WSR--a precedent for fisheries management

What exactly is the WSC (and others) justification for the blanket approach to fisheries managment that is WSR?

Is blanket regulation a trend we should encourage sport fisheries managment? I think not.

Do the ends really justify the means? Should we do whatever it takes to protect wild steelhead (except ban C&R!), even if it means unnecessary loss of future fishing opportunity, or even if it messes up regulation of other fisheries.

I think in the long term, blanket approaches will result in great loss of opportunity. I'm not defending the outgoing 5 wild steelhead a year regulation, I think a more conservation minded approach would be good. However, if the fish can't take some level of harvest hooking mortality impacts aren't acceptable either. A dead fish is dead whether bonked or played to death.

Clearly there are fisheries where one part of the state has healthy populations of a given species, while the same species is threatened in other parts of the state. Does this mean we should quit fishing for a fish even in a healthy population, if that fish is threatened in some other part of the state?
I certainly don't think so.

But the logic of mandatory WSR seems to set a precendent for these types of rigid managment schemes.

Something else to ponder while we are discussing fishing regulations not founded in solid science...Who is doing more harm to wild steelhead? The angler who is lucky to catch and keep a couple of wild steelhead on an Op river or the guide and his customers on the same OP river catching and releasing hundreds of wild steelhead in a single season?
If we were deciding on scientific grounds the answer would be simple.

Geoduck-
Please find me a quote/post/etc. where one who has supported WSR has also opposed the closing of catch and release areas when a certain population is not expected to meet escapement.

And yes, you may find one or two who do support catch and release fisheries even if the population is not expected to meet escapement but those folks feel that a closed river is an invitation to poachers.

btw-A blanket approach such as WSR may not seem all that big of a deal in a few years when we are dealing with the blanket approach that comes along with a listing under the ESA. I heard that a cetain steelhead manager in the WDFW has asked the WDFW to consider petitioning the feds to list Puget Sound wild winter steelhead as threatened under the ESA.

The commission just wanted to look like they were doing something about the problem.

Sparky,

I'm not going to do all that work to find somebody's quote that holds an internally inconsistent opion. I'm sure a few do exist.

That's not the point.

The point is WSR sets a precedent bigger than steelhead managment.

If the same logic behind WSR were applied to all threatened wild fish, there would be no fishing for many species (ie sturgeon, halibut, chinook, coho, dolly varden, cutthroat, resident rainbows, etc etc).

Is that really warranted?

I think with appropriate & flexible managment, all of these depressed stocks can be recovered while maintaining fisheries for healthy stocks (provided overfishing caused the stock to be depressed).

Blanket closures=lost fishing.

And so many of us that support WSR feel the very same way. By implementing WSR now, fisheries for healthy stocks will continue...minimize the impact now to minimize the loss of our fisheries in the future.

The logic behind WSR, I believe, was the same logic that helped eliminate the kill of Cutthroat in the Saltwater. Puget Sound Sea-Run fishing is as big as it has ever been.

I can name many other 100% release fisheries that are as popular as they have ever been...and the fishing is as good as its ever been.

I still do not see why you think WSR will limit your oppurtunity to fish.

BTW-The WDFW's early selective fishery salmon seasons have proved to be a huge success: Allow anglers to properly released depressed wild fish while the hatchery fish are culled out of system.

I thought just about all of the OP rivers are coming in under escapement. I don't remember the data off the top of my head, but didn't some of the WSC charts show that rivers like the Hoh and Sol Duc were under escapement?

Ryan -
I'm not sure that your sea-run cutthroat example is anything like the state wide moratorium on the take of wild steelhead.

Yes the take of sea-run cutts is prohibited in the salt (wild steelhead in the salt have been protected just as long) however in freshwater areas with "healthy" populations the retention of cutts is allowed (typcially a 2 fish limit with a 14 inch minimum size limit). When those rules were put in place in the mid-1980s the cutthroat fish rebounded in many areas of the state. In fact in my limited experience the best sea-run fishing in the North Puget Sound area are streams that allow some kill. I also hear rumors of some good fishing on OP rivers.

