, I'd like the solutions to have the same effect as reductions, and I think it's possible if we don't limit ourselves to narrow minded approaches.

Hair,

So how else would you suggest ridding the spawning grounds of hatchery fish?

Perhaps they should increase the hatchery limits in fisheries without ESA wild fish limits for sports fisherman? Maybe even NO LIMITS to sporties?? Rather than giving the excess hatchery fish to the selective Commercial fisherman.

There have been many days in my career of fishing that I cut a day way short or released bunches of hatchery fish because we had already limited the boat out...

Cut us sport fisherman loose to clean out the hatchery fish, I'm game...

Keith

(19) The term ‘‘take’’ means to harass, harm, pursue, hunt,
shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or to attempt to engage
in any such conduct.

I think any method tested and legalized S/C should be able to fit this criteria...Are we all ready to go there or are we still just playing little games?

i think weirs upstream as far as possible so we still have a decent amount of fish to fish over

Whats funny is that an idea or angle to get more allocation away from the commercials has now turned into a (bowel) movement.

Although wiers certainly help, they're not a fix all application. For the early fall time I see them working but when mid fall comes with the rains and in the spring with the rains, I don't see them working.....

Keith

Ive got no problem raising the sport limits. CR springer allocation of ONE? is a waste of time. But the season would probably be cut in half.

Worse yet, how would we save wild fish from gillnets. Or should Idaho ship their hatchery fish down to youngs bay?

Keith,

Funny you mention harvest as a solution. How else do you think we remove them? It'll likely be harvest, segregating hatchery fish, making hatchery fish that spawn well and don't reduce wild fitness, or cut production.

I'm on board with boaters weirs as well. They too are more likely to see a higher return benefit for every recovery dollar invested. The idea to put them in a beneficial location makes good sense. It also makes good sense to put any near zero mortality harvest method above higher mortality fisheries.

I sure don't understand what's going on with CCA --

A co-worker in Vanc got this email invite:

######CCA Washington, in conjunction with the Clark County Parade of Homes, presents CCA Day from 10 AM to 9 PM. CCA members, friends and families will save $2 each on tickets into the event. Be sure to stop by the CCA booth outside of the entrance, to get CCA flyers and sign up your friends as members. Tickets are only $10 with the CCA discount. Come tour these beautiful homes, check out landscape and remodel ideas and make sure you check out the outdoor living space to see what is possible. There will be activities for the entire family, live music, fly casting seminar and much more. For directions go to www.ClarkCountyParadeofHomes.com.
Sponsored by - Building Industry Association http://www.biaofclarkcounty.org/
#################################

Even upriver hicks know the Washington Building Industry Assocaitions long history of anti-salmon,
anti-environment, anti-conservation lobbying.

Hard to believe CCA would partner with them.... just so they get $2 per ticket.

Its actually a very simple stratgey, x number of impacts availible for remaining habitat. Convice a bunch of people that there saving the planet by giving up their share for conservation and then distribute them between other non fishing user groups..

He who has the most gold rules..

Boater favors the idea of a weir. His concept seems different than a suggestion I've made repeatedly, but it may be compatible. There already is a very good weir. It's called Bonneville Dam. Retrofit fish trapping and sorting facilities to the fish ladders, and you have a weir that is capable of live release of every single wild or unmarked fish that passes through. And hatchery fish can be sorted for any destination or disposition desired.

And Lead Bouncer, you still don't get it. On so many levels. I've explained to you before. And you still don't get it. Are my explanations deficient? Are you unwilling to understand? Or are you not capable of understanding? There's an answer somewhere.

Sg

No there isn't..................

Keith

Tribes could easily do this as this is how their shad fishery is conducted. So what would be the outcome if they did? Would lower river fisherys ramp up on the projected run.

The thing is it wouldn't even have to be done at Bonneville dam, it could be done at a dam or two higher in the CR to give everyone a chance to catch the hatchery fish and allow them back to the up to the Klickitat that they came from...

