What opportunity have you lost?

With the current discussion about lost opportunity I thought it would be interesting to compile a list of fisheries we have lost in the last 10 years...Here are some of my favorites that we have lost:

Snoqualmie Hatchery Summer Run
Snoqualmie Wild Winter Run
Skykomish Wild winter Run
Tolt - All Steelhead
Skagit - Hatchery /Wild Winter Steelhead
Cowlitz - December Winter Hatchery Steelhead
Elliot Bay Chinook

Quickly I can add in the summer runs on the Green rivers (king and Cowlitz county, winter runs on the Puyallup, Nisqually chum, Tahuya coho, Burley creek and many others small streams, the Sol Duc brood stock program, the upper river summer runs in the Kalama, Sturgeon, even smelting . This is not to mention the reduced plants, restricted runs, current restrictions on Coho and many other opportunities lots. If I thought about it, I am sure I could post a bunch more. In the last year they even greatly reduced harvest ( from 12 months to about 2 months) on multiple beaches I clammed on. We could toss in the Skokomish kings and wild steelhead retention if wanted to, even though those restrictions have more merit, they still are opportunities lost.

Lots of bank access on coastal rivers thanks to idiots leaving garbage.

Confidence! I have lost confidence. Lack of fish and opportunities have really zapped my desire.

Smelt

Miss the ability to go and do "the dip".....another fishery way over fished!!!!

Backtrollin- your list matches up with mine. Missed the raging on there.

Brings up a point- powers that be are going to be cutting the sky summer run plant starting with this year's smolt release. We need to get on top of this!

This has happened everywhere, it is my biggest annoyance when I see guys dumping garbage and parking in dumb ways obstuctingting roads or even railroads (not shitting you I saw a truck tailgate hanging over a track that gets a train or two a day). It's a testament to how the Internet age hands the keys to the Kingdome to some people with no respect for it and act entitled to it.

The only one I don't see here that I miss is the Samish. A really fun small river with mega trout.

Same here, those are the main ones lost for me. Used to fish Bear Creek and the Sammamish River too back in the day. Those are gone with Hershel and just plain development. The others were affected but not as much by those things. Just plain sucks!

Don't forget Nisqually steel and now even the lowly but always fun Mr. Chum.

So I have much less motivation now. I've taken up other hobbies. But I sure do miss those early mornings of first water, a headshake, and a chrome missile exploding on the surface. [/quote]

Same here. Strange how that works. I havn't got my drift boat wet in 5 years. I'm amazed it happened in my lifetime.

From eleven months of fishing a year now down to around four with marginal fishing for only two of those months. And here's the one's I no longer do:

Upper South Fork Nooksack-Summer fishing
Nooksack C & R Steelhead
Skagit C & R Steelhead
Skagit Summer Chinook C & R
Skagit Coho- they only seem to leave crumbs for me now, or close it early.
Sauk C & R Steelhead
Upper Cascade River C & R Summer Coho
Fraser River- Early and Spring Chinook and very limited now Sockeye Fisheries

I use to pour a lot of money and time into this hobby, not so much any more.

Duckabush Steelhead

Dosewallips Steelhead

Hamma Hamma Steelhead

everything in the upper Puyallup systems

screw it, im going fishing for browns... see ya

Don't forget the Upper Columbia and her tribs this year....pretty quiet around these parts. Miss the ability to fish the upper Wenatchee below the lake through Tumwater Canyon.

All the "S" rivers as mentioned above and real winter crabbing...

Don't forget all the Job opportunities you've lost.

Same as you folks, winter and summer steelhead on the "S" rivers, diminished opportunities for salmon along with the lack of access. I moved to the eastside about 10 yrs ago and glad that I did. Many old timers told me that the writing was on the wall and it would all be over in the not too distant future......they were right! I wouldn't have traded the experiences growing up on the Sky for nothing. Sad part was, watching the steelhead empire burn to the ground. Better to have experienced it than not at all. I'm not 110% saying it's all over with over there, however it is all over as far as the way we remember it and the way that it was. There may be seasons in the future but they will be on quota systems and limited entry, and/or very crowded.

