Do our rivers produce as much as they can?

Ive heard from some that our healthy rivers, (meaning the ones on the OP), are at carrying capacity. Meaning they produce as much as they can. Meaning that harvest hasent really affected the number of fish we have today. Meaning even if we didnt harvest any fish the rivers wouldnt produce any more.

I dont buy it. I think it is total bull.

As some of you know I made a trip last fall to a remote small river on the south west side of Kodiak island. This river is 20 miles long and has about the same flow as the Dungeness river. It has a large lake which it flows out of. It was amayzing to see a river that was producing up to its full potential. At least as close as we will ever see.

Well anyways this river has a weir at the mouth where all the fish are counted between may and the end of September. I did some research recently to find out what the counts were. I was amayzed to find out what a total wild river is capible of producing.

This year was a humpy year. Your not gonna believe this but 1,687,000 returned to the river this year. 960,000 sockey returned this year. 7,600 Kings this year ( lower than past years). And so far 13,500 silvers. This river has tens of thousands of Dollys (more dollys than I have ever seen numbers of salmon in any of the river down here). And gets an escapement of 4,000 to 13,000 steelhead a year (which are not counted anymore).

Not includeing dollys and steelhead thats 2,668,100 salmon to one small 20 mile long river with the flow of the Dungeness with no hatchery. Almost three million salmon.

Thats more fish in one small trickle than the entire Columbia system gets in a year. Thats more salmon than the entire puget sound and washington coastal coho and chinook runs combined. We are talking about one little river.
Can you even comprehend this, I cant and ive seen it.

What I am saying here is that our fish here are just plain screwed.

We have decinated our fish runs so bad that we will never know or have any idea how many fish there sould or could be.

Our rivers cant be produceing even 5% of their carrying capacity. There is just no way. I dont care what logic or science anyone one can show me I just wont believe it.

Heres some more interesting info. This river that I am talking about was almost wiped out 50 to 60 years ago. It had a cannery at the mout and they just trapped all the fish that came up river untill there were no fish left. After the river was left alone it came back all by itself. No hatchery no nothing Total wild stocks. It receeded itself in less than a half century without any help from man.

What also matters is what the surrounding ocean system can support.

damn rich g i never tought about that... thats some good info. i wish our rivers were like that.

TTT

Rich G

Great Post.

We really do not realize what we have lost. Your misgivings regarding our rivers being at their carrying capacities are well founded.

Barnettm

Yes, ocean conditions like the PDO do have a great impact on the number adult salmon but the bottom falling out of the salmon numbers can not be contributed to the cyclic nature of the ocean. Maybe it is the 50 million pounds of shrimp we harvest each year off our shores that have something to do with poor local conditions?

To my knoledge our salmon and their salmon feed in the same places. When the fish get down here they are at the tail end of their feeding. When we had the very large Coho last year they didnt have them in Alaska, meaning they stacked on those extra pounds at the end before they hit the rivers, meaning we had good ocean conditions with lots of bait in the sound strait and coast. Obviosly I dont believe in the whole ocean condition theory as a whole it is one factor of many. Just by itself it cant make that large of an impact.

Here is my theory to why some places have consistant good fish runs like west side Kodiak rivers and others are so inconsistant like washington rivers.

Even with bad Ocean Conditions and varing environmental conditions the Kodiak runs can sustain high return numbers and surpluss fish. Surpluss fish are the Key. Without those surplus fish any one factor can make the run crash below a level to sustain itself and then the spiral starts down.

Down here the surplus fish are gone we leave just enough fish to keep the numbers up to the escapement numbers we got from the 70's and 80''s after the damage was already done. I believe are rivers are running far below the very minimum escapement thats why the runs are so affected by different factors. Any one factor can have drastic affect. Thats why are fish runs are so unpredictable down here . We manage our fish on a fine line.

Its pretty easy to see. The river I described has almost a 3 million fish run. Maybe thats 2 million over what it needs for maximum capacity. What happens if you harvest those two million fish like MSY says to do and you get bad ocean conditions floods droughts siltation or any one factor. You get what we currently have in Washington.

