Elwha & Nisqually steelhead gene bank rivers

WDFW NEWS RELEASE
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
600 Capitol Way North, Olympia, WA 98501-1091
http://wdfw.wa.gov/

August 15, 2016
Contact: Jim Scott, (360) 902-2736

Elwha, Nisqually rivers designated gene banks to protect wild steelhead

OLYMPIA –The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) today designated the Nisqually and Elwha rivers as wild steelhead gene banks to help conserve wild steelhead populations.

Under that designation, both rivers will be off-limits to releases of steelhead raised in state hatcheries, which can pose risks to native fish through interbreeding and competition for spawning areas. Fishing will be allowed if wild steelhead runs to those rivers are strong enough to allow it.

Both rivers meet the criteria for gene banks established in the Statewide Steelhead Management Plan to help reverse the long-term decline of wild steelhead returning to rivers in Washington state, said Jim Scott, a special assistant to the WDFW director.

"The Nisqually and Elwha rivers can play a major role in the recovery of wild steelhead populations in the Puget Sound area," Scott said. "This new designation, along with other conservation efforts already underway, will help us reach that goal."

WDFW presented both rivers as possible options for wild steelhead gene banks during a series of public meetings and an online comment period during the summer of 2015.

Other options included the Skagit and Sauk rivers, but WDFW delayed designating a wild steelhead gene bank in northern Puget Sound pending further review. The department expects to make that decision after consultation with a new advisory group and area treaty tribes, Scott said.

Under a 2014 court settlement, WDFW agreed to stop releasing early winter hatchery steelhead in the Skagit River through 2025. Scott noted, however, that WDFW is considering a proposal to release steelhead raised from local stock at the department's Marblemount Hatchery.

"Most public comments received by the department support the designation of the entire Skagit River as a gene bank, but some are concerned about the potential impact on fisheries and the local economy," Scott said. "We are committed to establishing at least one wild steelhead gene bank in North Cascades region, but plan to convene an advisory group to discuss the options in greater detail before proceeding."

None of the sites WDFW proposed as wild steelhead gene banks in the Puget Sound area drew more public support than the Elwha River on the north side of the Olympic Peninsula. While still recovering from the removal of two large hydroelectric dams in 2012, the river now has more than 40 miles of additional spawning and rearing habitat, much of it inside Olympic National Park.

In addition, studies have found that the river's native winter steelhead population remains genetically distinct, despite releases of early winter hatchery fish conducted until 2011. An interim hatchery program currently operated by the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe to restore the river's steelhead population is scheduled to end once river conditions improve and restoration objectives for wild steelhead are achieved.

The Nisqually River, which flows into southern Puget Sound, was also a strong candidate for a wild steelhead gene bank – in part because of the ongoing efforts by the Nisqually River Council to protect and restore fish habitat on the river, Scott said. No hatchery-origin winter steelhead have been released into the watershed since 1982, and the number of wild steelhead spawning in the river increased to more than 1,000 fish in 2015 and more than 2,000 in 2016.

With the addition of the Nisqually and Elwha rivers, WDFW has now designated 14 wild steelhead gene banks in watersheds around the state.

Persons with disabilities who need to receive this information in an alternative format or who need reasonable accommodations to participate in WDFW-sponsored public meetings or other activities may contact Dolores Noyes by phone (360-902-2349), TTY (360-902-2207), or email (dolores.noyes@dfw.wa.gov). For more information, see http://wdfw.wa.gov/accessibility/reasonable_request.html.

Oh congrats to all the wild fish folks.
Another great river that soon will be stuffed full of wild steelhats!!

Considering how well the wild Nisqually steelhead have responded to no stocking and no recreational fishing for, what, 20 years I have to wonder about when the tribe will cease its hatchery operation given this little "oh by the way" qualifier: "(A)n interim hatchery program currently operated by the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe to restore the river's steelhead population is scheduled to end [b]once river conditions improve and restoration objectives for wild steelhead are achieved[/b]."

