upset fisherman!!!

You can thank "MSY" and dirty politicians for the end of this states salmon fishery. There has never been any honesty, saw that when I worked in La Push 15 years ago.

Something else to ponder is the fact that most of you support the same liberal political candidates that the tribes have made much richer with casino money. You can pat yourself on the back for helping this along... Look who the tribes support and see if you support the same criminals.

Nice try Rich, but your remarks range from borderline to entirely irrelevant. Much as I dislike MSY, it has nothing to do with the effects on this season's salmon fishing. The closures of many NT recreational fisheries is entirely due to not having any official "paper" covering incidental take of ESA-listed salmon and steelhead. Since the early 2000s, the state has had ESA coverage by riding the coat tails of the treaty tribes' ESA coverage, which they got by riding the coat tails of a fishery management plan submitted by the BIA, even though the BIA is not a fishery management agency, making the entire affair look like a bit of a sham. But that's a separate point and possible issue.

Any politician who receives money from tribes will pander to them because politicians, for the most part, can be bought. However, tribes have run into a stumbling block because state law prohibits politicians from accepting money from governments, and tribal governments, as they are always telling everyone, are sovereign governments. Tribes can buy campaign ads for a candidate they support like a PAC - and they invariably support Democrat candidates - but they cannot donate directly to a candidate. And candidates don't get rich on tribal casino or any other money. They can be bought so cheaply that no middle class citizen would call that amount enough to be rich.

Sg

You are way wrong. Tribes donate directly and it works. And they donate to the Ds.

That's about to come to a screeching halt

Hope so. I think it has legs if it gets in front of the right people.

You can check the archives if you like I know I posted about it.

Back around 2001 to 2002 we had low water years. the tribe had 4200 wild steelhead stacked like cord wood in the High Tide deep freeze. I went there for an alarm and saw the fish it was late March a worker later told me the count. The tribe/WDFW had reported a total harvest of like 1400 wild steelhead between Jan 1 and March 15 th, (not sure on the details long time ago). I called WDFW and they immediately called me a liar, they never attempted to verify the evidence, they did not care.

Those fish were sold as Halibut bait as I was told since the bottom of the steelhead market had dropped out.

But they do donate directly. That was the gist of the request to PDC to clarify that it was not legal. PDC staff said that tp prevent the Tribes from donating would infringe on their First Amendment Rights. To have the best gubmint money can buy......

I spent 3 years working in La Push watching the catch and then watching the reported harvest, (not even close to honest reporting). They would not do a full report until after the smolt outmigration counts. No matter what they always ended up with 25% of the entire run exactly, never a fish extra never a fish less. But they did not report or know the exact count until the following smolt outmigration, because that is the "number" they needed to get the appropriate "25%".

And you support conservative candidates that are in bed with the tribe.

Sarah Palin supports tribal fisheries

I support no politicians. In fact after my experience as a cop and running for sheriff I promised myself I would never vote again until we had some major changes. When Trump announced I decided to register again I will vote for him but cross out the rest of the ballot.

The truth about the fish is its always been a mess, corruption on all sides. UW knew in the early 1970's that less than 1% of the available spawning habitat of the entire Quileute system was being utilized, the runs were decimated well before 1970, at least from historical natural abundance.

There was massive comercial fishing in terminal areas prior to 1900, hood cannal was full of fish wheels (piling type), there was a cannary on lake Quinault that processed the 20 million sockey run to extinction before 1900. All the rivers in Puget sound and up and down the coast were netted by whites on a comercial level prior to 1900. Thats when the first big run crashes happened and entire stocks were wiped out, what we had after that were the remnants.

This happened during and after, the whites gave the coastal natives small pox blankets for two or three rounds while Hudson Bay was doing business out on the coast. 98% of the natives on the coast died from European disease.

Good ole Hillary came to town in late March. She made only 4 stops and one was a private meeting of tribal leaders in Puyallup.

Like a lot of donors with large sums of cash, they buy everyone so they've always got favor cards to play.

All the while the runs have been managed under MSY they have been under critical mass. The natural abundance was gone prior to us even keeping track, and as we pounded the runs year after year, the food chain related to the fish shrank as well making it a very slow process for the runs to rebound. With environmental factors, runs managed below critical mass and a broken food chain the fish never have a chance to refill carrying capacity because the food, habitat and MSY won't allow it.