Keith

That would work, moving more of the sport allocation above Bonneville that way if the run comes in short tribes would still get their half. But I still get the feeling they just don't want to give up their impacts, with all this talk about shutting down hatcherys and more habitat improvements its hard to blame them.

There is no such animal, hatchery fish are unfit for breeding with wild stocks, no matter if their F1 broodstock of F1000 mutes.
Also there no such thing as a zero mortality harvest method.

the only thing he gets is the mail

i think this clearly goes against the mandate of the commission especially the part that says,

The department shall promote orderly fisheries and shall enhance and improve recreational and commercial fishing in this state.

http://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=77.04.012

they are clearly showing favortism to the commercial fisherman and it pisses me off.

Commercials aren't a minority although we'd like to think they are... They're considered with sportsman on the same playing field.......

Keth

Jeeze, I thought you were smarter than that freespool. You ever hear of the Cowlitz? NMFS uses (recommends or approves) hatchery solutions for recovery every day. Didn't you get the brochure in the mail? Maybe it got overlooked among your copies of "Fish Hugger", and "Hitlers Hatcheries".

What behavior or genetic factors are you talking about? They're junk fish no matter what generation wild spawner? Really? Sure glad you don't let your bias affect your judgment bro..


PS Near zero is not zero. Not to mention I used it to represent the loss hatchery fish can and do have on wild populations.

Not really that surprising, take a close look at their lobbyists, they either still work for, or formerly worked for big energy, big oil, dam operators, PUD's, electric companies, or aluminum producers.
Not who I'd expect to be working for the best interests of the fish, quite the contrary.
The deeper you look the more revealing it becomes.

So are you saying CCA's lobbyists never worked for big oil and energy, or are you saying they do, but now their working for the best interests if the fish?

Well we cant support BIAW. When will you burn your house down to show your contempt?

Anyone here make, sell, deliver building supplies, do home loans or appraisals, inspections, sell real estate, supply building permits or survey land or work in a trade union as a carpenter, electirician, plumber, land scaper, heavy equipment operator, asphalt and concrete contractors, sand and gravel or even teach people to do these jobs, or tried to bring jobs to the state which require buildings...Well, thats bad for salmon, so anything you do for salmon is not to be trusted or appreciated.

Thankyou Barney McCarthy

Really, sometimes you should just step away from the keyboard.

That's a TheKing argument.

You can live in a f'n house and STILL want houses built responsibly in regards to their environmental impacts.

Living in a house doesn't mean you have to support BIAW's agenda.

LB,

I'm a CCA member/supporter.

Dude, you are doing more harm than good. I think the #1 way you could help the CCA is to simply stop posting.

Brian

p.s. I still think the winner argument, both for preserving wild fish AND expanding sporty opportunities (the two things I care about) is the economic argument.

Only fishery with a high enough mark rate and low enough mortality to make it work is spring salmon and steelhead. Ocean coho is a joke, fall chinook mark rate is to low, same with summers..

Well, whatever that agenda is, they have done a pretty good job of buying votes in Washington, on both sides of the isle, like the commercial fisherman, the power company, BIG ALUMINUM, BIG OUTBOARD, BIG REEL, BIG BOATS.
None of us would stoop so low as to live on a river or a lake. Rossi made us do it!


shameless act of laughing at my own joke.

Alaska marks fish and they dont clip. They adjust the water temperature in the ponds for a period of time and it changes the appearance of the fish on the head. If I remember correctly its sort of like a growth ring or some other bone formation or color change that ID's hatchery fish. I didnt get a visual on the phone.

You dance around the issue but in the end your more concerned with dealing with the number one problem facing CR listed and threatened species, and that is habitat derogation.
Your not willing to sacrifice, or change any aspect of your life style for the good of the fish.
So it isn't a shock that you'd support a group with no scientific anchor point, support lobbyists that work for the very industries directly responsible for the demise of the fish.
Ten years ago those very same industries were saying it's not the dams, it's harvest,
Sound familiar?

I would hope that all of teh folks here would take a few minutes off of this discussion and send an email to the WDFW about the proposed Neah Bay rules changes.

Take a break folks, send an email.