You are correct in that it is not uncommon to hear that the sea-run fishing is as good or nearly so as the old days. An example of what can be done when mixed stocks areas are closed to harvest (the sound) and regulations that are biologically based are applied as appropriate given the status of specific populations.

The state of Washington has been blessed in with a wide range of waters and species and it would appear to me that there should be some room for diversity of opportunities. With as many and diverse anglers that this state has a one size fits all management will reduce total opportunities.

I'm interested in your examples of species managed with a state wide ban on the take that are producing these exceptional fisheries. In my review of the 2003/04 fishing pamphlet the only such species that I could find was grass carp. Have you been keeping something under your cap?

Like you I can think of many CnR fisheries that produce quality fishing and are enjoyed by many anglers - the Yak as an example comes to mind. However such fisheries are not everyone's cup of tea. I suspect that Geoduck and others don't have heart burn with such management but feel that there should be other games in town as well.

Tight lines
S malma

Smalma hit the nail on the head!

Sparky,

WSR is quite the opposite of the cutthroat managment situation!

Where wild cutthroat are abundant they can be killed, where they are not they cannot. Where the two mix (in the salt) very conservative C&R regulations are in place. This is a very flexible and balanced system. I think the cuttroat mangament model is a triumph of flexible managment practices.

With blanket WSR, it makes no difference how the fish are doing.

Please give me an illustrative example (like the cutthroat managment model), that illustrates how blanket approaches can work to both recovery fisheries that are depressed and provide ample and varied fishing opportunity.

Hmm, I sure can't think of any examples. Can you.

Cowlitzfisherman

Well then....I guess we are facing a revolutionary new regulation. It will be interesting to see how everything pans out...

Yep, I agree.

So much for science based managment.

Smalma thank you for being a reasonable voice here. Sometimes the unreasonable voices are just a bit too much for me.

A good balanced and targeted management plan that works for everyone including the fish is the ticket. This recent statewide ruling is just to divisive and I don't see how it is doing our sport any good at all. I've noticed that this ruling has even managed to have a negative impact on some local Forks high school students.

I think it more revolutionary that we didn't have state-wide WSR, given the regulatory frameworks in adjacent Oregon, Idaho, and BC. These States/Provinces have had WSR regulations in-place since the 1980s (yes, last I heard there was 1 stream in Oregon where wild steelhead retention was allowed). I find it interesting that these States/Provinces have WSR, but have smaller total populations, lower levels of development, and smaller fishing populations (by total license count) then Washington, yet saw fit to institute state-wide WSR nearly 20 years ago.

Washington appears to have been setting a precedent in not having state-wide WSR. Both Idaho and BC found rebounding steelhead populations with no real decrease in fishing effort or fishing opportunities, except of course, for the opportunity to retain a wild steelhead (haven't seen any Oregon data). With our tribal catch, I'm not entirely optimistic of seeing the rather dramatic increases that were observed in some Idaho and BC streams, but I can't understand the logic of insisting that WSR for Washington is not the right thing to do. Comparatively, we have the highest steelhead harvest of the 4 states/provinces, the largest population (hence greatest development and encrouchment into stream basins), and highest number of fishermen--yet were the last to turn to WSR.

I can agree with Smalma when he's stated in the past that WSR is more of a conservation measure than a management tool--for the same reasons above. Not to beat a dead horse, but the state is growing and growing, there is no forseeable reversal in this trend, there is a substantial tribal obligation (unlike the other states/provinces), and long-term fish population trends are for the most part declining. Both in terms of total populations and the number of streams with "healthy" populations. And oh yeah, everyone else is doing it. This has to be considered ample evidence (scientific and otherwise) to warrant WSR as conservation measure to preserve wild steelhead runs.

I believe that WSR is sceince based in that dead fish can't spawn. The more fish on the spawning beds the better.

How about the fact that most of our wild steelhead runs went in the crapper under catch and keep regs?

Noboby was shouting the sky is falling 10 or so years ago, when we were at the peak populations under the same managment conditions that are now villified.

Now that we're down in the trough everyone thinks the sky is falling. Like I've said before, populations cycle naturally. Sure its better for the fish if we don't kill them. Its also better for the fish if we don't fish for them at all. Maybe WSC should start fighting for no fishing when wild steelhead are present. That would certainly benefit wild steelhead the most.


