BEST place to catch WA Coastal kings!

Well it sure ain't on the WA coast!

These guys should consider themselves VERY lucky.


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Perusing the most recent PSC chinook technical committee reports today.

https://www.psc.org/publications/technical-reports/technical-committee-reports/chinook/

For reference, the CTC uses Queets fall chinook as the main indicator stock for the WA coast. Here's how the PSC exploitation and escapement analysis shakes out for coastal kings during the most recent 8 seasons with a full run reconstruction.... harvest years 2009-2016.

56.4% of total pre-harvest adult production is exploited in fisheries throughout AK BC and the WA coasts.

That pile of dead fish splits out like so...
AK = 48%
BC = 24%
WA = 28%
.... bottom line 72% of the harvest has taken place before a single WA coastal king has a chance to swim south past Cape Flattery.

Singling out the WA harvest alone.... (27/28) 96% are taken by tribal nets.... and only (1/28) 4% by hook and line, virtually all caught by marine trollers. The miniscule in-river rec fishery isn't even big enough to register on the CTC table as 0.1% of the total exploitation. The marine troll harvest is split 2:1 commercial over sport. In other words, commercial interests take 98.7% while sport trollers take only 1.3% of the WA coastal kings actually caught here at home.

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Looking at the comm:rec split from top to bottom AK to BC to WA:

Rec trollers take (10.2/56.4) 18% of the total harvest. Local WA coast sport trollers take a measly (0.2/10.2) 2% of all the rec-caught kings originating from the WA coast. 98% of the sport-caught WA coastal kings have already vanished into some black hole in AK/BC before the first rod-down out of Neah, La Push, or Westport.

Commercials take (46.2/56.4) 81.9% of the total harvest. Out of that pile of dead WA coastal kings
AK takes 51%
BC takes 16%
WA takes 33%
.... bottom line 2 out of every 3 commercially-caught WA coastal kings have already disappeared in northern-intercept commercial fisheries before they get anywhere close to home waters.

J F C, now we know what the SRKW's must feel like. Sux balz to be at the end of the buffet line. Thanks for the opportunity, AK and BC.... thanks.

Thanks for decoding the numbers, Doc. The Queets has been sacred to me for fifty years. I don't mind releasing a king to keep it alive, but these numbers are chilling and depressing. It makes my neck get redder and redder. Most of us know the numbers on the Sound and the Columbia, but I've never dug deep enough to look at the coastal numbers. Please keep up your advocacy.

Historically ALL salmon harvest was terminal. Native Americans (and Canada First Nations) caught all their fish in the river. Fish returned to those rivers in proportion to how well they were cared for.... it was all ties to a respect for the resource. Trash the river and/or overharvest the fish, and the offenders would suffer the consequences.

Along comes the white man, and the new world view that the fish are just free-swimming wealth waiting to be taken, a dollar bill with fins, reduced to a convenient commodity that could be stuffed in a can and traded globally.

In the race to take MORE MORE MORE, industrial scale harvest methods were employed. And along with it, a mentality to "low hole" the competition. The fleet simply laid claim to fishing grounds further and downstream.

First it was the lower mainstems of the major salmon-producing arteries. Then the estuaries. Then the nearshore coastal marine waters. Then the open ocean, as far as fleets were willing to travel to "one up" the other guy.

And now we've got the mess we have today.... salmon being exploited at every stage of their sub-adult to adult life history, throughout their entire range. The harvest machine is burning the salmon's candle at both ends with no relief in sight.

And with dire consequences, esp for older age-classes of chinook. A new set of very un-natural selection pressures have been created in the killing fields. The year-round mixed stock fishery selects AGAINST larger, older age classes foraging in the ocean pasture. Any fish genetically programmed to stay 3, 4, 5, or even 6 years in the salt clearly has the odds stacked WAY against them. WAY! The older the fish, the longer the odds it can survive out there long enough to reach sexual maturity. The fishery essentially creates a genetic dead end for those fish programmed to return later in life.