Look at the upper Bogachiel and Clawah. There is absolutely no reason that those rivers are not completely plugged full of fish 9 months out of the year. Those rivers have pristine habitat and miles of the very best spawning beds, multiple species should be spawning ontop of each other. For the most part those rivers are empty and unused, even150 years ago they would have put the Kamchatka Peninsula to shame with their abundance.

yep, gillnetting killed it

Doesn't the right generally reject the concept of climate change?

I am beyond upset about it. I am literally losing sleep. I keep telling my wife I need to find another hobby...but it's just a joke. I've been obsessed with fishing since I was a kid. There's nothing else in this world that's going to replace it.

I do fish for fish other than salmon. I do bottomfish. I also like fishing for bass and even trout. When I'm doing those I certainly enjoy them...but the truth is I am doing it because I can't go salmon fishing that day.

I've actually thought about moving, but I really love where I live. When I'm allowed to fish, there's actually no place in the world I'd rather be.

(side note - of course I'm willing to lay off PS salmon to let them recover. I just can't freakin deal with the fact that the tribes won't)

The question is - what to do?

Discuss online to stay up to date-check
Write emails and letters-check
Try to get others to do the same-check
Participate in PSA and CCA-check
Protest/rally in person - check

What else? I am willing to do whatever.

I feel really bad for you guys, if I lived in WA I would be going through the same thought process and withdrawals.

Maybe plan some get get away fishing trips?

beyond upset is an understatement... i just bought in the last few months 4 new rods, 3 new reels, hooks, bobbers, jigs, spoons, weights, egg cures, dyes, boxes, worms, ect.....

and i can use about 1 1/10th of it....

the guy that took us back yesterday seemed to know alot of what he was talking about on the higher up inside stuff, if i remember right, he said something pertaining to the WFC and the tribes want Rainbow planting in lakes with creek inflow/outflow to stop, as they can spawn with Wild Steelhead.... my jaw dropped when i heard that....

a few days ago i was at a lake, and there was another guy there telling someone i know about how " screw Salmon, they need to put more and bigger trout in these lakes, anyone that wants Salmon over that, should be punched in the mouth".... i just kinda looked at him, then he stated that they will be putting Steelhead in lakes too... i told him that they are just bred from Steelhead, that Steelhead actually have to go to the salt and return to become Steelhead, and that if they are dumped into lakes they will just risidualize back to a Rainbow like some do in rivers becoming a resident.... appearently im wrong, Steelhead are a different species of Rainbow and they dont need to go to the salt....


theres alot of people that dont care, one dumb broad on FB said maybe we should learn to fish for something else other than Salmon and Steelhead.... i laughed at that too....

our problem is, theres more people that dont care than do, and that needs to change.... as i told them, if you think that losing Salmon fishing will protect everyone from coming to your lakes and raking everything out of them you have another thing coming.... its exactly what will happen....

It's very sad that this has been stolen from the people.

If the fish had all along been managed for subsistence instead of comercial harvest we would have so many fish there would be no regulations or limits.

MSH instead of MSY what an idea problem is people have alot of fun and full bellies but no money in politicians pockets.

What needs to happen is the people of this state need to demand all of WDFW employees be terminated for gross mismanagement of the peoples resource. The people who work for the government do it at the will of the people, it is a privilege for them to look out for our best interests and serve us. They have not done that instead they have screwed us over and served themselves and the tribes.

....and who would you replace them with....

Corky from "Life Goes On" could probably do a better job, infact I know he could.... At least he would be honest.

You paint with a broad brush. There a lots of good folks there doing what they can within the limits/sideboards that they have to work with.

That is a little bit harsh, I think, for the working folks at the department.

Steelhead in the Great Lakes don't go to the "salt" and return.

We don't need "good" people doing what they can to stay within the limits\sideboards to maintain a pay check.... What good does that do? Worked with lots of cops that did the same thing. A wise Chinaman told me that "those who turn the other cheek to save themselves but feel bad about knowing whats going on are no good".

Thats what you call à "self enslaved pussy" that might as well have their balls cut off because they are completely worthless.