Our escapement are Kept so low that the fish never get the chance to rebound. If we are expected to get just a few extra fish than our set escapement goals we harvest them. Why do you think we have such highs and lows. We get a run 5,000 over escapement so we up the effort for harvest and get those 5,000 extra fish then that winter we have floods then the following summer we get a drought. Then we have low egg and fry survival and the outgoing smolt numbers are down. Then we get an elnino and the spanish makeral and pelicans eat up a half of the surviving smolt. Then the next generation is on the ESA list.

If we had those 5,000 extra spawners as the safety nett that nature intended we wouldnt have the drepessed run the next generation due to all the environmental factors. those 5,000 extra spawner and 8,000,000 extra eggs they would have layed is natures design to keep the river at carrying capacity even with environmental factors that dont favor the fish.

Here something else to think about.

I know for a fact that the powers that be have known what was happening for the last 40 years or so.

Why do you think they started building hatcherys. They figured they could be natures safety nett because they knew that the wild runs couldnt keep up with our harvest and lifestyles all along.

If the runs on the say Quileute System are at carrying capacity why do we need a salmon and steelhead hatchery in the system to suppliment harvest?

From my own observations I'd say twenty years ago there were two to three times as many fish as there are now. So the rivers are in no way maxed. In my opinion we are witnessing right now a big part of the problem. Silvers are looking like a bust. We kept hearing they are just late. Now it's starting to look like the runs are way below forecasts. So, why isn't it closed? Why aren't the rivers closed?

If they close the rivers then they won't get as much of our money to pad their pockets with. They don't care about the fish just about the all mighty dollar.

Also Alaska doesn't have near the population of people prodding away at it ecosystem like we do. What do you expect to happen when California moves up here. We are way past carrying capacity for the state. Wdfg regulates the carrying capacity of wildlife, but who regulates the capacity of humans in a given area.

Check this site out. You can look at fish counts from way back.
http://www.cqs.washington.edu/dart/adult.html

because everyone is egg whores. Salmon meat prices fall, but egg prices stay the same....

This is some really good information and has supported what I have thought for years about the Salmon population. I think what we need to do is to raise the escapement goals, lower the retention rate - 1 fish instead of 2 and have lotteries on certain rivers.

I don't think that you will be able to get Commercial fisheries and Indian fisheries to stop what they are doing. Too bad. If we all stopped for two life cycles just think what kind of returns we could have!

I don'g like the idea of giving up fishing but to truly make a difference to the fisher....I would gladly give up fishing...and pay for a license each year to help fund it! Come on, How many of you really would not give up 40.00 a year for 6-8 years to really have a chance to have some great fishing? I think we only hav ourselves to blame for a lot of what has happened. Ths rivers can support more, we can decide to cut back but the question is are we willing to sacrifice to do it? I don't think the overall opinion will be yes. Especially when we continue to pick on Commercial or Indians and they pick on us and each other. We all have to work together.

BTW - hatcheries are a good idea. They can make a difference. Show your support for the Sockeye hatchery on the Cedar by showing up Oct 17 and letting your voice be heard.

I would think that a big factor is the total available "bio-mass" within a given eco-system. As was mentioned in an earlier post, harvesting 50 million pounds of shrimp is going to effect all the fish, not just those that eat shrimp.

no....

Limited habitat, not harvest, is the issue.

Harvest management in Washington is already biased towards protecting weak stocks, the only fish that are legally caught, by anglers or commercial fishermen, are from strong (typically hatchery) runs. The real problem behind salmon recovery now isn't harvest, but habitat.

Even the Dungeness River, which above was offered as a near pristine OP stream, is absolutely screwed compared to what it had been. That river is almost totally diked in its lower end, and is not allowed to meander in any way. There are no trees to speak of in the river, compared to historic numbers and until a few years ago, it was also irrigated to the point of almost being dry to chinook spawning.

On the Dungeness, salmon are screwed not because of over harvest, but habitat concerns. Except for the strong hatchery coho run on the River, there hasn't sport or commercial harvest on chinook or pink for over 20 years. But, in the same 20 years the human population in the Dungeness Valley has exploded, putting more and more pollution and habitat pressures on fish.

Mandatory release of all wild fish is really a bad idea isnt it!
We just cant have a statewide release rule for wild Steelhead, can we.
Just ask the State Game Gods, they will tell you how stupid you are for even asking that.
Can things be better, no way cause its the habitat or the oceans or its this or that.
Love this states head up its *ss outlook.

