Interesting anomolly

I was just taking a quick look at the hatchery reports myself and noticed that the Tumwater hatchery reported 1692 hatchery coho back this year, when in the prior years it appears to have been less than 60, with 2018 not reporting any and then 2017 having the highest shown at 115, then none reported from 2013 to 2016,

This is a huge variance. Anyone have any ideas. I don't think they were planted, as all were listed as being released. All were reported as hatchery fish. I suppose it could be bad data again. Interesting if not.

That is quite a increase. Could they be strays, say from the south sound net pens?
Though it is only planted with chums, my local creek get some stray hatchery coho.
SF

I would think the hatchery coho at Deschutes in Tumwater are most likely Squaxin Island net pen strays.

If I recall correctly from discussions (way back) that the coho strays we saw in South Sound came from a variety of places. The biggest source was, of course, net pens. But what I remember the interesting part is that each hatchery stock went to rather specific areas. If you had Minter fish you didn't have Squaxin, even if Squaxin was closer. It was an odd pattern.

At that time, too, if memory serves, much of Squaxin fish came from Wallace River.

Man this river once was stuffed with fish.
And the brewery was the big dog.
Sad.

I noted the phrase “ was “ likely straying from the net pens as stated above. Question “is” , are there no more net pens in south sound to stray from ? Then ask, what’s the difference betwixt net penning and losing strays vs fish farming and straying salmon. Farming, penning, corralling, all seem to leak strays ?

There isn't much difference. IF you used local native stocks for your pens then strays would not be that big of a problem. I know that the SSNP's had coho from Wallace River; that was more of a problem.

The big fear, which has so far (a century plus of trying) proven rather baseless is that the Atlantic Salmon, or other imported stock, could escape, stray, spawn, and ultimately outcompete the native salmonids. So far, I think that century plus of rearing Atlantics in the PNW and trying to get them established have resulted in one successful spawning once. But that's the fear. Especially now when we have reasonably vacant anadromous salmonid habitat for somebody to move into.

“ Especially now when we have reasonably vacant anadromous salmonid habitat for somebody to move into. “

In this day and age, a very interesting point to ponder...

It is said that nature abhors a vacuum. She makes an exception, I think, for politicians.

I'm curious also? What net pens, locations and species, used to be in service around the 80's? What are, if any are in service now? If not, why not? I knew Blackmouth net pens were in service and producing back in the heyday late 70's, early 80's from Olympia to Port Townsend. Did'nt know much about Coho net pens back then. I do remember catching lots of fall adult Coho jigging So of Narrows. Huge numbers returned until the El Ninio of 84-85. Never has been the same since. Seems recently, I have heard net pens are starting up again. Anyone have any details?

This might give some info on net pen programs.
Kind of interesting that the Elliott Bay net pen program releases a million coho but on 50k are clipped.
So much for mass marking……
SF

https://wdfw.wa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/02468/wdfw02468.pdf

If true, that “the Elliott Bay bent pen program releases a million coho but on 50k are clipped. “. Then, the remaining 950, 000 coho released surely were wild stock, vs hatchery supplements, right ?

That’s how they , and the best fisheries /hatchery management practices available tell us the wild fish were being protected from extinction ?

No wonder the non commercial’s fishing seasons are cut short protecting and saving all the wild coho released...

The future brood document is the correct reference, but it is so large (~1200 pages) that unless you have some idea where to look, it is basically useless. I'll attempt to answer some of the questions based on memory.

RunNGun: There used to be coho net pen programs damn near everywhere. The largest ones were in South Sound at South Sound Net Pens (WDFW) and Squaxin Island Net Pens (Squaxin Tribe). Both of these were at the same location next to Squaxin Island. Fox Island (WDFW) also had a very large program, but there were also substantial net pen programs in lakes near the Nisqually River (Sequalitchew Lk.) and in the Puyallup River (Kapowsin Lk.). In addition, just about every marina in S. South (and probably the rest of Puget Sound) had one or two net pens that were cooperatively taken care of by local sports groups. Hood Canal also had a stable program at Port Gamble and the Suquamish Tribe had a large program at Agate Pass. Hood Canal added a net pen program at Quilcene Bay as well. (Elliott Bay coho pens came in some time here, but I'm less certain about their history than further south, so I won't comment about them.)