Jerry,
Once again, a dead fish is a dead fish whether bonked or killed by hooking mortality.

Don't try to justify this WSR thing as sound science. Good politics, good economics, I'd agree, but justiying it as good science it is not.

There were people shouting 10 years ago. They were shouting that harvest rules allowing wild fish retention( up until Feb 28th) was devastating the early portion of the wild run. Some of us believe that this management philosophy was used to artificially seperate the wild and hatchery runs. And there are those that believe the early portion was important to the viability of the wild run.
If the runs were just being impacted by only the natural life cycles then I would expect to see the 20 year average to be relatively flat.

Once again simple math befuddles the masses. So say you close one river to retention of wild steelhead, but leave the one up the road open. Both rivers have fish in them... Be a Rocket scientist and figure out what happens next....

The science is there.. the fish won't be. Washington state is not getting any bigger and you wonder where all those sleds and drift boats that get sold wind up at. Fact is, you get a ESA listing handed down to you and you will have your hair in a bunn, panties in a wad... whatever you want to call it. The argument against WSR in light of the data you have presented to you holds no water... its just crying and blubbering.

A lot of you might wonder why people from Idaho care about your regulations... well its this simple... our fish get pounded in the C.R because of the crappy laws you have over there and it would be great if you could get together and do something about it... If you can't get behind and understand something as simple as WSR, what can you do ???

Keep complaining, the tribes and commercials are counting on you to come through for them. Some of you see a glass thats half empty while the majority ( yes thats been established ) see the glass half full.

So tell old wise one…

Are we to believe that all our problems with salmon and steelhead can now simply be resolved by yours and a couple others math equation?

Isn't that what got us to where we are NOW??


Cowlitzfisherman

No......it's WAY more likely that our problems will be solved by doing nothing.

Dan!!!

What about your small scrambled eggs


Cowlitzfisherman

Jerry, with the exception of the puyallup, the twenty year average IS essentially flat.

Certainly for the OP streams it is flat. If you look at the trend up through the late 90s, the trend is slightly up. If you look at the trend through last year it might be slightly down. But, this is just because the past few years have been bad years.
It all depends where on the cycle your graph ends.

Ate 'em with some bacon.

Now I'm gonna sit back, relax, and just talk about ways to help our fish.

I was actually going to DO something, but I figured half the people would think it was based on junk science, and wasn't worth trying.

Damn it Dan!!!

Don't be so damn wimpy!

Go for the gusto, and try some of them there "brains and eggs" instead of that same old pork fat!

You can do it

Drinking beer takes WAAAY less effort.

Are you saying I should use my brain for something besides holding my ears apart?

This is what you are calling essentially flat. This info is from the y-value on the charts.

Skagit) -1.0% per year for 26 years
Snohomish) -4.0% per year for 22 years
Green) -1.6% per year for 26 years
Puyallup) -7.4% per year for 20 years
Quillayute) +2.4% per year for 24 years
Hoh) -0.9% per year for 26 years
Queets) -2.0% per year for 30 years
Quinault) -2.1% per year for 24 years.


If that was your wages instead of fish you might be a little more concerned over a 20+ year "slight" downward trend.

Jerry,

I'm befuddled by the math!

Can you or anyone here explain in plain and simple language, either mathematical or otherwise, just how these "y-values" are derived?

OK, here's a "Y" value. Y the hell do we keep re-hashing the same arguments?

I know it's fun to argue on the internet and all, but a quick utilization of the search function should glean any and all supporting data from BOTH sides of the issue, and allow us to get back to more productive fare such as personal attacks and folks leaving the board.

Cow- Its like Dan says... maybe you should just do nothing.

About the math... I could spend some time explaining +/- 3 sigma etc, but Jerry covered it best ( if that was your paycheck avg over the years you might be pretty pissed)

About beating this to death... Your right. I am like a moth to a flame.. I guess it takes a fool to argue with one.

So whats your plan ??? I have never seen a post on this board that supported nets. Got a plan of any kind ??? You all seem scared that the tribes are going to take your fish... the way you pull together that could happen. So moving forward, how are you going to make it better ??? Whats a fish worth ???