I have caught more salmon and steelhead in one month on the Big C, than I'd have caught in 10 yrs on the S rivers, but there remains a deep feeling of something missing everytime March rolls around and the cottonwoods start to blossum, or missing the long walk back to the truck after a day of summer steelhead in the canyon.....

Ah, yes and Tumwater Canyon

Born and raised in Port Angeles losing the Elwha River with a false hope that it will ever re-open hurts the most.

Why can't we sue for utter and miserable mismanagement and lost opportunity... at least to replant our Rivers. Maybe they'll fear us for once and not just the tribes.

Whatever, I don't have the energy anymore... no faith in the Washington Department of Failed Wildlife. All the money in this rich ass state and all they can do is fail us.

Why can't we sue for utter and miserable mismanagement and lost opportunity... at least to replant our Rivers. Maybe they'll fear us for once and not just the tribes.

Whatever, I don't have the energy anymore... no faith in the Washington Department of Failed Wildlife. All the money in this rich ass state and all they can do is fail us.

So who wants to be a overpriced license this year?

Maybe you should take up being a "conspiracy theorist" , Gnome or Bigfoot hunting are all respectable and suitable hobbies as a substitution. Gnomesayin?

Another thought is to create an illegal restocking program. Was quite common not so long ago for individuals owning property on watersheds to have a small rearing ponds where they would spawn out their own fish, incubate the eggs and release them as smolt or Fry. When I was a cop in Mason County I ran into three individuals who were doing this, one on Sherwood Creek, (steelhead), one on the Union River (steelhead/coho), unnamed trickle on the South Shore of Hood Canal, (chum). The one on the Union was well established and was using a native stock which had established a run to the culvert for a couple decades, was releasing about 5,000 per year, would get a couple dozen per year back. The one on Sherwood creek had a friend at the Ells Hill hatchery on the Skok, and would get a few thousand fry from his friend, keep them in a holding pond till spring and then open the gate, he told me he got as many as 50 back, he lived on a tributary of Sherwood Creek. The south shore one was interesting, the people had purchased an incubator from a sears catalog and spawned out a few chum that were native to the creek, many years the creek would have barely enough water for fish to go up but they told me they would get hundreds back which would die on the beach due to lack of room in the creek since it was so small.

Might be time to take management back into the public's hands, it's not hard to raise fish, you could do it with a homemade incubator and a kids swimming pool as long as you have a good water source.

I agree, I have spent most of my adult life watching data from field workers I know and trust get looked over at the bargaining table and myself have been punished when false data was being reported and I called it out.
Don't feel the need to do that again.

Brings up a point- powers that be are going to be cutting the sky summer run plant starting with this year's smolt release. We need to get on top of this! [/quote]

Do you have more information on this? How much are they going to be cutting?

being that i rarely fished anywhere north of the nisqually, most of my lost opportunity in the past 10 years has been in the form of access. the big one has been all the timber companies locking their gates and now charging for permits...if you're one of the few hundred that can get one. elsewhere, just the usual "tragedy of the commons" thing, more and more places being shut down by private landowners, forcing everyone else(including the slobs that got areas shut down in the first place) into smaller and smaller areas. not to mention, fewer land owners who are friendly to sportsmen.

however, a few lost fisheries...
capital lake, closed due to "mud snails"(the fish weren't bright but it was a fun diversion before work when i lived in olympia)
skokomish river
random and unpredictable seasons on the nisqually having nothing to do with conservation(we'll see what BS they come up with this year)
upper chehalis hatchery summer runs
grays river winter steelhead
little green summer runs
lewis river springers
cowlitz december steelhead

"Now nearly all those that I loved in my youth are dead." Final scene of "A river runs through it".

Thank God we still have clams.... gettin to be 'bout the only fishery that hasn't been f'd.

I still enjoy alpine trout.

Everything else is lost or abandoned.