LB, take a break. I feel like I'm watching a train wreck and, although it is probably just my liberal guilt, I feel bad for you.

i think he means good but i cant figure out what he means

You're a liberal?

All the salmon advocacy groups I support were litigants in the law suit to force BPA to spill water, and that is arguably the single most effective recovery policy implemented thus far on the CR.
You mentioned higher power costs and habitat improvements being implemented in the name of recovery.
Sadly after $12 billion in recovery dollars being spent over two decades, none of the 13 listed stocks has recovered, two have decreased in population.
Yet you favor the failed status quo policies that have shown no recovery what so ever.
I'm advocating what independent fisheries scientists have been saying for years, remove the four lower Snake River dams, lower the John Day pool by 50ft, and maintain annual spring spill.
But unlike you, I don't give a rat's a$$ how much it costs, the government screwed the CR fishery up, now they need to pay for it.

Has being the internets biggest gas bag affected your reading skills?
I've said numerous times that it doesn't make any difference how commercials harvest in the SAFE Areas, set nets, fish traps, seines, pitch forks,dynamite or Q tips.
As long as they stay in those designated areas sport angling will be better off.
Please explain how sport anglers and ESA listed species will fare better with expanded mainstem commercial harvest.
And please show some scientific bases for this expanded commercial harvest theory, and how it will recover dwindling stocks.

can you please post any info you have on commercial impacts being reduced after they go to a new selective method ??, didnt think so.

Funny you would consider SAFE Areas as status quo, I can tell you from experience in the Legislature, commercials don't think that at all.
You seem to advocate a none scientific solution, with very real possibilities it will hurt sport fishing, with no scientific modeling that shows this plan will in reality help ESA listed species.
It appears to be nothing but a gut feeling plan, with no scientific bases what so ever.

The lack of interest in the annual spill regime, zero organizational presents in Judge Redden's court room, that's just off the top of my head, I'm sure I can think of more.
Those two facts shows either CCA is run by a bunch of idiots, or they don't really care what happens to CR stocks, and so far their agenda seems to be a stalling tactic on any real recovery efforts.

BIAW is one of our state's most powerful lobbies. Comparing it to boat builders and fishing companies is absurd.

Furthermore, none of those others is as rabidly anti-conservation as BIAW is.

Why would CCA associate with an organization that is completely and fundamentally at odds with CCA's mission? :

***************
"According to an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the BIAW is Washington state's biggest lobby against climate change, open space, and other environmental legislation. According to the same source, the group's newsletter has gone so far to equate environmentalists with terrorists. [33]"

"The BIAW is unlike other business groups in Olympia according to environmental lobbyist Clifford Traisman. "They are to the far right of most business in Washington state," Traisman says. "They believe the free market should rule supreme." [34]"

In 2005, the southern resident orcas were designated an endangered species. In 2006, the BIAW along with the Washington Farm Bureau sued the government to remove orcas from the endangered list. [35]
The legal challenge was thrown out of U.S. District Court. [36]

In 2007, the group challenged the Endangered Species Act (ESA) that protects threatened and endangered salmon across the West. [37]

In 2009, the BIAW has been fighting environmental legislation such as solar water heaters in new homes. [26]

****************

There's tons more about BIAW out there...

There's plenty of responsible businesses and organizations that CCA can associate with. Instead they choose BIAW; raising a lot more questions about CCA than how many $2 transactions CCA earned at the event.

If you want to look at this as an anaology to cars, look at it this way...the problem we're trying to prevent is the problem that cars with no steering wheels and no brakes tend to go off the road and slam into telephone poles, killing those in the car...unfortunately, the solution we're talking about here, following the analogy, is to try and solve that problem by putting a cool license plate holder on the back...looks cool, but doesn't even approach the problem, much less solve it.



The problem, SBD, is that the entire point of the commercials going selective is exactly the opposite of what you just wrote...the entire point is to put more hatchery fish in the totes on the decks of the commercial fleet...not less.

Fish on...