I did not work for WDFW so I can't say for sure why many of the programs ended. Outsiders were told that it was because of budget cuts and I suspect budget played a big role, but when you use that excuse, you really are just saying that other things were more important. In order to deal with the "budget cuts" and still keep facilities operating, WDFW switched the release program at many of the marine sites to fall Chinook yearlings assuming that since the contribution of FCS yearlings at Percival Cove (Deschutes R.) was high, the net pens contribution would also be high. By switching to Chinook, they also felt that they could simply switch the cost of production to the Puget Sound Recreational Fisheries Enhancement Fund since its legislation called for the release of FCS yearlings to contribute to the winter blackmouth recreational fishery. So, some of the larger programs were switched to Chinook yearlings. There were two major problems...those FCS yearlings were not as easy to rear in salt water as coho yearlings and they did not contribute well to the fishery. That low fishery contribution was also found in freshwater facilities where they started raising the fall Chinook as well. Since there was little effort to actually evaluate the program changes, what really happened was that a bunch of money was wasted to give the impression that they were "producing" when they were really only producing releases and not returns. (Fairly common for many hatchery programs at the time.). The last problem for the FCS yearling net pen releases, came with the listing of Puget Sound Chinook under the ESA. Since all of these fish were released in salt water, there really was not a collection site for the returning adults to swim into, so there was an assumption that they created a higher risk of straying and spawning with natural populations than fish reared and released at a freshwater site with collection facilities. Frankly, from my looks at the CWT information that we finally got, the survivals were so poor that straying wasn't an issue. It just made no sense to release them. [That's my recollection of the evolution of the net pen programs. CM or others here may have additional information.]

stonefish: The Elliott Bay net pen program is confusing. The Future Brood Document says the program uses native Green River coho, the brood origin is "mixed" and the program is integrated. I'm afraid that some of the language used here has gotten pretty loose, so I'm not sure exactly what is going on. If the stock is truly Green River native, I don't think the brood origin should be "mixed." The source of the eggs for the "integrated" program is also unclear. I can only find egg takes from hatchery facilities contributing to the program rather than taking eggs from natural spawners (required to be "integrated" by what it was defined as. Perhaps there has been a change.). If you look at the combined releases of Green River native coho, both from net pens and freshwater facilities, this is huge combined program, and I doubt if there are enough naturally produced coho in the Green River to actually successfully integrate it. The marking is also very strange. The fish released from WDFW facilities seem to be marked. The ones from the net pen are not except for a small group for evaluation. If it were really some sort of highly integrated "recovery" program, that would make sense, but it is not. Good luck figuring anything else out.

No doubt that is a big, info filled document.
For those wanting to search the broodstock PDF, just use control F and search terms like "net" or "NP" to make it easier to sift through the data.
NP, short for Net Pens will give you 44 results and might give you the info you want to find regarding net pen programs in the sound.

OncyT,
Thanks for the information.
SF

Thanks for the info. I get ESA listings affected the program and it makes sense having no collection abilities. But, if survivals were so poor how was the fishing sooo good? And it was good with regular boat limits, 2 fish per person back then. Was it the sheer volume of net pen production?

The marine net pen releases of FCS were never very successful and were not in production during the heyday late 70's and early 80's that you and I remember. Freshwater releases of FCS yearlings were driving the "success" of those fisheries. Certainly some of those FW releases where from "net pens" like the ones in Percival Cove, but others were just normal hatchery releases. I only put quotes around "success" because that success was driven by at least one other factor besides survival. For instance, the minimum size limit for resident Chinook was lower then and a successful trip with limits of smaller resident fish turned into unsuccessful trips with nothing but shakers once the size limit was raised. It's been too long for me to remember how low the size limit was in that heyday, but when that treaty/non-treaty allocation imbalance that was mentioned above occurred, one of WDF's responses was to raise the size limit, thus lowering the non-treaty catch. I know that it happened at least once, going from 20" to 22", but I believe it actually happened at least twice, arriving at the final limit. [CM and SG might remember] If you looked strictly at survival, (which took some time, since WDFW simply assumed the marine FCS programs and some other new FW programs would be successful and didn't bother tagging most of them), entire programs accounting for 10's of tons of fish released contributed only 10's of actual fish in the catch. Again, pay attention to the time frame when the marine net pens switched to FCS and other programs started to tap into the PS enhancement fund money. It was not during the heyday that you remember. (BTW, WDF's other response to deal with the allocation imbalance was to pay for increased releases of zero-age FCS in areas where they would increase the treaty catch, primarily in the S. Sound region of origin, since that is where the imbalance occurred.) [Again, CM and SG, check for accuracy.]

Edit: After I read this, I remembered that during the heyday, the yearlings raised in Percival Cove were actually allowed to swim freely around the cove. It wasn't until fish eating birds discovered the easy picking there and the hatchery folks couldn't continue setting off fireworks to discourage them just below the Capitol, was the production moved to net pens in the cove.