You do what you can to change things. At risk to your career and job. You do have to make significant changes in leadership but can you really say that the voters of this state don't support how WDFW manages? There really is no major call for change that is broad-based.

People are dumb, lack the ability to take responsibility for anything. 99.8% of human beings only are interested in "fitting in" being the same as everybody else" and " getting what they can for themselves". Self sacrifice for a greater good is not part of their life.

The only thing missing from this discussion is the amount of money that comes with our fish being listed on the ESA. Years ago I was told by a Hoh tribal member that the true goal of the elders of the tribe was to fish the Hoh stocks down until they got listed.The tribe will see tens of millions more money than they would just managing and harvesting.

and those are Skamania stock, so, are they "true" Steelhead by definition or are they just big ass Rainbows?

[Bleeeeep!], the cup of ignorance in this thread overfloweth . . .

Rich, your posts read like they were written by someone dumber than a box of rocks. WDFW manages salmon the way they do because that is the law, as in WACs, from the state legislature. You want salmon managed differently, then you need to change the laws governing the managing of salmon. Further, the abundance of salmon is less the product of state management and more the result of habitat conditions, habitat that WDFW has very, very little authority to regulate. If you were half as sharp as you think you are, you'd already know this stuff.

Evo, thanks for being your usual sh!t fer brains self. FYI (better write this down for future reference) steelhead are rainbow trout, rainbow trout that migrate to and from salt water. They are one and the same species. There, remember that. Skamania is one stock of steelhead, a hatchery stock originally derived of Washougal and Wind River summer steelhead. Skamania is one of several steelhead stocks that have been transplanted to the Great Lakes. Others include Chambers Creek and Alsea winter runs. There may have been stocks from California transplanted there, too, but I haven't verified that. Because steelhead stocks have been planted in the GL they call the fish steelhead, but since the GL are freshwater and not saltwater, they would technically be adfluvial (lake run) rainbow trout, but nobody calls them that because, well, the eggs for the transplant came from actual steelhead.

What is it they say, better to remain silent and thought ignorant instead of speaking up and proving ignorance beyond any doubt.

.

New sig line. Thanks Salmo

Salmo for someone that everyone thinks is so smart, you sure as arent that smart sounding to me.... you obviously have trouble reading/decihpering what people say...

ill put it in technical terms for you since you have to always make things so technical....

and its basically what i already said....

Steelhead are Rainbow trout that have a gene that causes them to be anadromous, Rainbow trout that do not go to the saltwater by definition for the last 100+ years are not Steelhead... sure, you may have eggs from a Steelhead, but if you throw them in a lake with no saltwater access, they will risidualize the gene that makes them anadromous, and revert back to being just a plain old Rainbow trout that is non anadromous... the WFC even brought that up about the plants of "Steelhead" smolt that some could residualize back to a Rainbow and actually hurt the resident Rainbow population in rivers, along with the Steelhead that could harm wild Steelhead populations....

so basically, according to your own words (lake run Rainbow), the GL Steelhead arent true Steelhead, they are just big ass Rainbow trout.... like i said...


now lets get even more technical, what happens to that gene? does it remove itself from the sequence, or does it lie dormant? i mean you are Mr. Scientist on this, so explain it, surely you or someone has done DNA sequencing on both species to find out if infact the gene is there dormant, or removed from sequence....

or, heres another thought.... remember, you guys, along with other government bodies, called Dollies and Bulls the same fish for how many years? wasnt it the 80s or so that someone finally realized that they are infact 2 different species of fish? so then, if no sequencing has been done, how do we know that Steelhead, and Rainbows arent infact 2 different species of fish? if there has been scientific studies into the DNA to negate any question, than my initial question is redundant, but if it hasnt been done, figure out a way to answer it, you of all people on this board have far greater access to that information than we do.....

straight from your old place of work Salmo.... basically what i said twice, just with not so scientific wording, im not a scientist, and never claimed to be.... but i sure as sh!t can read and tell what someone was trying to say, and i also dont act all high and mighty to the other person that didnt word it like it possibly should have been worded....