Todd

how bout this idea ??, it should not effect sportfishing,

If we were to place fish traps at the mouths of our rivers and a processing barge next to the nets, it would yield a much higher-quality product.

http://www.salmonuniversity.com/CCA_Loomis_1.htm

Russian's fishing selectivly. I know some guys that helped them get their King Crab fishery off the ground, it was like how much Crab do you want? Ok that will cost you 2 suitcases full of greenbacks and that was to the fishery's managers..

I've got an inside feeling CCA's gonna crash.... And in a hurry..........

I'm not certain that I've met as many stupid people as I have with an organization..... It's sad really. Either CCA dissapears back to TEXAS or sportsman are doomed on the CR..........

Keith
Keith

You don't think I would forget about the real world.
Sent e-mail awhile back.

At this time I could say how stupid some of the people in SOS are, or share CCA accomplishments to compare to yours
Take your pick.

Any other type of fish I could understand this but salmon are the homing pidgeons of the fish world. They can just move the target lower river hatchery stock down to the terminal fisherys and be done with it..

not realy, they still need some to return to hatcherys so they can raise them before they move them to the net pens.

Guess I ment whatever extra they want to give to the commercials, not the whole shabang..

what i cant figure out is what the average sportsman who supports this selective commercial fishing thinks will happen to sportfishing ??, if people dont like to fish after gillnets with the measly amount of fish they catch how do they think fishing will be with new selective methods that take more fish plus still having the gillnets, this is a recipe for disaster when this happens and if it spreads to willipa and grays harbor, why is this so hard to figure out ????

One point that sticks out from this thread is “what’s written on IF or PP won’t be the deciding factor on what happens on the CR”.

So what I understand is you have been;
1) writing before commercial selective gear was tested
2) writing while commercial selective gear is being tested
3) and you will be writing after commercial selective gear has been implemented.

I do need "a clue", as in -- I don't have a clue how charity that touts itself as a "conservation organization" would associate itself with a business organization that is proudly anti-conservation.

The same business organization that was recently sued by the State of Washington for fraud.

It just doesn't make sense. It's so plainly weird that you have to wonder if the CCA people that made the arrangement with BIAW, knew about BIAW's background and anti-fish lobbying? Or is CCA's leadership so personally wrapped up in Dino Rossi that none of that matters, and they'll use CCA to leverage his political campaign?

Either way, there's no shortage of good businesses to work with and CCA made a bad choice that reflects poorly on them.

Because everybody on this forum agrees selective fishing in a mixed stock fishery is good for both fish and harvest, and it will be an integral part of future sustainable fisheries. I think supporters of these proposals believe there will be some benefit, even if it's hoping their good faith efforts will reward them. There's an obvious confusion between a tool (selective harvest), and the derelict use of the tool (putting it in front of other less efficient fisheries), an entirely different problem.

The more I think about that the more I like it. Outstanding.

you dont have a clue, do you even fish ?

You seem to have quite an imagination coupled with your theories that I think I’m going to call “the bogey man theories.”

What you can’t see will definitely hurt you.

Most kids grow out of that stage, why haven’t you?

i guess basic understanding of the issue`s isnt one of your strong points ?

Regarding 40% gill net mortality.

40% gill net mortality is too high now and testing commercial selective fishing gear is the result.

if it was 10 like sport would that make you happy ?

Re run.

So fast forward.

You have neglected to entertain the idea that negotiations are part of any agreement.

That is why this is fantasy land compared to the real world CR.

Louie,

Of course there are many real world negotiations in CR fish management. How many, if any, are sport fishing interests invited to negotiate?

Sg

I can second that AM.

Things are changing for the good if you aren't a 40% mortality gill netter.

why cant you answer my question ?

Good point first thing that needs to happen is some sort of definition of what selective is..So far it seems to be what ever suits your needs..

I'm still waiting for your answer to my question 6 months ago when I asked you full disclosure of who you represent and your plan of action on the CR.

Wiers are already in use....

The Kalama river is a prime example... They've been using wiers in there for quite some time in the fall.

Keith

Commercial salmon harvest is outlawed in the tribs on the Oregon side not sure about Washington but 2 laws would need to be changed..

just think of my groups plan being 100 percent opposite of your groups plan and that will get you in the ball park.