Skyrise,

I have to agree with you on that. Some of our game managers would have you think that our management of steelhead is for the benefit of the steelhead.

It's a wonder how they managed to hang on over the millenia without us here to save them from themselves!!!

Fish on...

Todd.

Excellent discussion. Thanks for all the info, Rich.

I agree with those of you who recognize habitat as a major contributing problem, but rather than continuing that discussion, I'll pose a different perspective:

Salmon farming is the solution.

I know it has it's own set of problems, but I think that our rivers/oceans can no longer support the human population - we need more food than they can supply. We've tried to use hatcheries to supplement the salmon supply, but these fish are subject to all the same variables as a natural run (weather, feed, etc).

It wasn't too long ago that people were able to live off the land...eating deer, elk, salmon, and whatever nuts and berries they could find. When the demand for food exceeded nature's ability to produce, the people started farming - not just grains, but animals as well.

In fact, of the major food sources (meat, grains, dairy and fish) the only one that has not become totally farmed is fish....nature has been able to provide fish for our population.

Not anymore. It's time for 98% of the world to start eating farm raised salmon. You want to put an end to commercial and tribal fisheries? All you have to do is buy farm raised salmon. After that, it's a matter of simple economics. The tribes and commercial fisheries will go bust.

There's not a politician alive who will vote to close commerical or tribal fishing, but if they're forced out of business...well then, I guess that's just the way it goes.

Sport fisherman only represent a small fraction of the total popluation (I'm estimating 2%). Our rivers could support a controlled sport fishing season. I'd even support higher license fees, if it meant better regulation (ie. more officers in the field).

I realize that most of you reading this post don't buy very much salmon at the store. You're able to catch most of your supply from your favorite fishing hole. BUT, your family, friends and neighbors get their fish from the deli counter. If you think I'm making any sense, encourage them to buy farm raised salmon....

Rich,

When you're told that OP rivers are producing at carrying capacity, that would be today's degraded habitat capacity. So yeah, some seasons they are at their present carrying capacity. Of course, you've marked the other side of the equation regarding harvest, and the camps simply disagree on that. My own experience suggests that MSY/MSH inevitably result in overfishing 50% of the time or more, so rivers are underescaped and more susceptable to above average losses from floods and droughts.

So why does a small river on Kodiak Island produce more fish than all of the Columbia R. or all of Puget Sound and the coast?
1) habitat degredation;
2) general pattern of overharvest;
3) the Gulf of Alaska is generally much more productive than the marine waters utilized by our fish (yeah, even though many WA fish rear PART of their lives in the Gulf, they also spend significant time in less productive waters as well).

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

To thoes that think freshwater habitat is a limiting factor to wild fish production need to look at the history of Southwest Washington's Washougal river. We have an excellent example of fish having done better in the past with worse habitat than they are now with better habitat.

The first example is the Washougal where at the beginnng of the century the headwaters were a barren wateland as the result of the all comsuming Yacolt burn a devastating forest fire that burnt the entire upper watershed to the ground, not a tree left standing antwhere near the river. On top of that there was excessive gold, silver and copper mining the letal tailings of which were routinely dumped directly into the river. Add to that massive loogging on the lower river along with the operation of splash dams than choked the river with logs for miles, add to that 2 concrete dams and a grist mill that all hindered fish passage. Then on top of that the rivers mouth was a toxic cesspool from the Camas Papermill. In spite of all that the wild summer steelhead population was stable at 1500-2000 fish! It crashed in the early 1960's the exact same time hatchery operations began at the Skamania hatchery.
The yacolt burn is completely healed and the Washougals habitat is near pristine in condition and the wild steelhead are having NO hint of seriously rebounding from all time lows in the early 90's Habitat is NOT a limiting factor here, neither is harvest and neither is the ocean.
What is the one and only limiting factor? The hatchery! period thats it!

Those numbers of fish must spawn in the lake.

To have that volume of fish spawn & die in a small river would create an oxygen deficiency which could kill the run.

Clerk,

So you're sayin that the lake and the incredible rainfall @ Kodiak are not factors?