I can remember in the mid-70s when there was no saltwater minimum size for Chinook; those being the only Chinook I ever caught in saltwater. I think the minimum size was raised a couple times, like Oncy says. The reason was to lower the catch to meet allocation requirements.

One needs to look at the total releases, which were pretty large. But we also had some really large returns, too. Nooksack/Samish Falls were returning, as adults to the net fishery, at or above 100K fish in the mid-80s. I think we used to get close to 20K adult Chinook back just to the Deschutes.

I was not directly involved in a lot of the planning but I am pretty sure that WDF was using hatchery production to get fish back to the Tribal fisheries. I don't think, though, that there was all that much evaluation of actual results. There were some situations where groups were tagged to evaluate so question and then there was no effort to recover the returning adults.

I do remember that by the 90s/00s that there was some economic analysis that showed a single fish in the catch cost $100+ to produce. And the kept producing them for some reason.

I'm pretty sure that there was a size limit for Puget sound Chinook in the 70's, but can't remember what it was. I remember wrtiting a ticket to a participant in the old Tengu Salmon Derby in 1972 (held every weekend) for a short Chinook. A VERY rare violation.
For years I've tried to get momentum for building a hatchery on the Deschutes in Tumwater, but promises by WDFW keep being broken. I think that the hatchery promises were made mostly to keep a few peeople employed. Hundreds of thousands have been spent on plans, maybe more than a million. I believe in hatcheries. Sometimes the returns to the Deschutes holding pens are phenomenal even after they've passed through a bunch of fisheries. The idiots that manage this hatchery quit passing Chinook upstream about ten (?) years ago. That action has helped kill an ecosystem that was established in the early 1950's. Now the river is open to salmon fishing, but no Chinook are passed upstream. All surplus is sold. In my law enforcement training, I'm wondring who is getting paid off! It's happened before.

On of the things I remember most about fishing the far Soth Sound is that fishing for small Chinook near Anderson Island in the '70's and later was really good even though the early blackmouth were small. But I caught several in the 12-15 lb. range in the spring. Anglers were happy, with the good action. Fishing out of the Narrows area was even much better, for larger fish, well into 80's. I think some of that had to do with White River springers, but a lot had to do with delayed net pen releases. I remember the tribal net pens in the Fox Island area well. It caused lots of problems when residents found nets tied to their docks and us Fishcops had to deal with that.

I was involved in the Deschutes hatchery in the beiginning, like late 80s/erly 90s. As I recall we had located the water, located the site (in Pioneer Park) and I know I was working on some treatment designs for the wastewater. Then I got RIFd elsewhere and lost that thread as to where it was going.

ESA mucked up the passing of the Chinook. IF they successfully reproduced up there they would create a "wild" run that would require protection and mess up all the sport and commercial fisheries down here. Squaxin were very opposed to accepting that risk.

C-Man,

You are exactly right about the "wild run" in the Deschutes! What an insane position for the dept. What about the wild run in the Nisqually? I remember Ron Warren stating in a Commission meeting "We don't want any unmarked fish in So.Sound." McIsaac said "I thought we were working to have unmarked fish". What upsets me most is the killing of an ecosystem that has been there for nearly 70 years. Cutthroat, bears, eagles, mink, etc. Why not let the male Chinook upstream for the ecosystem health and to provide some sport?

Not only that, in ‘09 they shut down capital lake due to “mud snail” concerns. There has been no fishery there since.

I lived downtown back then and while the fish were usually pretty dark by that point, fishing right out in front of the parking lot at Tumwater falls park was great way to waste a half hour and build up the egg supply.

It wasn't the Department that caved; it was the consequences of ESA and Squaxin wouldn't stand for it. WDF actually tried to see if the Chinook would naturally reproduce in the Deschutes and the result were that so few unmarked fish came back that they were either "wild" or "drops" from the marking of hatchery fish.

Last I had heard, and this in the early 00s, was that Nisqually was trying to have both a hatchery program and a wild run. That required, as modeling showed, a rack in the river. That was done but the wilds still didn't respond. Don't know what happened.

I do know, though, that Feds set "recovery exploitation rates" for a number of WA Chinook stocks that were higher than MSY. Which means they were really "recovery extinction rates" but since they ran the show that's what was going on. My somewhat fuzz memory is that to recover the SS Chinook one needed to reign in Alaska and NOAA was not about to do that.

The current fight over trawl bycatch up there shows that conservation is not a NOAA value.

