QIN netting schedule, steelhead

12/01/2020

The following is the dates the QIN will be gill netting rivers in Grays Harbor County, December and 1st part of January 2021


https://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/tribal/net-schedules#south-coast


Quite a few days a week on the Humptulips side.

Be safe......

That should go a long ways toward preventing a "dangerous over-escapement."

I remember the days when fisheries were opened to prevent an extra 10 fish, or less, from spawning. Even one fish above the criminally low goals is a catastrophe.

4 day’s netting, 3 days off. Repeat.....

if anyone wondered where those big December coho went now you know

I'm sure the fish will pick those 36 hours to go up.

It's no one's fault but your own.

12/02/2020




If they get past the areas where the nets are, lower train bridge to down river, then there are all the guide boats, bank fishers, private drift boat that are "thumping on the Coho that escaped the nets".

Yea, I know that everyone releases the wild fish but how many die in the process????

I also know that 12/01/2020 is the normal start of steelhead season.....steelhead and Coho in the same areas, both wild species must be released.

IMO.....101 Bridge, should be the "cut off line"......both wild Coho and Wild Steelhead spawn in the waters above the bridge........leave the wild fish alone !!!!!

Bit of BS flying here. The QIN fish Dec for Steelhead because old WDG used early timed hatchery Steelhead plants to feed the Nations court mandated Steelhead harvest and the Nation not take native Steelhead. That now WDFD stopped doing those plants does not change the court agreed to seasons for the Nation. In fact a WDG bio told me flat out that the Nation impacting late Coho was Dept of Fisheries problem not WDG. True Late Coho are late Dec and Jan with the huge " hooknose " primarily Jan. Most of the late Nov and early Dec are fish returning to creeks or other streams that do not water up until it rains enough to get the ground water up and those creeks start flowing and are not true lates. For whatever the reason true Late Coho that spawn from mid Dec & Jan do not reproduce at the same rate as normal timed Coho.

One last point. While WDFW recognizes that late Coho are separate part of the run they are NOT recognized by ANYBODY as a genetically different run to be managed for, it is simply a Coho. Similar to Summer Chinook and Fall Chinook management in the Chehalis.

Attended an FAB once on Nisqually Chum/Steelhead issues. The WDG rep started the meeting by saying that he could only consider steelhead, salmon didn't matter.

Interesting, though, that when WDF opened commercial chum fisheries in December that WDG wanted steelhead to be considered. Apparently, they didn't work on a two-way street.

C-Man, In the late 1980's WDF gave a permit to some folks to net Capitol Lake for carp in the winter! They (we) apparently hadn't considered steelhead - there was a decent run back then. I had no idea how many carp were in the lake! They must have had more than a half ton. The netters, who were Russian immigrants, complied with the permit. An old man with no fingers on one hand was very gracious and offered me one of the carp. I learned that he had lost the fingers due to frostbite during the war near Moscow. Hearty people. Just one of the many interesting situations I got to deal with. The springs on their boat trailer were completely flattened.

I remember that the Russians, all over the State, were very into carp. I think a few ran a commercial fishery on them in Moses Lake. Back then, there was often not a whole lot of communication going one. We (WDG) were convicting a study up near Sequim where we were planting steelhead fry on some creeks to study capacity. On the same day, and at the same access point, WDF was planting coho smolts. You'd think that somebody would have thought that coordination was a good thing.

Were the Russians seining? Makes release fairly easy, except for cold hands. But, I suspect that losing fingers to the Russian Winter would make Capitol Lake feel like bathwater.

You are right, though, about all the stuff that went on/goes on and flies beneath the radar of the news and social media.

CM, T3 remember we are old guys now and still have brains that remember. Current WDFW staff outside of Warren, Scott and a few others have zero idea of what the two agencies used to do. In fact at most local areas your lucky to have somebody with and institutional memory over 10 years. What makes it so ugly is they really don't give a damn about past positions, policies, or guarantees to fishers just what the company direction is at the moment. That is the WDFW culture of today.

The tragedy of shifting baselines.

Rivrguy-Scott was actually in management in the 80s but Ron wasn't. He never saw that stuff. But yo are right, some of us have circled the sun a lot of times.

What gets kinda scary is that some/many? of the folks there now were not even born when you, me, Tug, Scott were actually doing that stuff.

keep lowering the escapement goal instead of addressing the true issues, then there's more fish to be caught.

Absolutely. Nobody in management pushes for more fish on the grounds. At the same time, as we continue to destroy habitat the actual goal could get smaller and be scientifically justified.

We all know that rule number one is to give the Tribes what they want because if you don’t the masses will cry racism. It’s pretty crazy how brainwashed the libtards in this state are when they can’t even hear facts and think before they give the tribes everything they want including the eradication of fish species.

I have gotten into it so many times and people always go back to, “well because of what we did they should get whatever they want...”

It’s pathetic that all environmental ethics go out they window so people can pretend to not be racist.

um, treaty rights dictate what they get, but your argument brings up a good point. Going back to what conditions were like when the treaty was signed compared to what things are like now, you know the old "they didn't have monofilament gill nets back then" stuff is very similar to second amendment arguments and what has changed in 200 years there.

Treaty rights dictate what the Tribes get, but that isn’t why there isn’t a soul besides fisherman that can see how messed up the situation is.

If you said, “commercial fishing is destroying salmon runs” people would listen, but if you said “tribal commercial fishing is destroying salmon runs” people wouldn’t care.

Why the fuk is that?

Northern intercept fisheries are destroying salmon runs.

www.psc.org/about-us/history-purpose/pacific-salmon-treaty

All commercial fisheries, tribal or not, are destroying salmon runs.

All commercial fisheries is a rather broad swipe at things and the true impacts vary from place to place. Commercial fishers only fish when the harvest managers permit them to do so. We put more effort into restoration of habitat than preservation, fail to recognize the long term reduction in productivity and what should be the reduction in harvest to match the reduced productivity.

Looking at history when the vast majority of harvest was terminal and runs declined on any given stream so did harvest and the runs recovered. The difference now is a lot more people and growth in the recent past of marine mixed stock harvest from AK South. Simple fact is until we start preserving habitat first and address the massive over harvest of intercept mixed stock fisheries nothing much changes. Salmon restoration with the mind set of that currently exist is simply smoke and mirrors to continue what is the current harvest policies. This isn't brain surgery guys.

I think fact of the matter is almost every grocery store on the continent has wild caught salmon for sale. That is where they “go”...

Politics result in the path of least resistance. Forget practicality, cost, and reasonability. If the masses want A, then it usually will be done, even if A doesn't work, if B is more cost efficient, practical and actually does something. A perfect example is how the county requires septics to be pumped and inspected at the time of a sale. Doesn't matter if it was done a year earlier. But, a home that isn't sold can go years without being tested. Why, because no politician has the guts to require it from everyone every 5 years. It is easier to deal with people one at a time. So, new homes are checked, even though the odds are 1000 to one there is a problem, while the lake front double wide mobile with a gravity flow septic that is 50 years old is not checked, ever, unless it is sold.

For the win!

Got to stop by a Chehalis Tributary today for a couple hours. Glad to say, there are still some fish around. Surprisingly bright hatchery fish.

Ah ............. and we fished with a stick and string tied to it. Oh and until the technology of canneries tribal people were the harvesters for towns people. There was a time when Aberdeen was the largest city in the state and it was all about timber and ship building. Fishing was something that tribal folks did.