BTW, in case your mom didn't tell you, it is impolite to begin a conversation with an insult.

Mans impact on our rivers cannot be identified in one post.Rich you have hit the nail on the head as Far as I am concerned.Take man out of the equation?Is not going to happen.What do we do in the meantime??

We do what they did on the Keogh on Vancouver Island.
stop clear cutting the rivers
restore the habiitat
create off channel habitat
fertilize the streams
let the WILD fish do their thing

It is restoreing their fish in spite of bad ocean conditions!!!!!!!

Ocean conditions is an absolute cop out in my opinion

I think we need herring, candlefish, and sardine hatcheries to supply more food base for the salmonids!!!!!!!! :p

Here a betime story for you, all about this little problem:

Once upon a time there was a brilliant scientist named W.E Ricker, who deduced that the survival of the eggs from each fish declined when too many spawned, and so he developed a mystic curve who's apex showed the exact density of fish spawning that produced the highest survival of the eggs from each fish. This density he converted into numbers for each river that were optimum, and decreed that every fish that escaped above this number was a waste and should be harvested. This magical point was enthroned as the God MSY (maximum sustainable yield), drummed into the heads of all educated bioligists, and used to this day to manage fish returns. When the WDFW/Tribal High Priests of fish biology decree that a river is at maximum escapement, they mean that it is at MSY, thus all is well.

Problem is, W.E. in all his brilliance never bothered to try to figure out why, if it was bad for the fish to escape above MSY, they continued to do so when left to their own hedonistic devices. Even the most simple pagan ecologist knows that species do not evolve undesirable traits and survive for very long. So if overescapement is undesirable, why do salmon do it?

The obvious answer is this: What to our eyes appears to be gross overescapement is a desirable trait and ensures survival, thusly: The first to spawn clean the silt out of the gravel so that the majority of subsequent spawners have high quality incubation conditions. In times of ocean disaster and low return the first fish use only the best sites remaining from the previous year's excessive activities. In times of extreme floods the abundance of late spawners still have a chance to keep the run going. Predators (natural ones anyway) are satiated and leave most of the fish alone. Those salmon who's eggs are dug up nourish next year's young and all their diverse relatives (cutts, resident rainbow, steelhead smolts, dollies, etc). And because of the poor nutrient conditions in high rainfall river systems that salmon prefer, all those tons of dead fish fertilize the entire ecosystem and grow all of the invertebrates that their young need to survive and reach the ocean in high numbers and prime condition. Plus a number of other good things pagan ecologists haven't thought of yet and that High Priests of biology would never even consider, as it defiles the God MSY.

The river on MSY therefore has dirty gravel so egg survival plummets, as there are no good sites left without intersticeis in the gravel plugged by years of silt. If the river floods all are wiped out. Natural predators are reviled because they are destroying the run, which the unnatural predators sanctioned by the High Priests have already reduced to MSY, and are harrassed and hunted by the unnatural predators who are the only beings capable of holding the run down to MSY. All the resident fish die out even before ESA can notice them, and most of the lovely cutts and dollies live in remnants only on ESA because there is nothing else to eat. And everyone's remaining offspring starve in the unproductive river and enter the ocean undersized, in poor condition, and in low numbers, as there are no nutrients in the ecosystem.

Sorry, they did not all live happily ever after. In the end very few if any lived at all.

spawnout

great post...

I'm all for managing our streams for maximum escapement of all salmonid stocks based upon currently available habitat....this includes hatchery releases. I'd like to see hatchery science evolve to where it it fits within this paradigm of not overwhelming a system with it's output...but supports a systems recovery for all stocks. It's called adaptive management.

Gooose thats what we'd all like to see. However it has never heppened and there is no magic piece of evidence to suggest it ever could. Maybe it can and that should be our goal, but until then we need hatchery practices that have less impact on wild fish. That effort has never ever been made. people always talk about new hatchery priactices and new hatchery science like it is something that is making things better for wild fish. Well that simply is not happening in WA state hatcheries. I am all for balance in the hatchery system but we are still so lopsided pro hatchery that any movement further that way does not promote any kind of balance. Wild fish managment does not exsist in the state of Washington. It never has and likely never will.

Good Im glad I got things going on this.