Per OncyT's reference to PS Chinook minimum size limit, my memory is hazy as I had little interest in saltwater fishing. But I had an acquaintance in Mt Vernon who was really into and heavily invested in that fishery, especially for blackmouth. I think the min. size limit was 12" because he would tell stories of catching limits of Chinook that were like 14 or 15". I could not understand the possible enjoyment of trolling 6# downrigger weights to catch salmon that were little larger than bait.

Yes, as to why WDFW stopped letting Chinook spawn naturally upstream of Tumwater Falls. The ESA treated natural spawning as wild fish regardless of origin. Successful natural spawners in the Deschutes would create a harvest management nightmare and possibly lead to the termination of that fairly successful hatchery program, or at least a severe reduction in production. I do think they made the right call. Not because I'm opposed to wild salmon populations, but because the Deschutes contains nanophytes, a ******(can't think of the word at the moment) that is mostly fatal to Chinook (and steelhead). It is abundantly present at McAllister Creek and is why WDFW ended the Chinook program there. The upshot is that no matter how many surplus hatchery Chinook were sent upstream of Tumwater, they would never be able to establish a self sustaining natural population. But logical explanations like that never sway the ESA enforcers, so it was better to stop allowing upstream passage. I'll just add that the native cutthroat in the Deschutes co-evolved with nanophytes in the river basin, and they seem to do well there where no other salmonid does.

As for the fate of the hatchery at Pioneer Park, who knows? It makes sense from the standpoint that the program at Tumwater should not be dependent on hauling eggs and fry back and forth from George Adams at Shelton (and in Hood Canal, if that matters). On the other hand, I'd like an audit showing the cost of putting one Tumwater Chinook in the recreational creel, or are the benefits just going to BC and commercial catches at taxpayer expense? As for the treaty fishery, the Squaxins can't claim the Tumwater Chinook are replacement for the lost natural production of Chinook in the Deschutes River that historically had no anadromous fish.

From looking a the way the state has been handling coho here, it appears they are trying to establish a wild run. Each year they release the small number that return. I am assuming they are allowing them up stream. No fish appear to have ever returned from these releases. The rules specifically ban any retention of coho. So this year they supposedly released almost 1700. There was no change in the rules, so I would think that would indicate a desire to establish the run. If nothing returns, I think it would be safe to say they should just allow retention. I suppose I should call the department to verify the actual numbers, as they just as likely are wrong.

I can remember early in my salmon fishing career (1950s) the minimum size for Chinook was 12 inches. A few years later there was no minimum size limit but a size limit reinstated a couple years later. I do vividly remember a boat return to Bellingham in the mid-1970s with a 9 Chinook limit placed in a 5-gallon bucket with the heads down headfirst and the tails of the larger fish were only a couple of inches above the rim of the bucket.

Regarding the Elliot Bay net pen releases being nearly all unclipped. The same holds for the tribal produced fish released in the Green. But what is especially interesting is as far as I can tell those are the only hatchery coho being released from Puget Sound hatcheries (State, Federal or tribal) that the vast majority are not clipped.

Curt

Muckleshoot is the PS tribe most strongly opposed to mass marking and, consequently, the implementation of mark selective fisheries. They won't mass mark the fish they raise.

The state has been passing coho above T-Falls since the beginning. In the 80s, and probably 90s, the wild coho were one of the indicator wild stocks based on trapping and cwt results. Something happened to the run and it crashed. But at one time the wild run was doing very well.

Salmo g.: Nanophyetus salmincola is the critter. It is very abundant is much of S. Sound, including McAllister Creek, but also the Nisqually River proper. While its abundance was certainly part of the lack of survival and subsequent fishery contribution from the McAllister Creek hatchery, I suspect the real reason that WDFW finally ended that program was because of the HSRG's recommendation to close the facility. While they made recommendations on most hatchery programs,they rarely pointed to the failure of an entire facility as they did there. It was hard to argue anything else once some coded wire tags were finally placed on the fish so survival could be evaluated. Again, the assumption at that time was that all hatchery programs were or would be successful, so if you never actually evaluated them, you could always make that argument. (The WDFW version of "Don't ask, don't tell.")

As you have pointed out, there are currently a number of winter steelhead programs where the same arguments are being made.

Pens, farms, clipped, no clipped, one entity is good the other isn’t , release the wild, kill the hatchry fish, play the stupid fishing games that’s been created at the expense of fishing licenses, punch cards, and poor project management with excuses - what a sad joke, and the jokes on us all.

OTOH, we all have clams to dig, once in a while.

Things may have changed since I left but one thing WDFW could depend on is that the Leg would fund hatcheries. Need money? Threaten to close a facility and that money would be added, freeing up money for some other pet project.