They are a unique species; individuals develop differently depending on their environment. While all O. mykiss hatch in gravel-bottomed, fast-flowing, well-oxygenated rivers and streams, some stay in fresh water all their lives. These fish are called rainbow trout. The steelhead that migrate to the ocean develop a slimmer profile, become more silvery in color, and typically grow much larger than the rainbow trout that remain in fresh water.

http://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/pr/species/fish/steelhead-trout.html

The current, up to date and in the literature information is that, in the anadromous zone, steelhead and rainbow are the same damn fish. Some offspring of anadromous parents stay in freshwater, some offspring of resident parents smelt and go to sea. Further, the factor that leads to smolting includes temperature and flow. Colder summer temps and higher flows lead to residency.

Even more interesting is that some rainbow, resident upstream of waterfalls, have become anadromous when placed into anadromous waters.

Those fish are significantly more complex than NOAA is wiling to admit. If they were too admit that a resident rainbow in the Cedar (for example) and a steelhead in the Cedar were the same damn fish and the river was plugged with "residents" (as it was recently) then listing that fish as endangered or threatened becomes a rather long stretch. Lots of politics involved in the listing I'll wager.

Don't get your panties in a bunch Salmo I get it...

It's difficult to admit to yourself that your entire career was based on lies, and that you actually assisted in the demise of wild fish which is contrary to what you thought all along.

with that being said I am sure the little voice in your head was telling you the truth but due to "life in America" you were forced not to pay attention. If you are like me the system tries to destroy you and truth be told there are just very few people that are as good as me.

If common sense is stupid then I have to own that...

yeah i stated the same sh!t that NOAA says and that Salmo says and im the one thats stupid....

right...

why do you idiots always have to turn positive things into arguments?

Simple, extremely accurate answer, "ignorance is their comfort zone"

This could get to 5 stars

Saturday night and I'm ready for popcorn

My money is on Salmo G

Everything is all good until the bottom drops out, then the fingers get pointed.

The thing that makes this the States fault is the fact that they managed for this event not to avoid it.

I come back to this site every once in a while for the entertainment. Some visits are better than others... but this one is right up there.

You folks berate one of the few people on here who actually knows what is happening, how things work, what the real issues are and what we can expect.

Wow. This is better than the Sarah and Donald show.

I don't know if I would say people who work in the field of fisheries or fisheries biology have much of a clue what's going on. I don't know if there is truely one example where our management styles of natural resources has been a success in the long term.

Look around the globe, where ever humans have sought to exploit a natural resource for comercial purposes bad things result. WDFW has done no better than the rest of the world. You would have thought that since we had a few hundred years to learn from EUrope and the East Coast Atlantic Salmon we might have figured it out, unfortunately this is not the case.

People that go along with the program which is an obvious pathway to extinction just to get a retirement, nice cars and a house is not a good excuse.

My wife said she would never marry a fisherman. Ha Ha I rediscovered fishing with her dad but I can't/don't fish 24/7. Three weeks I'll be on the river after she goes on vacation to Cali to her sisters new second home. Going to order my Oregon license today. Fishing in PS may be a thing of the past the way things are going.

Things are going to get nasty over this, as this truely most likely is the end of many Coho stocks and the ultimate end of Puget sound salmon fishing. There is no recovery from this.

We watched for years, many participated in conservation/enhancement measures, watching all along massive comercial harvest and the few fish aloud to spawn managed on a thin margin.

Now we have environmental factors so significant, there is literally no abundance left to mitigate it, as we managed for zero abundance.

Kinda looks like a wormhole
.
.


Will it work Rich?

Rich, you can't blame everyone else then proceed to eat tinfoil wrapped salmon.....

Folks seem to confuse what an agency does (NOAA/WDFW) with what the technical staff believes should be done.

Anybody who thinks natural resources are managed by the Best Available Science (whatever the **ck that is) are close to clueless. Decisions are made based on politics, law, treaties, inertia, whoever makes the biggest campaign contributions, and so on. Science is trotted out when it serves the purpose of leadershit.

For example, there are lots of bios in WDFW who believe that the current level of wild fish escapement is criminally small. And they tell this to their boss. But, policy prevails.

I know of many in WDFW who put careers on the line in defense of the resources/ecosystem, many who did lots of stuff on their own time and dime (professional publication, attend and present at professional meetings) and so on.

Society has to want to make the necessary changes but berating the staff for decisions made way above their pay grade doesn't help.