Habitat, I do not buy it not for a minute. If the fish are there they will find a way.

Many of the Alaska and BC rivers that have huge fish runs have terrible natural habitat. Super high water flows at times massive amouts of sitation from glaciers and erosion from the freeze and thaw every year. And last but not least most of the maninland rivers are frozen 5 months out of the year and this is
when the young fry and smolt are in the river. Cant be much to eat and not very favorable
conditions.

And about to many dead fish decaying taking away all the oxogen. Well heres the answer to that question.

My cousin guides on this river and is there every year. On a humpy year he says that dead humpies are three feet deep twenty feet wide on the river banks of both sides on all twenty miles of river. At the mouth of the river the dead humpies are stacked every where for a few miles in both directions. Every rock in the river is stacked with half a dozen humpies infront of it. every branch or snag in the river is covered with humpies. Every year the lake is full of dead sockey as well as the banks covered with near a million dead sockey.

All of these dead fish dont smell good but they are the key to the 3 million fish production.

We down here have much more favorable conditions for the fish.

Habitat is a good copout for over harvest. If the fish were there they would find a way.

Ya the bad habitat isnt used by the fish to spawn in. Well maybe because most of our rivers have so few fish compared to what they should have the fish that are there get the very best habitat due to lack of compitition.

In the river on Kodiak I describes every squar inch of the river is used for spawning good and bad habitat. Fish spawn ontop of each other 3 and 4 times. And yes 600,000 sockey or so spawn in the lake but all the rest of the fish spawn in the river.

Very educational post, Spawnout. That info reinforces my suspicions on the faulty application of the MSY concept.

And the bedtime story format made it understandable even to us who can only think in two dimensions.

My only point is that every river is different. There are dozens, if not hundreds of factors impacting spawning success. Maybe a low water temp slows the rot rate, maybe bears consume a significant number of fish, etc, etc. To compare a river on Kodiak Is. with one in WA is apples and oranges.

Should rivers be left alone to do the wild thing?
Maybe so. I think it should at least be tried on some rivers. But I would expect some successes and some disasters. Disasters are part of natural evolution, but humans, with their short attention span are too impatient to tolerate anything they view as a setback.

Ah, but Rich, about that habitat....

Fish cannot get above impassible dams and culverts. Unlike your rivers in Alaska, every one in Washington has dams, culverts, or both on either their mainstems or tributaries that prevent fish from using the habitat above them. The Elwha, for example, do you think that only hatchery/harvest is what prevents historic populations from repopulating that river to it's former abundance. Of course not, I know, but that is what habitat loss means.

Alaska also does not have mega-ports that have filled 98% of the historic saltmarsh and intertidal area around them. Rivers systems like the Puyallup, Green, and Snohomish can never recover their former fish populations, as there is no estuary left for outmigrating juvenile salmon to adapt from fresh to salt water. What little habitat is there is horribly contaminated and polluted, and fish rearing there eat food full of some of the most toxic carcinogens known to man. Some survive but most perish as a result.

Finally, Alaska does not have half of it's shoreline covered by bulkheads and urban development, and the rest polluted by untreated stormwater and failing septic systems, like the state of Washington and particularly Putrid Sound does, with the attendant loss of baitfish spawning beds and primary productivity from eelgrass beds. Our few baby salmon that get to be large enough to start chasing baitfish can't find very many because they have little spawning habitat also.

It's a 3 legged stool, harvest/hatcheries/habitat, cut one let off and you fall down, cut them all short and you can't reach the table. It is all of these problems that could be solved real simply....if Washington was not the most densly populated state west of the Mississippi, and was instead populated as densly as Alaska.... I know, lets extripate 98% of the humans in Washington - how about all those that either don't fish or that snag go first?

Although I am a beliver in the 3H principle I have to say that fish will find a way. I don't know how many of you are from the California area but about 8 or 9 years ago an article in the San Jose Mercury News caught my attention. Basically after a 30 year period of not a single Chinook being seen in the Guadalupe river a run of about 50 to 100 fish started by itself. Now this river runs right through downtown, through culverts, drainages and other seemingly unnavigable waters. It would have to first cross water in the San Francisco Bay that is more poluted than anything we have in the Sound and so thoroughly changed in quality that many of the species that are found in the Bay are listed as unhealthful to eat. These salmon were watched by the biologists and only after some homeless people started catching the fish and eating them did it make the news. This was 4 years after the first return run was noted! By then the run was getting so big that it began to garner public support to change the river back to its more natural shape and condition. streets were torn up, culverts dug up, drainages blocked and polution cleaned up. The run improved and finally will be made to be legal to fish. All of this after a 30 year hiatus. Genetic testing showed that these fish were not hatchery origin! Surprising since there is such a small run of native fish there.