Have those objectives been established? Are they reasonable given obvious non-river limiting factors affecting other systems?

Read NMFS Section 7 Biological Opinion and see for yourself. The steelhead program along with viability parameter triggers are discussed on pages 18 & 19.

NMFS Elwha Hatchery Biological Opinion

So many issues, so much material.....thanks.

Don't worry the wild steelhead won't ever be back like they think.

WDFW is simply studying for a test they will fail.

That Biological Opinion is dated late 2012 and makes for an interesting read. There is more Elwha info in para 2.2.2 starting on page 62.

I saw that Jim Scott had tossed out the 1,000 fish in 2015 and 2,000 in 2016 on the Nisqually. If those numbers are accurate and are sustained into the future that is good news. Would be even better if all P.S. rivers were seeing such improvements.

Now, the issue of tribal fishing on those (recovered) wild stocks while recreational fishers are excluded is another matter.

With all of the discussions recently about proposed license fee increases and GF decreases I took particular notice of the list of WDFW taskings at the end of the Biological Opinion and, particularly, of those related to steelhead (since there is no NT fishery).

A doubling? That would be great but, again, the other qualifier is sustainability.

I'm not sure if it will be set forth in the same manner, but we pay for steelhead plants on the skok. It's closed to us but up for natives to fish. I doubt this will be any different .

I'll talk to my supervisor's wife, she's the daughter of the Nisqually chief.

I'm pretty sure that releases of hatchery steelhead in the Skokomish River designated for harvest was ended in 2004. Since that time there has been a small integrated recovery program in the Skokomish, Duckabush and Dewatto Rivers. To my knowledge there has been no treaty or non-treaty fisheries in Hood Canal rivers since the release of Chambers Creek derived steelhead was stopped.

Back in the days the Dewatto had a good run of steelhead there was better habitat and less people targeting steelhead.
Hhhhhhhmmmm.........................I wonder if those factors correlate with the decline?

The Nisqually is a good wild gene bank candidate river because of its history of very few hatchery steelhead being stocked. It is great news that the escapement is up significantly this year, but that is following the trend of improved wild steelhead escapements in PS this year. A good escapement in one year doesn't equal recovery however. Good escapements need to be the rule and not the exception.

The Elwha is the poster child for wild gene bank rivers. I expect rapid and large increases in wild salmon and steelhead production since the river has been re-opened to anadromous access.

I hope to proved wrong but I think the Elwha will struggle on in mediocrity as in stream productivity will be kept fairly low. When escapements apss the multi-millions annually then it will boom.

I found it interesting that there were two scientific estimates of historic steelhead returns on the Elwha - one at over 10,000 and the other just over 5,000. I understand there is great difficulty in coming up with that number but it does remind us that we need to have reasonably good numbers as a targeted "recovery" goal. Of course, that is layman's thought.

"The Nisqually is a good wild gene bank candidate river because of its history of very few hatchery steelhead being stocked."

A dammed river, years of hatchery stocking, and wild steelhead sounds like an interesting combination.
Are these fish man made wild steelhead?

Don't think so but certainly supports the conclusion that hatchery ERSH don't "contaminate" the genetics of native wild fish to the extent certain folks would have the masses believe.

I will add that I am old enough to have floated the Nisqually in the spring time and those were big, strong fish. Would be nice to be able to do that again.

The Nisqualy may have dams but there is some evidence and agreement that there was an impassable barrier now beneath LaGrande. Flows were certainly disrupted but linear habitat is still there.

The loss of Muck Creek, I have been told, was huge. It used to produce tons of smolts. Now, not so much.

As to actually stocking hatchery fish, I think that was only done in a couple of years and certainly not over the long run seen elsewhere.

It is probably the single best PS river (maybe statewide) to make into a gene bank system where the remaining genetics are closest to what was originally there. And, those fish have had access to all the river so they could evolve with it.

In the 70s we would launch the sled at the highest tank bridge and run up river to a big flat below the dam.
Freedrifting our way back down.
The fish were big, wild, and free.