And yet in my own home basin, we continue to fail meeting a paltry fall chinook escapement goal. Managers missed the spawner goal 6 out of the most recent 8 returns on record. Ensuring the creature's ability to sustainably and abundantly procreate should be the priority.

Structuring a fishery that makes that happen consistently would be nice. Building in incentives for conservation and stewardship would be even nicer. At present, the Grays Harbor Policy lays out the harvest restraint necessary at the local level to help achieve spawner goals more consistently. We can't even begin to think about targeting them unless e-goals have been met at least 3 of the previous 5 returns. The problem is that pre-terminal exploitation has already taken 40% of the year's adult production before a single king swims over the bar at Westport.

Terminal harvest is simply a much better fit given the life history of the critter we want to conserve.
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Management would be much easier and effective if salmon fisheries were prosecuted strictly in terminal areas in/near the basin of origin. This paradigm would also confer the greatest accountability for local stakeholders and policy-makers to determine whether or not their local fish stocks prosper or perish. Local stakeholders reap EXACTLY what they sow.

It would effectively create a unified point source of collective local harvest, eliminating the guesswork in how many fish disappear into some unaccountable black hole in distant often unknown fisheries.

Eliminating distant open ocean harvest would be a boon to the recovery of older age classes of salmon that have been wiped out in most of the major salmon-producing arteries of the PNW. Larger older fish simply don't stand a chance in the present day harvest milieu. Our artificially induced selection pressures weigh heavily against a life strategy with prolonged oceanic foraging. 4-, 5- and 6-salt life histories of the past are EXTREMELY difficult to genetically perpetuate because the odds are too great that a fish spending that amount of time in the killing fields would simply NEVER survive to spawn to pass on that genetic trait. It's no surprise that these fish are such a modern-day RARITY!

I believe this is a key element to securing sustainable salmon populations that managers conveniently ignore or simply refuse to touch. There is just too much geo-socio-political "status quo" inertia to overcome. How do you dismantle a fully capitalized macro-economy fueled by the open ocean harvest of free-swimming wealth?

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And for the record I'm not accusing anyone of personal actions that are illegal or unsporting or inherently bad. Folks are either fishing to put food on their table or to earn an honest living, exploiting the resource entirely within the law. The problem is having all that exploitation occurring in a framework with no accountability to getting fish back to their rivers of origin where they can procreate. In the end, it's not about managing fish, it's about managing people.... specifically the people killing the fish. The ultimate management goal is to put sufficient constraints on the killing to make sure there is adequate escapement to the basin of origin.

When the killing is going on across points far and wide with zero ability for local managers to control where, when, and who is killing their fish, it makes their job of putting enough fish on the gravel virtually impossible. Terminal harvest (salt and fresh) in fishing zones within or immediately adjacent to the basin of origin greatly simplifies the accounting for the harvest of fish destined for that basin.

Get real, folks.

If you found out the Russians, Koreans, Vietnamese, Japanese, Taiwanese or whatever-eze were snarfing up 40, 50, or 60% of the take (either thru target fisheries or as by-catch) before the fish ever reached home waters, you'd ALL be screaming bloody murder.

What we have now is a giant chaotic free-for-all with no way to know how the chips are going to fall until it's too late. Bottom line, we need to re-structure and embrace a new harvest paradigm to be better stewards of the resource.

The sooner the better.

Great write up Doc. Don't forget the dredger bycatch. What does that do to the springers or big fish?

Just take a look at the Austral Kings, their size, and their returns and maybe we would have the answers. I don't believe they are targeted in the ocean but I could be wrong. You know a hell of a lot more.

There was an interesting article by the WDF Director (or whatever the agency was back then) before 1920 about the developing fishery for immature salmon at the mouth of the Columbia and into the ocean. He was opposed to it for a variety of reasons. One interesting reason was that the fish were less fit to eat. They ran physical/chemical analysis of the ocean caught fish versus in-river adults-including fish at a hatchery. The conclusion they reached was that the adults were higher quality; less water, more fat, and a few other constituents. One thing they weren't was bright silver.