I've lost the coho fishery between foulweather bluff and the Hood Canal bridge, this was one of the best early coho fisheries in puget sound featuring an early influx of Quillicene coho's and the Port Gamble net pen fish... this whole area was given to commercial interests in the name of conservation of hood canal Chinook...

We've lost many of the once great hood canal estuaries to algae blooms and commercial fishing... Big Beef, Dewatto, Tahuya to name a few... there are still fish available if you catch it on the right day, but not like the glory years where you could go down there any day of the week September thru November and fish the crystal clear waters and catch coho

Except for the Bio-toxin levels, sure...

Closure of creeks that eventually feed into waters that flow into Puget Sound. I loved to fish for native cutthroat in these small streams . When exploring new waters to me, if I caught any small Steelhead or salmon I would not fish those waters after my test fishing. I found sections of stream where all I caught were native cutthroat. These waters were closed to protect native salmon and steelhead smolt which were spawned in the upper reaches of these streams .

Chum salmon runs that were decimated by commercial netting in Puget Sound and Hood Canal

Man you guys are depressing. A whole thread of negativity. Sure, it sucks, but wallowing in despair isn't gonna solve it.

Get out and enjoy what you have and fight for what you want back. Stay positive. Negativity gets you right back where you started only depressed and drunk. Do better.

Teaching a fisheries/fishing course at Crescent High School out here in Joyce. Engaging the future generation in the opportunities that still exist and where they stand as stakeholders to alter the current trend. This population of students includes tribal members. We are bridging the gap out here!

I'll clarify...

...gettin to be 'bout the only fishery that hasn't been f'd BY MISMANAGEMENT

....



BTW we're about to lose a little more harvest opportunity... I hear rockfish limit is about to go down to 7 fish in the coastal marine areas (1-4).



Already got the rec winter closure set in stone.... now another 30% reduction when we're actually open.

I guess they need to make room for a commercial Sebastes fishery since salmon's gonna suck so bad for the forseeable future.

Here is an oldie that most people forgot about or didn't know existed. Does the name Herschel sound familiar from the mid 80's and 90's

Lake Sammamish Tribs, etc. I know a guy who years ago as a kid used to catch Steelhead in Kenmore on the Slough. There was a lot of studies, articles written etc on the Sea Lions at the Ballard Locks. One was nicknamed Herschel. When is the last time anyone mentioned Steelhead, Lake WA, Lake Sammamish and their Tribs. Are the Native Steelhead extinct?

To quote Salmo g... "functionally extirpated" by Herschel and Co.

There are still a few hanging on. I know the city of Bothell hydrogeologist that does stream surveys in the area for Steelhead and Coho. There are a very few hanging on in Streams like North creek. Probably less than 100 best guesstimation.

The big Losses for me are places I used to twirl herring for Summer Chinook all over the sound as a kid out the back of our old Whaler. Elliot Bay. MA 10 winter blackmouth. Some of the local lakes now surrounded by houses. Skagit System. Many little Eastern Washington lakes that no one ever used to fish in the early summer. Snoqualmie has a lot of nostalgia in it for me.

It's not only places we cant fish anymore, for me its more about the quality being greatly diminished in the places we can still fish. To the point where many places dont seem worth fishing because they arent anywhere near what they used to be, or could be with better management.

I sometimes still go, just for old times sake.

Interestingly, while fishing for Chinook in area 9 this year, we caught more rockfish than any year for the last 18... they are definitely making a comeback in Puget Sound and are about ready to support a commercial fishery for a year or two...

About a decade or so right around this time of year I was heading out of the slew to do some trout fishing and spooked a small school of steelhead. That's was the first steelhead fishery I saw go down the crapper.

Anyone remember spring fishing true cod in the sound....agate pass??

