Early closure of Chehalis and Satsop

WDFW closed the Chehalis and Satsop early this year (11/30) this year because of, I assume, a forecasted low run of late coho. I was looking at the QIN netting schedule for the Chehalis and the tribe will be netting starting at noon tomorrow until noon Friday (12/9-12/14). Next week they will be netting from 12/16-12/21. Obviously, they will be targeting late coho and any early winter steelhead that are around. Where's the conservation!!!!? Using one of Doc's favorite terms. [Bleeeeep!]!!!

Sorry, I meant to say the rivers are closed to salmon fishing. They are open for steelhead.

Closures are for two reasons. One is conservation; all the harvest has been taken. The other is for allocation; your share has been taken.

Most NI Chinook and coho are taken in marine fisheries. The late coho are, for management and accounting purposes, probably lumped with all the coho in the system.

If you want an in-river fishery on those late coho then the outside fisheries on coho will need reduction. A choice made by the participants at NOF.

Correct CC. We had few impacts and all fisheries had to give some up as all Coho are lumped together. The Coho taken now by the tribes are incidental in the Steelhead fishery. This came about with the old game planting Chambers Cr ( and other early timed Steelhead ) to give the tribes fish other than native. Fisheries stopped that but the Dec harvest stayed in place as it was locked in with the courts & agreements. Thing is if your old enough you can track things through the years and frankly it is WDF&W ( or old Game ) at the start of the issue whatever it is. WDF&W uses the vast majority of its impacts in the marine which they do by choice and then let folks blame it on the tribes. It is what it is.

Dave, since the Wynooche, Satsop and Skookumchuck steelhead are later timed fish (most from January on), this QIN December net fishery is basically targeting late coho. Very unfortunate.

Correct ……. but there are about 600K late Coho smolts produced. 300k released on three sites around Chehalis are mitigation and lates are used ( Bingham stock ) at the local communities request rather than the native normal timed. The 300k at Bingham are a choice program of WDFW. So what you have is a production matrix that helps one way and comes back to bite you in the other. Oh almost forgot. Wynoochee Steelhead Mitigation utilizes a early timed stock that is called Van Winkle which is basically Chambers Cr. that has had some native added in. The Aberdeen Lake Hatchery does not have the ability to rear the normal native timed or just native brood because the egg take time and growth for a early release cannot be achieved and they do not have the ability to hold them over.

Thanks for the info, Dave. It would be good to know the ratio of coho/steelhead that are caught by the QIN in this December net fishery.

Dave is correct about seasons being set for conservation. Goal was to reduce TOTAL exploitation on the pre-harvest Grays Harbor coho abundance down to 20%.... that's all the way from Canada to home waters.

We were close on paper. We got it down to 20.7%... and the Canadians did not object. Post season analysis will tell us how well we actually succeeded.

As others have said, the US structured its fisheries to take our share early, and a significant portion of it outside the basin.

Expected tribal catch thru the winter months is accounted for in calculating the pre-season exploitation rate.

As to the encounter rates with gillnets steel vs coho.....

There are exceedingly few early-timed wild winter steelhead. There are no longer any intentional hatchery releases of early-timed winter steelhead in the basin. All the 2018 netting that occurs after Thanksgiving for winter steelhead is heavily weighted toward "by catch" coho.

As Rivrguy likes to say, "It is what it is."

Thanks Doc. That is what I thought on the coho/ steelhead gillnet catch in December. It is what it is. Correct me if I am wrong but aren't the Humptulips hatchery winter steelhead earlier timed than the Satsop and Nooch hatchery steelhead.

Another piece on the harbor, I think, is that a "salmonid" fishery was primarily for by caught sturgeon.

Carcassman, "it is what it is". I hope enough wild coho make it back to the spawning grounds.

Lifter99 and others:


The QIN gill netting pressure November 2018 - March/April 2019, will be less than the "old days" BECAUSE many of the tribal gill netters have turned into "crab fishermen".

Drifter, is that true or are you being sarcastic?

boats were parked in the Wishkah when I came through this afternoon

I have it from a reliable source.....I have watched a decrease in total netting time the past few years.


It would be helpful if the QIN would share the catch totals with WDFW so the information could be posted on the WDFW web page. There has been no tribal updates since October, on catch totals.


If the information was more timely, then maybe more people could see how many fish are caught and what species....


I do not like gill nets, so all my fishing is done where I don't have to be in the area of netting,,,,,either QIN or NT. I do have to go to Aberdeen, that is when I see any "gill or set nets".


My salmon fishing got curtailed, lots, this year. In past years I could legally fish salmon until January 31, some of my best HATCHERY Coho were caught in late November, December, and even into January......long time back, I caught and released a Coho in February on the Satsop.

Drifter, yes it would be nice if the QIN catch totals could be obtained. And yes, I also miss the salmon season lasting until January 31. Like you, I have caught some beautiful hatchery coho in December and January. I guess the inriver salmon sport fishermen are the "low men on the totem pole" now. No pun intended. Now we have to wait until the steelhead show in numbers.

Not the only area or tribe changing participation activities. Nets will always be around to both preserve tribal rights and for subsistence, but unless the price for fish increases, crab will be the go to for those w/ the equipment. Tribal members will go where the $$$ are and crab can be very lucrative compared to fish.