I fully agree with Doc that fisheries should be terminal. They are mature, bigger, of rather well known stock. They are cheaper (ecologically) to catch. I would love to see in (blind) analysis of total nutritional quality.

Way back when I was in college Doc Donaldson liked to tell about a taste test run with his trout. All fed exactly the same food except for colorings added. The North American tasters were convinced that the red trout tasted better; the Northern Europeans believed it was the white. Their eyes over-ruled their taste buds.

Thanks for sharing. Wonder if any of those statistics were presented during the Orca Task Force meetings? Sure didn't read anything related in the final report/recommendations. The political and public will to stop the interception could be achieved in this current climate. Or, is it kept a secret to keep the status quo?

Assume for the moment that the Queets Chinook data is roughly representative of other WA coastal stocks, that the sport fishery takes only 1.3% of the total harvest. So 'splain to me again why WA taxpayers and fishing license buyers should be funding the massive WA salmon hatchery program so that Chinook can be caught and harvested in AK, BC, and here in WA by commercial fishermen. I think there's gotta' be more cost effective ways to invest that money to benefit citizens of WA.

Gotta plant those fish so that something comes back for the Tribes. Gotta put those hatchery fish out there to provide "cover" for the wild fish.

As PT Barnum said, "There's a sucker born every minute". Buy those licenses............

BC 'cause they ate forage fish on the way down the coast...

Harvest (at any cost) management needs a wake up call...

For those who wish to personally verify my assertions, the latest Queets analysis of exploitation (along with every other PSC indicator stock) lives here....

https://www.psc.org/download/35/chinook-technical-committee/10879/tcchinook-18-1-v2.pdf

You'll have to scroll down to page 50/154 in the PDF to see it. All the numbers I am citing come from the final row in the table.

Progress? Or is it just re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic?

http://oregoncoastdailynews.com/2018...EFPOeF1Zz9OlaY

Rearranging the deck chairs. Easier to do that than to have (in the case of Titanic) watching where they were going at the appropriate speed, having enough life boats, and so on. Maintaining course is always easiest.

Yeah.... never understood that one, but there are a LOT of folks touting that very strategy right now.

Koenings offered Canada hatchery Chinook (marked, from WB) if they would go selective and get off the wild Chinook.

Providing cover makes sense only when the target stock vastly outnumbers the stock to be released. Like 10:1 or more, maybe 20. Otherwise, release mortality will be excessive.

I believe the mathematical break even point on dead wild fish goes something like this.

A mark select fishery only makes sense whenever the mark rate exceeds the release mortality rate. If it's not at least that high, it's pointless to go mark select.

The excessive sorting actually results in MORE dead wilds... take for example ocean coho.

The main difference between mark select and "kill the first two" is the total number of encounters required to get the job done.... and whether the wild fish end up in the bottom of the box or on the bottom as crab bait.

https://olyopen.com/2022/08/10/bombshell...recovery/?amp=1

Interesting to hear the appeals.....

Just saw this on social media a few minutes ago. Seems big, but not holding my breath for this to take effect. Pretty green in my understanding of all this compared to some on this forum, but non-selective commercial fisheries seem to be a pretty major factor in our declining stocks. Seeing stuff like this gives me hope.

Hey... at least someone is trying. Ya gotta at least give 'em CREDIT for that.

OK. Now what? What may, can, or will happen from this? Hard to believe that AK's and Canada's commercial fleet is all the sudden gonna stop fishing. Is this just a symbolic decision? Or, something that has teeth to shut it down. Appeals? How many more years until something changes?

The decision will have no direct affect on Canada. They are, after all, another country and not required tis follow US court decisions. Since the US/Canada (or Canada/US if you are from further north) Treaty sets limits Canada is well within their right to stick to them. May make annual negotiations interesting but they can always fall back on Treaty Law.

When they say it's about conservation, is it?