True cod in Sequim Bay

I have recently lost the opportunity to sleep through the whole night and it really pisses me off.
Literally.

i try to remain positive, as someone who likes to fish for steelhead, i'm an eternal optimist. i've noticed that i start hanging up my gear earlier each year. just don't have the willpower to fight the crowds on the coast with all the closures up north these days. i used to have no problem standing in a combat line when the fishing was hot in the peak of a run. off the peak times, one could get some great solitude and still have a shot at a fish. now, the crowds just show up even if there's no fish around -- that's the depressing part. most of the rivers that i fish, require you to keep moving to find the fish. can't do that when there's a guy posted up every 50 yards or less for miles. find myself driving farther and farther to get away from the masses...harder to justify the expense when supporting a family on a budget.

i've found myself getting interested in fishing lakes again like when i was a kid, dragging a flatfish around with my feet up, one hand on the kicker and the other holding a cold beverage. big holdovers can be fun too.

Deschutes River Steelhead.

Kennedy Creek Steelhead.

Queets River Steelhead, Bait, March-April, above Sam's river.

South Fork of the Toutle River, Bait, winter and summer runs.



I always enjoy eating a tender, hot, moist clam and hope the opportunity is never mis-managed..

I'm just bitter.
The three times my wife and I planned to spend the weekend on the coast doing just this it has been closed.






What have we lost?
I can't even legally fish for steelhead in the river in my own back yard that once was one of the premier wild steelhead rivers in the PNW.

There are almost zero coho left which are my favorite fish to catch, almost zero sockeye when the run was in the hundred thousands, most of the spring chinook are netted and trucked to bypass us fishing on the river for them, and fall chinook are pretty much extinct in this area now.

What have we lost?
Well, most everything we put ourselves in charge of.

Way too many to list.
Probably the one that hurts the most is the Puyallup. It was my home river and were I caught my first steelhead nearly 50 years ago. Seems like only yesterday based on my memory of it. Haven't fished for steelhead in three years now.
Not fishing Puget Sound coho was BS last year.

That said, I probably fish more now then I ever have. The type of fish I'm targeting has changed, but it is also pretty relaxing. I rarely encounter any other anglers which is a nice change from some of the salmon and steelhead clusters I encountered as opportunities for those species diminished.
SF

A few of the main ones...

Lake WA Socks
Area 8.1-8.2 Summer Chinook
Lewis River Springers
Elliot Bay Salmon
Fraser River Socks
Sept Coho fishing in the Sound (repeat 2017?)

Now everytime I buy fishing tackle I wonder if I'll even be able to use it and take that plug out of the package. 10 years ago I would buy the same plug and wonder how long I'll have it in my possession before breaking it off on a fish or snag. I often wonder how much longer the local tackle stores are going to be able to make it. The only fishing I spend money on anymore is chasing springers on the Columbia.

BD

"Cowlitz Smelt Dipping on Hold After Fleet Nets Just One Fish"


Yup.


LOL.

Loss of access to the Tacoma Head works. They blocked it off for good after 9-11, that's where Tacoma gets their drinking water from. I spent thousands of hours there when I first started Steelhead fishing..pisses me off.

With all the losses, the one that probably upsets me the most is the closing of the beaches where I dig steamers. Open all year round, every time I collected rent or drove out to the peninsula I would try to time it for a lower tide. Didn't have to be low, just below 6' or so and I could pull out a limit in less than 10 minutes. In its peak, I dug up my forty clams with a screw driver in about 5 minutes. Then, all at once, down to two months a year on that and several other beaches. There was some decline in numbers, but I never failed to get a limit in less than 20 minutes, just had to move some. No reasoning, no warning, just gone. From a quick limit as a drive by to now over an hour and a special trip to find a beach with not nearly the numbers. I haven't had time to pull one out this year. Really sucks. Only thing left nearby is squid, and I have been noticing the tribes are starting to announce commercial openings. Probably be limited on that in a year or two too.

Well you are in luck this year, the WDFW has opened a dip for sportfishers, a LONGGGGG 5 hour opening (yep 5 hours only 8am-1pm) on Feb. 25th. Be there or miss out... lol 5 hours, GOOD GAWD!!!! The commercials got some too before we even got a chance.
http://wdfw.wa.gov/news/feb2117a/

I still regret missing that opportunity with the BOTH sisters that night in Mazatlan, 1972

Sturgeon on the Chehalis!!!