I acknowledge contributing to their demise.
You shoulda been there.

According to the Nisqually River Steelhead Recovery Plan, hatchery stocking of both winter and summer-run fish was pretty consistent between the late 1950's and early 1980's for WSH and mid-1990's for SSH.

WSH stocking was consistent from 1958 - 1981 with the largest releases in 1972 (204,000+) and 1975 (175,000+). Not including those years the releases were fairly small, averaging ~ 21,000 smolts/year. SSH stocking was consistent from 1964 - 1994, averaging 23,000+ smolts/year.

So, forty years of early run plants and we still have native, wild fish worthy of being protected as a gene bank. Amazing! Are we enabling a myth?

I assume you mean that you ran your sled from the tank crossing upstream to the Centralia diversion dam. Elsewise I would so love to see you run any sled upstream past the diversion dam up to La Grande Dam, not to mention freedrifting back downstream, even if only from McKenna. There's some gnarly water that chews up driftboats. I'd like to see the sled that freedrifted back down through that. And who "freedrifted" in the 70s? Thought it was only boondoggin' back then.

There were relatively small releases of hatchery fish and a relatively robust and productive natural population. From 1979 to 1992 the percentage of hatchery fish in the tribal catch averaged only a little over 5% and the maximum during that time period was 14%.

They release steelhead, brood stock program similar to the White River. It's hook and line fishing not gillnets. I pulled up the Skok tribe regs a few years back when I cared.
http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/plants/steelhead/2014.html

That is exactly the integrated recovery program that I mentioned, and as I said they also had them on the Dewatto and Duckabush Rivers.

I did the drift down from McKenna. Once.

After that it was from Combat City (north side, just upstream from the tank crossing bridge which you could cross at the time) down to the railroad crossing.

Yeah I got that. I was just saying they still fished on em.

Yes, you are correct. Since 2002/2003, on average, the Skokomish Tribe has caught less than 8 steelhead per year, with a range of 0 to 24 fish/year.

Salmo,
There was actually a few that free drifted.
Dragging an anchor sucked.
Not to mention there where very few sleds back then.
We would go out to 4 corners in Yelm, take a slight right(Bald hills road?), go out there quite a ways turn left on a gravel road, drop down hill, and head to an old timber structure bridge. The launch was on our side of the river below the bridge. The river from there up to the big tall dam wound through a bunch of alder flats with log jams on the sides.
Your right you would have liked to have seen it and it's obvious you didn't. It was epic and easily runnable with a sled.

Caught or reported? I've talked to a gillnetter during salmon season and he told me he's done very well on steelhead fishing.

If they are not reported they were not caught.

I'm not going through this argument again. The catch estimates are from a joint tribal/WDFW steelhead harvest plan. Anybody here that wants to implement a better catch estimation method or that has a better catch estimate, feel free to provide the details or results of those.

Who is trying to start an argument? People here are so damn up tight when it comes to a civil conversation about this stuff. You can implement whatever you want, but the lack of enforcement and subsequent punishments counteract the brightset plans that the good idea fairy offers.

I merely spoke on information I've found and gathered from talking to someone that had 0 reason to lie or embellish his information.

I humbly apologize for doubting the joint efforts of WDFW and the tribe in addition to questioning the integrity of the catch reporting of tribal fishers.

There we go double rainbows and unicorns for everyone.

Having worked with actual catch data, but it was back in the 80s, talked to fishermen (rec, commercial, tribal) I was told more than once of catch that was not reported, reported for other areas, and so on. Many of my coworkers had the same sort of stories from other fishers. That doesn't include investigations and documentation by LE.

That said, the only numbers that can be used for management are defensible ones that everybody agrees to. The state and tribes have agreed as to what they will use and how they will collect/develop/collate/estimate. They are what they are.

But I still maintain that if we had accurate (not precise) numbers of catch and escapement that we would be surprised at the actual number of fish out there.