At least we are getting closer.
If you are embarassed to say what your group is, what is your/ their plan of action.

"Selective" is an easy term to define...but you can be "selective" in many ways.

Typically it means to harvest your target fish, and either avoid or release your non-target fish. Every fishing technique is "selective", but what we're talking about is the relative ability to release non-target fish safely, which isn't being "selective", it pertains to relative release mortality.

Some techniques have better relative release mortalities, i.e., purse seines have better release mortality rates compared to gillnets, all other things being equal.

For the "tangle nets" (small mesh gillnets), they have a better release mortality rate for Chinook, but a worse release mortality rate for steelhead, compared to a 9 inch mesh gillnet.

The question here isn't about defining "selective"...that's easy. The question here is will having a better relative release mortality achieve the stated goal...being "selective" is a tool, not an end to a means.

In this case, WDFW clearly states the goal of the commercial selective fishing techniques they are studying, and that goal is to put more hatchery fish in the commercial totes while using up the allotted ESA impacts on steelhead and spring Chinook.

With that as the goal, if they can make the new fishing techniques legal, effective at harvesting fish, and with a lower relative release mortality, then they will easily be able to achieve that goal.

Some seem to think that the goal is to have more wild fish spawning, but that is a numerical impossibility when the limiting factor on a fishery is the number of dead wild potential spawners.

Another very minor goal would be to have less hatchery fish on the spawning grounds interacting with wild fish spawning, but the relative composition of the wild/hatchery ratio on the spawning grounds will change so little that any achievement of that goal will be negligible, at best.

The intellectual leap from the stated goal (more hatchery fish in commercial totes) to more fish spawning, and no bad effects on sportfishing, introduces a level of Orwellian doublespeak to fisheries management that to this point is unheard of...and that's saying something, since doublespeak is almost de riguer in fisheries management.

It's not about whether being "selective" is good or bad...everything is selective. It's not about what the relative release mortality rates are...they're just numbers.

It's about whether or not this form of being "selective" is appropriate to achieve the stated goals, and anyone who has the goal of better sportfishing, the goal of more wild fish spawning, or the goal of more effective wild fish spawning, will be sadly disappointed if these techniques are used in the LCR fisheries...it's a wholly inappropriate tool to accomplish those goals.

Where would it be appropriate to accomplish any goal beyond more fish in the commercial totes? Anywhere that dead non-target fish is not the limiting factor on the length or breadth of the fishery. In those cases, it might actually result in more spawners on the spawning grounds while still increasing commercial catch. It will, however, still effect sportfishing negatively as more hatchery fish are removed from the available harvest pool...in the case where sportfishing targets the wild fish, it would be a definite benefit to the sportfishery, if the commercial fishery were releasing wild fish with the best release mortality rate possible.

When we are both targeting the same fish (hatchery Chinook), and a different fish (wild Chinook) is the limiting factor, then the benefits to wild fish will be negligible, the detriments to sportfishing will be tangible, and the benefits to the commercial fisherry will be significant.

That all assumes that it actually works as the States intend it to.

Fish on...

Todd

S.F.W.C.S.

But whats the standard or guideline that defines selective, kinda like MPG standards for cars. As far as I know non exsist other than the more selective you get the more fish you get to take from another user group.

You are talented being able to speak in tongues.

You going to answer the question in english?

So
friggin
What
C
Sucker

its Sport Fisherman With Common Sense and you aint qualified to join.

No wonder i've never heard of it, incredibly small group..

So friggin what?

Yes, fisherman is singular unlike a 40x larger number which would stand for gill net mortality.

Indeed...which is why we've always got the lion's share, in spite of how much we beotch about gillnets...stay tuned for that to potentially change, in a big way...with allocation shift being the only significant change to the whole regime.

Fish on...