Right or wrong, BU, at least Rich tries to lay out a logical argument with reasoning, even if flawed, behind his statements.

You, on the other hand, spend 90% of your posts throwing out nothing of value. Your contributions to threads are mostly diarrhea of the mouth full of nasty insults rather than discussing the issues. Your bitching would be OK if there was at least something of value to balance it out. It's a free-speech site so do as you like but you come across as an immature schoolchild in a cuss-word fight. Grow up.

On the other hand Salmo G, Carcassman ,Smalma and maybe some others have been patiently trying educate the RichGs of this site for fifteen + years to no avail. Minimal research done by the "box of rock" types would confirm everything the above mentioned experts say. IMO the dumb furcks deserve the cussing that BU dishes out.

Educate us on what???

That what they knew, preached and practiced helped screw stuff up real good? The proof is in the pudding..

Like I said riding a sinking ship just because that's what everybody else is doing is not a good enough reason.

People want to trust in them and continue to have faith in failed policies because it's easier to hand that responsibility off to someone else. Just because an individual is trained in the most widely accepted theories, practices and science has zero relation to it actually being correct and a good idea.

Maybe you could gain a tiny increment of credibility if you responded to carcassmans post,which clearly explained the situation, with a rebuttal that made just a grain of sense instead of flinging your usual delusional nonsense my way.

I'm not interested in excuses, I don't believe anything coming from the estabished ideas\policies which got things to this point.

We need new people with new ideas and a complete change in management systems.

I'm not interested in excuses, I don't believe anything coming from the estabished ideas\policies which got things to this point.

We need new people with new ideas and a complete change in management systems.

Salmon G still working for NOAA?

I doubt Trump will be able to help much with PS fisheries/tribal negotiations being in the shitter.

You have been saying this [Bleeeeep!] since the beginning of this board.I used to look up to you.But however many years later I realized that this is the excuse you use to justify getting a retirement from the so called ignorant.Well it worked enjoy your retirement.

Salmo G is just calling a spade a spade. sometimes you have to be blunt.

Might as well make an obvious point....

Nobody believes the "habitat" excuse. The fish were already gone from over harvest by the time habitat was maybe even a problem.

To debunk the habitat theory all you need to do is look at the toutle. The river being completely destroyed by the volcano didn't hurt what fish were left much. The fish reacted, adapted and then returned quickly, what few fish had the opportunity anyways.

If the fish are present they will adapt and find a way to succeed, but you need vast numbers for them to be successful.

Salmo,

Maybe when you are in Oregon or BC fishing for salmon, you can brag how you collect a nice retirement from managing Washington stocks into oblivion. Then you can tell them that its not your fault because the law made you do it..... But you sure have a nice retirement and some nice stuff that you can use to fish in other states.

So, the real issue here is that you are jealous and/or resentful. Sad to the point of being pathetic.

By the way, NOAA does not "manage" Washington fish stocks. Rather, It does assess and issue permits for fisheries that may impact ESA listed fish. And if you don't believe that habitat (from water pollution to in stream spawning conditions to marine smolt and adult survival) is a limiting factor to recovery of wild salmon and steelhead to historic levels then you are delusional. Is habitat the only adverse impact? No. Clearly harvest and predation also affect recovery.

But, frankly, the various agencies tend to function within the various (and numerous) laws issued by the Federal Congress as well as the State. And then there are the Federal treaties and court decisions. Don't like the laws? Then get them changed. And be sure to participate in the rule making process established by the existing laws.

I know that Salmo G is a big boy and is more than capable of defending himself but I take extreme exception to your making him (or anyone else) the personal scapegoat for what is a complex situation decades in the making.

you cant read either....


solid work....

Answer it...

Redhook trying to "educate" salmo about steelhead biology? Lol. The entertainment value here is priceless. I can't wait to see what comes next.

I didn't try to educate anyone, I used different terminology than previously, to remove doubt as to what I was saying, obviously, even doing that, it still didn't work.... That's not my problem however...



SS, get a life, how many times has Parker said to keep the BS of this part of the site? Still don't listen I see, and as I said before, you always turn positive things into arguments, you basically are just doing the same sh!t that makes it so we stay in the same position were in....


Stfu and attend the next rally....