Imagine, a city the size of Seattle with a river that has been the cesspool for years covered so that cars and business could do what they want, ripping up and changing back as close to origional that same river that runs through its heart. Cool. No one planned it. No one prepped the river first. No one planted hatchery raised fish first. No one stopped hatcheries from cranking out as many fish for the ocean fishery as possible....what did they do? They had a moritorium on salmon fishing in the bay area. Open ocean, o.k. Bay - no no. They gave nature a chance to do what she does best. Overcome, and heal. This applied to sport, commercial and indian.

Instead of ripping each other a new one over what group should do what - all of us should cut back on how much we take. If we cut in half the number of fish taken each year then there would be that many more fish available to spawn and increase the size of the runs. Think about it - after 10 years we could really have something to talk about not complain about.

Yes, dams and issues will remain to be dealt with but lets let nature figure out how many fish a river or system will hold....before we came alond who determined the escapement level? I say let us all cut our take, let nature determine the # of fish a system will handle and then enjoy the increased opportunity for all.

I have not forgottern cowlitsfisherman...just hoping that some of this I'm right/you're wrong crap stops. To a certain extent everything that has been said is correct....the one thing that has not happened is a determined effort to reduce the 'take'. As long as there is a goal that 'reduced numbers of salmon means that price of salmon will stay high' and a high price paid for salmon eggs the slaughter will continue. Don't get me wrong...I like to catch and keep my few each year as well but I never have filled a salmon catch card on my own. This is my belief and I do not force others to do what I want or believe. I also don't look down on others if they do fill more than one catch card. Recovery has to start somewhere though. If the people with the 'gold' will not listen to reason then we need to do something with the 'gold'. After all, they get if from us.

Way to go, Busy. I agree. We need to cut back - sportsman included. BUT, it's not the sport fisherman that are taking the majority of these fish. It's tribal and commercial...and they will continue to harvest if the GOLD is there.

So, who holds the gold?

We do. The people who go to the fish market and buy fish. We hold the gold.

If you want to put a major crimp in the commercial and tribal harvest, buy farm raised fish...and support salmon farming regulation, so it doesn't get out-of-hand. If there's no money in commercial fishing, no one will do it.

The big money for eggs is in Japan not here in the U.S. Why do we allow our resource to be exported to other countries? It is our resource. It belongs to all of the people in the U.S. Tribal and non-tribal. It is also our food supply. If there is a shortage then why not ban exports first thing? I'm willing to bet that a ban on exports will do wonders for the fish population. The price will be driven down and there is almost no egg market that I know of here in the U.S.

Now I like that idea Stlhead! It actually worked for our national and state forests and banning export of a public fish resource should be just as legal as banning export of a public forest resource. The price of bait eggs, for those of you unfortunate enough not to catch all the hatchery hens you need :p should also go down. Might someone here who is connected with one of our local state reps talk one of them into proposing such a bill? "To prevent wastage of our invaluable fish resources it shall be illegal for all dealers of salmon products to export salmon eggs without also exporting, in whole or in part, the entire salmon. For processed fish, one whole fish for each skein of eggs, or two filets for each skein of eggs, etc....." That would stop those egg strippers of any race cold. I like it

Dang Stlhead, I think that you're onto something. Much like the export/posession of rhino horns and tiger scrotums has been made illegal in an effort to stop African poaching. Isn't some caviar illegal? And I think some shark finning is now illegal. All similar practices - wasting an endangered animal for some little trinket.

But, yes, prying the "gold" from the fingers of them that has it is the trick, eh? But you have to start somewhere.

Nice to meet everyone and just to let the author of the topic know, this is a very good topic and refreshing to see all the great comments left by all the contributors.