But, just because we are (say) underestimating escapement does not mean the runs are in better shape. PS chum escapement goals were initially set as the mean of the three highest years. Some folks looked into it 20 years later and found that the escapement numbers we were using were about 1/3 of actual. So, these geniuses thought we actually had a lot more fish to catch if we estimated escapement correctly. Nope. If the number we were using was an underestimated number and the real number was 3 times higher, so was the goal.

Thank you, CM. That is all that I am getting at. (I too, worked with catch data in my career, and heard the same or at least similar stories.)

Yeah Oncy. You can't be in that pit without hearing things, seeing things.

I wish people would understand that the management we have is based on the numbers we have. Managers depend on the honesty of the harvesters and buyers.

Guess I'll never ever get to fish NIsqually. At least I've fished the Elwha once. I don't understand why they believe the fish will thrive once they are done planting fish. I'm still waiting for the eastern OP rivers to be thriving with fish.

"Guess I'll never ever get to fish NIsqually. At least I've fished the Elwha once. I don't understand why they believe the fish will thrive once they are done planting fish. I'm still waiting for the eastern OP rivers to be thriving with fish."

Yup they may as well be trying to bring back Eve to the garden.

The bridge you're referring to could be the Weyerhaueser bridge right above the mouth of the Mashel. They had a little camp area there you could launch from. The roads to it have not been open since like the 80's. I think state parks actually bought it and a park is somewhere in the works. Or it could have been Peissner Bridge, which is closer to Bald Hill road and was used as a launch.



The "Tank Bridge" is miles below, with the impassable diversion dam in between.

The tribe has been hard at work trying to get any access by boat at the "state park" blocked, or so I've heard...

Not just the Tribe. The State Park sits on what atlas used to be to primary steelhead spawning area of the Mashel, which was a key area for the watershed. WDFW was also working to limit access, at least during spawning and would probably have been concerned about fishing and other in stream activities in that reach.

Thanks for the information.
I honestly have no clue but will never forget some of the experiences there that I lived as a kid. God stuff.

if you actually floated a drift boat from the mouth of the mashelle then you should know that you could go around the diversion dam that is located on Wilcox farmland by usuing the old boat trailer that was left there so you could hand load your boat then pull it over a hundred yards around the diversion dam, if you didn't know that then you never floated it. and there were mass sleds back then too and the NDN's did F up that river with their nets.

What????
The internet wizards don't know what they are talking about???

Imagine that.

I'm not really sure what your point is, or if you were referring to my post, but here goes:

The trailer at the diversion dam got to be a useless pos through the years and it became easier to just drag around the dam on the rocks. It was some work to drag a driftboat around it, but definitely do-able.

I never saw or heard of anyone dragging a sled around the dam (maybe some did? -hopefully a very small sled), but I wouldn't try it, personally. And wasn't the post about sleds?

My only point was the earlier post had to have mentioned the wrong bridge. A run in a sled from "the tank bridge" (just above the reservation) to the "high dam" (Lagrand) would be a pretty bad-ass endeavor, especially including the 100 yard drag around the diversion dam (which you'd have to do twice). And some people might actually call it foolish- not only because of the miles involved- but considering there were usable launches on both sides.
But since some people are "wizards", I'm sure you pulled it off.

I hope you're proved wrong too; the Elwha has a special place in my heart. Crossing fingers on this one.

"But since some people are "wizards", I'm sure you pulled it off."
Believe it or not it didn't take a Wizard to fish the upper Nisqually from a sled.

Sorry the young bucks missed out on the real WA fishery.
They will never get to see the gem things once were around here.
I would recommend they immediately take a trip to remote Alaska so they can see how it once was around here.
Hell Kennedy creek use to be better steelhead fishing than most of today's rivers.


The libatards have sucked the government tut while doing nothing but cashing Uncle Sam's checks.
Now they all want to pretend they are the conservationist who will save it.
WA is ruined.
Get over it.

yeah. good points.

fu.ck man