Todd

lets say the release mortality rate for gillnets is 40 percent and the gillnetters can net until they have reached there lets say 5 percent esa take rate and then they are done, now lets say the new method for commercials has a 10 percent release mortality rate and they still have the 5 percent esa take so now they will fish until they reach there 5 percent esa take amount and they are done, what i fail to see is how many esa listed fish they saved with the new lower release mortality rate other than zero, can you explain why the 40 percent release rate is so important and how many esa listed fish would be saved if infact they do go to a new method but still fish until there esa take rate is killed ?

Somebody has to catch them, or collect them. We can't do it (the lions share) with our current allocated impacts. So the potential allocation shift you mention is inevitable (if reducing hatchery spawner's is a goal). Putting these proposed fisheries below other harvesters has the same affect on sport mortality as cutting production does. Coupled with production reductions (what's your function...) it's a double whammy.

I half way wonder if this will be the catalyst to convert all fisheries to more selective methods? Mortality rates for everyone above these fisheries is going to be substantially increased with less hatchery fish in the mix. We're only 50% of the pie, and short of everyone getting on board we are all pissin in the wind. Nothing gets better. You know what they say, sheet rolls down river!

So will someone please remind me what keeps the tribal gill nets above the Bonneville dam?

If selective fishing is assumed to be a successful technique, what's keeps the tribal gillnets up river?

My understanding is they've got 2 bow loading gillnet boats now and have been out on ride alongs in the lower river with non-tribal commercial fisherman.... What are they up to?

Keith

Believe it or not pretty much all fisherys now are being managed selectively, its either C/R or Time and place both fully sanctioned by NMFS.

Here some more numbers to play with in addition to the already 40% mortality rate of gill nets.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2664.2009.01673.x/pdf

A few quotes from the (2009) study

Synthesis and applications. Our analyses indicate that non-retention in gillnet fisheries is an important and under-appreciated consequence of the exploitation of salmon. Stock estimates for exploited populations that do not account for non-retention mortality overestimate the number of reproductively viable fish.

Fungal infection was strongly associated with the severity of gillnet injury. No infection was observed in uninjured fish in 2005. Nearly half (43%) of gillnet-injured fish were infected, with rates of 6%, 76% and100% for fish with minor, moderate and severe injuries respectively.
Fish without fungal infections lived more than 15 times longer(t2,173 = 16Æ95, P < 0Æ001; Fig. 5b) and, among fish observed in-stream, spent more than twice as long in-stream. Similar patterns were noted in 2006 and 2007.

The percentage known alive at the second sampling occasion (v1),includes all fish that survive a minimum of two sampling intervals(3 days) from stream entry. Given this criteria, the majority(51%) of fish with gillnet injuries were predicted to fail to spawn in contrast to 6% of control fish. Nearly all fish (93%) with fungal infection at the time of tagging failed to spawn.

http://csfish.adfg.state.ak.us/mariner/brbcatch/brbsummary.php


Sorry but those two guys are on my list of bucket biologist, the pre season forecast was 40 million sockeye, maybe they need to check the batterys in their calculator's..

Blood letting was also considered cutting edge medical technology in the 1700's by the best and brightest Doctors of the time..

LL, that's the same stuff that will happen to any fish that are handled...including those that are picked out of a purse seine.

Fish on...

Todd

Sorry Todd
I’m going with the specific gillnet study instead of theory since there could be as much difference as the glaring 40% gillnet mortality rate and appox.1% purse seine mortality rates WDFW found last year.

“The real goal is to catch a large number of hatchery fish and increase the harvest rate on hatchery fish while letting naturally spawning fish escape the net,” Frazier said. To be successful, the released fish must also have a high survival rate, he said

http://www.wenatcheeworld.com/news/2010/aug/24/tribal-tests-of-selective-fishing-drift-down-the/

The handle time is longer when untangling from a gillnet, so that's going to result in more fungal infections and greater injuries, but any time fish are handled by anyone or anything, scratches, scrapes, cuts, and the ensuing fungal infections, will happen.

Not a theory, that's how the fish get handling infections.

Fish on...

Todd

So you agree with the gill net study and not with Todds theory.

You surprise me sometimes.