Knowledge is key in making things the best they can be for us, the fishermen, and more importantly the fish. Going to the trouble of gathering statistics is an arduous task and sometimes one must allow for variables in calculations of fish and adjust accordingly.

Being a fisherman my entire life and having been granted the opportunity to learn from wise old cagey cats that have seen it all, One of the biggest problems here is that issue we all know to well called, "Dams". They were key in the declines of fish that call the pacific northwest habitat home.

Instinct in salmon and steelhead is very strong and if someone came to your home and took away the road to your feeding grounds, you would be inclined to move, just like the fish have. Alaska has always produced more fish due to the lack of human beings putting up roadblocks to their foodsource and will continue to do so in the future.

Fish numbers here in idaho have declined since the colombia dams and the snake river canyon dams have been built (even though we've built them stairs) to provide human beings with hydro-electric power. Hatcheries have been developed to bolster fish and for the most part, have helped in the upper parts of once thriving fish populations that would rival alaska now.

The fishing here on the Big Salmon and Little Salmon rivers in Idaho have been wonderful the past few years and its been an eye opener to me and some of the local old timers. Its nice to see, yet it hasnt been like in the past when you could visibly see the salmon and steelhead with your own eyes as they crashed through the water side by side, jockying for position to move up. I think we have been lucky in spite of the dams and the indian fisheries harvesting them before they could make it home.

To make my point, Until an alternate source of energy here in the pacific northwest comes available, the rivers will not be opened up to the fish thus things will not improve for them. We are now reading the book that someone else has written and seeing the end result of what they perceived as the Great King Salmon and Steelhead legacy. Our thirst for energy is greater than re-inventing the fish wheel that once was and maybe someday... will be again. Get used to the way things are for now, they are here to stay with us, and the mighty fish, we all know and love and rarely see.
Bigger Fishbowl = Bigger fish...and more of em... it's simple.

Even though we already have laws against wastage the egg stripping goes on. The tribes do it alot. Check out a local company called Cossack Caviar as one big salmon egg buyer....And by the way I was walking the Pike Place Market today and the big show at the fish market was attracting a huge crowd as the guys tossed King salmon one after the other for shipment out of town. They were getting $5.99 a lb!! The tribes and other commercials were getting less than $1.00...They had a bunch of "local" steelhead for sale complete with net marks. The Kings had sea lice on them and were supposedly "troll caught"...They were all about the same uniform size. All those thousands of Chum headed for the hatchery on Hood Canal that cost the taxpayers a ton to raise are about to be caught by the tribes...females stripped of the eggs..carcasses tossed in piles with all the males which they don't even gut. Toss them away..not even good enough for the dogs today..(dog salmon)...Not much of a decision for the tribes..5 cents a pound if they can find a buyer for the fish or $3.00 a pound and more for the eggs. Funny thing is that these netters aren't even supposed to put their nets in the water until they have secured a buyer for the FISH....not the eggs. yeah right.....

I believe the tribes are financially responsible for a lot of the chums in Hood Canal, especially the Skokomish Tribe. Our tax dollars aren't going to them.

There also are laws on our books that mainly preserve chums, pinks and reds for commercial fishing, both tribal and non-tribal...and we still get the opportunity as sportfishers to catch pretty much as many chums as we can, both in Hood Canal and in Puget Sound.

As far as the egg stripping goes...there is a law that forbids the fishermen from selling eggs without the carcasses. However, there's a huge loophole in it, one that allows the fish buyer to only sell the eggs. Here's where the loophole comes in...if the fisherman buys a commercial broker license, they can catch the fish, strip the eggs, sell themselves both the eggs and the carcasses, then dump the carcasses and sell the eggs.

Financially, it makes sense, since chum carcasses are virtually worthless, while the eggs are very valuable. Making fish buyers and sellers deal in worthless carcasses is like requiring corn farmers to sell the stalk with the ears.

The only option I can think of is to somehow make the carcasses more valuable to sell than to dump. The law that requires them to be sold with the eggs doesn't do that, and neither does the market. The fact that they're so prolific and easy to catch is the biggest factor...the market becomes flooded with low quality chum meat, and 2 1/2 cents a pound is about all they'll get.