Did you get the part in my last post that asked " what happens when you close one river and leave the one up the road open ".. Thoughts on that ???

4 Salt you are a wise man

Wise Indeed! Nothing that makes one uneasy or raises concepts difficult in that they might upset ones mindset should be talked about in good company.

Something easy to understand like, "why people from Idaho care about your regulations... well its this simple... our fish get pounded in the C.R because of the crappy laws you have over there and it would be great if you could get together and do something about it...", might better explain why statewide mandatory release is needed to protect the wild steelhead on the Columbia where recreational harvest of those fish has been illegal for many, many years.

Or how their is nothing unique about the moratorium because it is similar to the rules everywhere else where same rules allowing harvest that Washington had before the moratorium have been in effect for years.

Idaho has been the only oddball on harvest policy and that is because their wild steelhead are all threatened. The rules in California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and Alaska all allowed some harvest of wild steelhead but only from healthy stocks. That is why we in Washington have for years disallowed any harvest of wild steelhead bound for Idaho where all the stocks need protection.

Plunker, the point is this. Its the nets that are killing our fish, not the sport fishing in the C.R-
As far as nets are concerned, wild and hatchery are all the same.

In order to take on the tribes and commercials, retention of wild fish would have to be unacceptable. The Dams are staying.. thats a fact that has to be realized. Nets on the other hand, if people got together - those could be eliminated. Protection of wild fish is the one tool you have to leverage that decision down the road. A fish brings more money to the state ( Washington state ) on the end of a line than it does in a net... but thats all been covered before.

The commercial netters are putting on a big push to be allowed even more netting. Sure their opportunities have declined but so have the opportrunities to kill buffalo and eagles. Their opportunities should be dwingling right along with the fish. Then it will be only the tribes who indiscriminately net the crap out of your wild steelhead.....then whaddaya gunna do?

We have a handle on our tribes, hoping you guys could get a handle on yours. Make them a deal, we will trade them 100 wolves that can be introduced in Wa state, no make that 300 and all they have to do is stop netting fish that sell for way less than the cost of producing them. Its a well documented fact, that these wolves we want to send you eat sea lions and seals ( only !!! ) Its a win win deal baby !!!! We get our fish, you get our wolves... how could you say no to that

Yes Jerry, I still maintain that for a dynamic population the trend is essentially flat.

Nobody said close the state for pink salmon in 95 after the last big skagit flood. Nevermind the skagit run took to an 80-90% hit. Two generations later it was above escapment. Four generations later it was at historic high levels. Salmonid populations are dynamic and change rapidly reflecting changes in their environment.

Were pink regulations changed statewide to protect skagit pinks. No, because that doesn't make sense.

The strongest case against WSR is that it hasn't solved any of the problem of declining steelhead populations in this state.

There is nothing revolutionary about WSR, it has been in place on the skagit, green, snohomish, and puyallup since 1984. Yet you say they are declining (I still won't argue the puyallup that is the only clear trend).

So if WSR is going to be the magic cure for depressed steelhead, how come these rivers haven't shown any significant recovery in 20 years of WSR?

Don't blame the tribes either, on puyallup, the river with the worst trouble, there has not been any significant tribal harvest in 10+ years.


The simple answer is that harvest isn't actually the problem. If there is a problem for steelhead it is with habitat. If you really want to help steelhead, don't worry about harvest or WSR or anything but the habitat.

There are a lot of agencies and the tribes all worried about harvest. We should focus on protecting the habitat, because that is where steelhead are vulnerable.

Geoduck,

Just a correction You have been able to kill wild fish until March 1st on the Green, SKagit, Snohomish up until 4 years ago so please don't say there hasn't been a sports harvest since 1984 on those rivers.

JJ

Nobody said it's a magic cure. It's one step to stop the bleeding. And as mentioned above, WSR has not been ineffect on the S rivers for 20 years.

Wow, likening Pink runs to wild steelhead. Talk about an apples to oranges comparison.

Keep talking Geoduk, between comparisons like that and a continued misunderstanding/mischaracterization of what the regs for PS rivers have been during recent history, you lose credibility every time you open your mouth.