I'm not sure where you're getting an idea like that, LL...you may have noticed above that I said purse seines would have a shorter handling time, and therefore a lower fungal infection rate...but a lower rate and "no infection rate" are two very different things, as I said above, too...and, there has been no study yet, it's going on now, and what they said is that for the experiment to be successful, then the release rate must be much better than from gillnets, which it most assuredly will be.

Fish on...

Todd

i posted that to show what the wdfw is trying to do and thats lower the release mortality rate so they can catch more hatchery fish before they reach there allotted esa take amount.

Louie... Since Bristol Bay is a 100% retention fishery no C/R, the only thing I can figure is they were testing the mortality of the drop out rate. I think NMFS calculates this at about 4% of the total catch and I believe it is accounted for, personally I would have put the mortality rate at 100% for these fish. Still not sure what these guys were trying to prove here but as far as I'm concerned they failed miserably..

That’s what I like about you SBD, you have stated that you are a retired commercial fisherman and you are apparently trying to carrying on the old commercial way from what I’ve read on quite a few of your posts. A little distraction, a few distorted things here, and a little fiction there, and you don’t hide behind a cloak of secrecy like some people we know around here.

I started my dream of being out on the water in the 70’s with a Neah Bay trolling license. The hand writing was already on the wall about declining stocks of fish and seasons to fish for them.

I’d be the first to tell you commercial fishermen are people to. .

But the antiquated, non selective gill nets in the state of WA need to be outlawed like most of the country and I’m pretty sure the fishermen will be able to adjust like I did and maybe try the other methods of commercial fishing when approved.

I’ll look in on this thread or upcoming re runs to see if some new material has emerged.

Other wise Good Bye for now.

I like your style Lucky Louie...........

Personally I think all thats going to be gained by testing these new methods is there going to get some really hard data on how high the mortality rate really is on sport coho..But I'll just stand by and watch this unfold..

i agree but you better be carefull for what you ask for or you just may get it.

I agree that purse seines will have a significantly lower morality at the time of release than gillnets, but purse seines are very hard on salmon in salt water, and in what are estuaries like the LCR. Purse seine webbing is thicker and knotted, and causes significant descaling of salmon. Subsequent fungal infection would be the norm, not the exception.

For example, there is a reason why all the successful salmon population studies on the Skagit River capture fish by beach seining at Lyman or Hamilton. The fish's scales become "water hardened" after they move 26 miles upriver, above tidewater, and develop a thicker slime layer. Those same salmon captured by any method in the Bay or in the river's tidewater experience a very high mortality rate.

Sg

Sounds like the beach seiners are doing pretty good in the LCR with their testing....

Is there any up to date information regarding results of their testing for 2010?

Keith

Pat Frazier would be the one for updates, don't think any catch is being sorted at this point just all examined and transported to holding pens for long term mortality studies..

I think knotless is availible for the bunt web, sorting might be a problem on some of the bigger sets..


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mNtjS1XFms

If they get any AK style sets on the LCR, there won't be any survival, sorted or not.

True, there are knotless webbing materials available; wonder if that's what's being used.

Sg

Not sure but you would think they would require it and maybe a couple dozen recovery boxes to boot.

Frazier said he’s not sure what impact the use of selective gear would have on sports or tribal fishing in the upper Columbia River. But for commercial fishermen, it could mean an opportunity to increase their harvests, and additional fishing seasons

http://www.wenatcheeworld.com/news/2010/aug/24/tribal-tests-of-selective-fishing-drift-down-the/

Appears that Frazier prefers to avoid stating the obvious. Must be looking to rise another rung up the bureaucratic ladder.

The only ones getting screwed harder than the LCR spring Chinook sportfishers are the upper river and Idaho sportfishers...they get screwed enough as it is, but this will really, REALLY, screw their fisheries.

Fish on...

Todd

i think that alot of people don't realize that sportfishing will suck if the commercials take alot of the same fish we are fishing for out of the system, willipa for example, would you rather fish over a large aggregate of fish and have the nets go in on the 16th of september like they did last year or would you rather have the commercials fishing selectively right beside you and slowing sportfishing to a crawl ?, this could happin in willipa and grays harbor and the columbia and we are going to have the biggest group of morons ever assembled scratching there heads like the dipshits they are wondering why fishing sucks.