I guess there are other options. One would be to fix the loophole and make them deal in the carcasses. The problem with that is that tens of thousands of worthless carcasses are going to be shipped all over the place and I don't see where they're going to be used.

Another would be to ban exports of eggs without carcasses, which would shift the disposal problem to Japan, which is where the great majority of eggs end up. This wouldn't solve the problem, but would at least let someone else deal with it.

Or ban exports of eggs, period.

None of those really help the fishermen, or the fish, however, as they'd likely cause even more of them to be caught to make up for the costs of dealing with the carcasses. Either that, or force them out of business.

If forcing them out of business is indeed the real goal, then I'm for responsible legislation that says what it intends, and does what it intends, with no hidden agenda.

An example of a law that has a hidden agenda and a different intent than what was put forward is the law banning steel jaw traps and snares. All of PETA's advertising showed kitty cats and other cute pets being caught, and warned of your children being maimed, by these types of traps. The intent, however, was not to protect kitty cats and toddlers; it was to stop the fur trade.

Another example is the Fire Suppression Acts that are up to protect us all from forest fires by cutting down all the stuff that burns. If anyone with a straight face can tell me the intent isn't to cut more trees to make money, but is to save us and the forests from themselves, then that person ought to get a job with G-Dub, because he hasn't been able to convince anyone of that yet.

Whatever solution, if any, is proposed, just be careful of what you ask for and what it's unintended consequences might be. If chums lose all their commercial value don't expect any hatcheries, anwhere, to produce them ever again. Also, if chums lose their commercial value, then something else will have to be caught to make money for the netters. If all they caught were pinks, then they can have 'em all, in my book. If they shift their effort to steelhead or silvers, then we've made a grave mistake.

I guess any solution I've seen so far for the carcass wastage problem has inherent problems that are worse than the problem it is intended to solve.

How about the state/tribes/feds buy the carcasses for 2 1/2 cents/lb. and uses them to fertilize streams? I'm sure there are biological issues to deal with...but perhaps they could be overcome. Maybe less problems caused by this solution than by others...

Fish on...

Todd.

Good points on the Chums. Seeding the rivers with carcasses is happening now but that is exactly what I think should happen more. The idea of just discarding fish simply promotes a disregard for the species. Kind of cheapens the whole thing. I am aware that the tribes do their share of hatchery production and in their case as in the case of alot of the hatcheries they are susidizing commercial fishermen. Hatcheries oftentimes produce fish that cost many times more to create than what they bring on the open market. The tribes are doing a big business in netted wild steelhead along with the hatchery versions.

As usuall I agree with everything you just said. am an ex comercial that has made some mony selling roe to the Asians.I think the biggest problem with using hatchery fish for fertilizer is the problems the state has had in the past with disease.They are afraid to spread the hatchery fish alll over the state because of disease.Verifying "disease free"cost big bucks.

ban any salmon exports and legally curb the demand for wild commercial salmon.

Chappy -

Do yourself a favor and read this thread from the beginning.

Good to see Rich's name back on the board...

I'm not sure I agree. When the supply goes down, the price goes up. When I first read this I thought of the problems with black bear gaul bladders. It is against the law to sell them, however it is still a big problem in parts of the country. The prices those things get are amazing. If egg exports are banned the demand will increase as will the price. People will still sell them, only illegally. Complex problem, with many angles to consider. Great topic though.

Why is this thing back up?

When i saw it I was a bit supprised as I havent posted in a while but I have been lurking.

I might be wrong but I think POS clerk was bringing it back up due to one of the WT threads......

The rivers on Hood Canal produced very well until around 1980. After that you can easily see the crash in numbers. What caused this? Well pretty much harvest by everyone....recreational fishers, snaggers/poachers, commercial fishers, and the tribes shared the blame along with the Marine Mammal Protection Act which allowed another harvesters population to increase dramatically. The habitat that was there prior to this decline is still their. One would think that this wasn't the problem as it wasn't what changed? Well the people in charge of restoration are choosing to ignore the obvious factors and go with habitat restoration as the solution. Anyone ever hear about the Tennesee Valley Authority, Army Corps of ZEngineers and Politics? It's called Pork Barrel Restoration in my book. Spend $Millions improving habitat that is already there when the real solution is somehow finding the fish to use the existing habitat.