Thankfully salmon and steelhead don't utilize marine habitat....just rivers.
The blob and El Niño are just a myth to RG!
SF

That's a low blow, RICH.

We need more biologists posting during these challenging times, not less.

Leave Sg alone.

I agree that we need more technical participation here. Rich actually asks some important questions, albeit a bit aggressively and mixed in with other nonsense. But as a published researcher with more than 35 years of experience in these debates, I understand why there might be some blowback on this board by many about the undo importance placed on freshwater habitat influences in the current low returns, which often are based on speculative and unsupported opinions by a few highly worshiped high-posters.

Although nobody questions the role of freshwater habitat quality in achieving recovery, I dont agree with a lot of what some experts say here. If freshwater habitat is the primary factor preventing recovery, why do we not see much better returns on the systems with better quality habitat? Why do million dollar resoration projects produce no results? The only reliable measure of freshwater habitat quality for steelhead and coho is spawner to smolt production. Other species seem to be doing well in the same systems, given the harvest pressures they receive. Cant be spawning habitat then, right? If we want to talk about freshwater habitat quality, lets talk about data relevant to the fw rearing aspect of the debate, and not mix in marine inflences and harvest pressures that also influence the current low adult returns.

Poor survival in the marine environment is no indication of freshwater habitat. Yet is is often cited here as such based on low adult returns. We do ourselves a huge disservice as a responsible consumer and conservator of the resource by blaming the decline of salmon only on freshwater habitat and unstoppable growth of population. That offers no hope for our cause. If recovery is hopeless given human population growth and its influences on freshwater habitat, then we should quit bitching about the tribes and their take of the few remaining fish. Game over. However, I dont think we are anywhere near that point. There is plenty of under-utilized habitat out there. Put some fish on it.

Milt out.

and make sure every species is on it and that one isn't over exploited over all the others... we are so focused on one or two ESA listed species that we forget that they all are part of a giant food chain... and this includes the lowly old chum that leaves carcasses all over the lower river and estuaries, giving the smolts, crabs and shrimp a lot to eat and multiply with...

how often are chums harvested for eggs and crab bait? when those chums should be left in the river for smolt and crab food

The answers to all the problems are out there....I have no idea where... probably in a bunker under a 74' Airstream, guarded by Sasquench. The reason why the answers are not available is because every special interest group with a vested interest has their hands in the pot. If the local/state economy was contingent upon recreation $ then problems would be addressed and fixed. If salmon and steelhead dried up and became ancient history in Puget sound, probably less than 5% of the population would be affected. Look at pics of puget sound and surrounding areas 70+ years ago.....a far cry from today's mass of human encroachment. Fish habitat from source to sound have been altered in a negative way, mix in adverse ocean conditions and salmon and steelhead disappear. Nothing will ever change unless society sacrifices to protect habitat, other than that.....follow the $ and you'll find your answers. However, Bigfoot habitat remains pristine...blurry pics are still taken, huge piles of feces are still being stepped in, and houses will be slapped. Salmon and steelhead have it easy

You have the best words.

I'm in also tonight when these "things" descend into "Tree Marking Contests"

All I've been able to mark lately is my shoes.

I can't.

+1

I should have locked the thread after carcassman's reply. No truer words have since been spoken (until now) in this thread.

My mother doesn't approve of me calling out Rich G and Redhook for making the stupidest posts in the history of PP, but my lowly defense is that it gets old taking the high road all the time.

Rich, I don't dislike you, but your post was stupid beyond the belief of any informed person. You would do yourself a favor to include more sources of information in your life. You're not completely off, just mostly. Agencies do less than stellar jobs at managing public resources because the public - meaning all of us - doesn't want what's best for the public resources. They want what is best for them, and that is often to the detriment of the resource. You can be an agent of change. Remember, you're either part of the solution, and if not, then you're part of the problem. I could post my resume, and then you could decide how much I contributed to the problem, but somehow, I don't expect an honest answer.

Redhook, aka Evo, your only hope is to get a job. Until then, you really have no standing here, or elsewhere, or in real life.

Oh, and to those who appear concerned that I'm enjoying retirement at your expense, you should pay attention and note that Reagan changed the federal retirement system in 1984. All federal employees who joined federal service after that date get good old Social Security, just like most American working stiffs.

Sg