Yeah but they're saving more wild fish right??

Sometimes I wonder how people get through life without much common sense......

Keith

i hope this works, this will get the commercials alot more fish and that will greatly help sportfishing, i`m on board 100 percent, in fact i would feel honored to fish next to a purse seine boat

http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/commercial/selective/current.html

That looks like a likely place for fish wheels.

Boater/Salmo g. -

I think many of us are unsure what the impacts on the increase harvest of hatchery fish by a selective commercial fishery on the lower Columbia would have on those up river fisheries. We will only know for sure after the policy folks make the decisions on how to allot the various impacts to the various fisheries.

For example those up river fisheries could well remain unchanged if the decision were to contine the same upper/lower river sharing of impacts/allocations that we currently have. All that requires is for any increase in lower river fishing impacts/allocation by a given fishery be balanced a reduction of in other lower river fisheries.

I think that if the State is indeed unsure how such a shift in the lower river paradigm will play out it would be cause for pause for at least some folks.

Heck on the lower river one could potentially spin the whole thing as a huge economic win. With a commercial selective fishery the commercial fleet will be able to sell more hatchery fish - an econmic plus. With a larger commercial take the recreational fishery behind it will be fishing on fewer fish. This of course would result in a lower catch/effort which translates into it taking more days effort to catch a given number of fish. Since the economic value in a recreational fishery is generated by number of man-days that fishery produces each of those recreational caught fish will be more valuable.

The classsic bureaucratic win-win result - now excuse me while I gag on my morning coffee.

Tight lines
Curt

Boater,

You probably don't realize how scary this stuff is to a gill netter.

At least they can't say you gave them fair warning.

if i was a gillnetter i`d be all for this, more fish = more money plus funding to change gear.

you mean low-hole.

I'm already hearing the whole thing is just about ready to go into the crapper for the reasons that have been covered here.

Lucky Louie,

Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see any suitable fish wheel locations. All the former Columbia River fish wheel sites are now under reservoirs. Fish wheels are extremely site sensitive.

Smalma,

A bureaucratic winner for sure! While opportunity is valuable, I recall that even Boldt wrote that opportunity to fish without the likelihood of catching isn't much of an opportunity. And while it's fun to fish the LCR for 3 or 4 days in the spring and again in Aug., I don't value it enough personally to spend a week's vacation down there to catch the few fish I bring home. I think I previously mentioned that the salmon I catch must cost me a few hundred dollars a pound; I think I contribute enough already to the recreational angling economy. If it came down to that kind of sport fishing on the LCR, I think I would just do my salmon fishing in AK instead, and drag an ice chest up and back.

It's interesting that in all this hub-ub about alternative gear and harvesting more hatchery salmon, we don't see anything about the various area allocations, and that's a very big deal. Imagine for a moment how Idaho feels about WA testing selective commercial gear intended to allow fewer Idaho hatchery fish return to Idaho, for example.

Sg

Your bathroom has an echo?

i agree.

As I mentioned elsewhere, after the LCR sporties get assreamed with a baseball bat, the upriver fishermen, especially those in Idaho, will get the followup reaming...they already get screwed virtually every year due to the amount of fish all the lower river fishers catch, if the seine experiment works as intended they may as well all take up bass fishing, since they sure as hell won't be doing any salmon fishing.

Fish on...

Todd

Actually I hear its working very well, the seines anyway. Traps aren't doing much but the river has changed alot in the last 75 years so the historic records of the top producing sites arent of much use anymore.

thats to bad it will have a devastating effect on sportfishing when they get this trash up and running.

Re: Alternative commercial fishing gears to be tested

Page 22 (this page)

Da Boogie Man Chronicles (what you can't see will hurt you)

i`m actually stating info that any person with common sense will understand, why cant you understand it ?

You and common sense have nothing in common.

DA BOGEYMAN THEORIES

Coming to a blog next to you.

i know alot of sportfisherman and none of them want to fish over less fish that we do now.