And WINNING... at least for the moment.

https://www.nationalfisherman.com/alaska...d-killer-whales

In the meantime, all of Alaska's own chinook stocks are tanking statewide... Yukon, Kuskokwim, Bristol Bay, Kodiak, Cook Inlet, Copper, and all of Southeast... including key "transboundary" streams with Canadian headwaters.

Among the saddest of stories is the Taku...

https://www.juneauempire.com/opinion/opinion-a-pessimists-view-of-taku-river-king-salmon/

The entire North Pacific has become an inhospitable place for chinook salmon. Humankind suxbalz.

WHOOP… there it is!

https://www.adn.com/business-economy/202...-troll-fishery/

Huge.. Am I seeing this correctly? It will go into effect THIS season?

“This is an abuse of the Endangered Species Act by out-of-touch, ideological, serial litigants.”

Ba-hahahahahaha!

fb

Any way to see what percentage the trollers take? A friend of mine that works up there in fisheries was telling me it’s not much compared to trawlers and their nets. I imagine trawlers have the big money for lobbyists where independent trollers don’t?

Read the opening post carefully, youngunner. It provides a solid data-based perspective on the issue.

It is also not just the number of fish but teh specific stocks taken. Stocks go to different places and the WA stocks seem to love SE AK. The trawlers seem to be hammering the western AK fish like the Yukon so they are in the gunsights too.

Reading over the original post, I’m seeing that in Washington waters, the commercial trollers take twice the amount of rec trollers.

In regards to Alaska fisheries, they’re taking 48%. I’m just curious as to the breakdown of that 48%. Trawlers, trollers, rec, bycatch. I’m not at all defending anyone fishing on Washington-origin fish while they’re in Alaskan waters.

Can’t imagine it’ll ever happen, but in my opinion, Chinook salmon shouldn’t be a marketable commodity other than through terminal and near-terminal commercial fisheries, likely tribal. Too many populations in the dumps up and down the west coast.

Overwhelmingly troll. It’s spelled out in the PSC harvest matrix I posted on page 1

Finally got it. Thanks for walking me through it. I was downloading other documents that didn’t list that sort of thing.

Wow. Overwhelming large percentage of the SEAK fishery taken by trollers. Will be sharing this info.

Our fish... OK How can we stop them from heading North??? Maybe Alaska should charge an annual pasture fee for the WA state stock from heading North?? Been going on for how long? SMDH

Alaska (Jeff Koenings) made the argument that since they protected the ocean (Ya, sure, you betcha) they were entitled to the fish. This was when Canada was trying to get harvest from the stocks they preserved spawning grounds for.

As it stands, the SE AK troll fishery for Chinook will not happen for this year. But things could change.

If the almost-certain appeal to the 9th Circuit results in a stay of the ruling, the SE AK fishery would commence, but perhaps with some additional restrictions. Or the 9th could take the appeal but deny the request to stay the ruling (most likely). In that case, the fishery would likely close entirely for this year.

In the meantime, NMFS would write another biological opinion that they believe can withstand another court challenge. But that won't happen quickly (i.e., not this year). Next year maybe. WFC is likely to challenge whatever biological opinion NMFS develops for this fishery in the future. And NMFS knows this. So whatever they write is not likely to result in anything close to the SE AK fishery as it has existed in recent years. The fishing restrictions might be fairly substantial.

And the Alaska fishery for coho and chum might also be affected since the fishery for these species also catch immature/feeder Chinook. The recovery rate for 'shaker' Chinook caught and released while fishing for coho can be really low, particularly when using commercial trolling gear..

All this is good news for everyone (except, of course, those folks who depend on the SE AK troll fishery for their livelihood). Perhaps nobody more so than the folks at the Bonneville Power Administration. The SE AK troll fishery is/was heavily dependent on Columbia River fall Chinook (some tules but mostly URB's). Reducing the harvest of these fish in SE AK will definitely put more Chinook into the Columbia River. That increases the benefits of the measures taken by the Federal hydro-power system to protect salmon. And the Tribes will be really happy since URB's are their target species in the fall.