If you think WSR is too difficult to stomach try getting 100 million dollars to buy people out in the flood plain and to fix all the habitat that we have screwed up. At least as a first step WSR is relatively cost free to the state. I can just hear all the people crying like stuck pigs when their property taxes double or triple to fix the habitat.

Geoduck, Welcome to the Jungle The other folks have been kind enough to point of the flaws in your arguement on WSR for Puget Sound Rivers - I would like to take on your part of the arguement revolving around habitat. I would agree with you that habitat is probably the most important factor and certainly one of the most difficult to deal with, BUT any one factor that is concentrated on at the exclusion of others will not work. All of the H's (Hydro, Habitat, Harvest, and Hatcheries) need to be worked on in order to have a real and long lasting solution. Can't do one without the others if you want success. And yes, that includes WSR as well. It is not the "magic bullet", it is just a piece of the puzzle.

Fist off, I am not opposed to WSR. It just sticks in my craw that it was justified with junk science. If you had made economic or maximization of recreation arguments I would wholeheartedly support it.

Like I've said before. Good political arguements can be made and supported for WSR. The science arguement for WSR doesn't hold water.

Secondly, On a related note. Pinks are closely related to steelhead and their population dynamics are grossly similiar, sure they are different speicies and thus obvious differnces. Just trying to give an illustration of how dynamic salmonid populations can be. More like comparing red delicious and granny smiths I think.

Third, For steelhead we have people crying about a ~ 20% sort term decline on some rivers. This trend in the short term is really not that big a deal. If it continues for 20 more years, then maybe its a problem.

Sorry about my error on regs I haven't kept up on where it is legal or not. I've never kept a wild steelhead in my life (not that I fish for them that much anymore).

If you guys really want to ignore habitat, and waste time playing with regulations feel free. I can't stop you, but I've argued to the best of my ability for helping the resource in the most scientifically sound way: working to preserve and restore habitat.

As a scientist, I just feel that pointing out junk science when I see it is my obligation.


That's all I have to say.

Quoted by Geoduck "Fist off, I am not opposed to WSR. It just sticks in my craw that it was justified with junk science. If you had made economic or maximization of recreation arguments I would wholeheartedly support it."


Geoduck, FYI, the decision was not justified with "junk science", but with data. There's a difference between science and data. Data that clearly shows a downward trend.

If you are not opposed to WSR, what do you offer for ideas of a better management plan? What is the correct science? Seems to me we still have plenty of hatchery steelhead to harvest, if anglers want to harvest a steelhead for the table.


I believe the track record of the current management scheme, i.e. MSY/MSH speaks for itself. It's like "manifest destiny" and it's symptoms are begining to show on the OP, no matter how much we disagree.

Geoduck,

The data clearly shows a downward trend in all populations except one, and that one has recently suffered declines, too.

There is no science involved in those graphs...it is data, data that is generated by WDFW.

No one, except you, has suggested that habitat ought not be dealt with. Tribal fishing and hatchery interactions need to be dealt with, too. Hatchery reform is being studied by the HSRG right now, though there are indications that WDFW has plans to pretty much ignore whatever the HSRG and LLTK's come up with in the reform plan. At the WSC board meeting last night we voted to accept the HSRG's request to join their Hatchery Reform Coalition.

What habitat issues do you suggest be addressed, and how? As the VP of Political Affairs for the Wild Steelhead Coalition I have been down in Olympia recently to give testimony on bills regarding instream flows, which control water flows and temperature, balancing the needs of fish with those of farmers and municipalities. I've also been down to Olympia two times to work on issues involving commercial bycatch of wild ESA steelhead during the Columbia River commercial fishery. (See the "WSC letter to NOAA Fisheries" thread to see the six page letter full of more "junk science" opposing WDFW/ODFW's request to raise allowable ESA impacts on those endangered and threatened fish from 2% to 6%).

We've also petitioned several agencies and governmental entities to fund the rehabilitation of landslides that are stifling the Stillaguamish River.

Clearly no one thinks that WSR is the cure to all that ails wild steelhead. By itself it clearly hasn't recovered the severely depressed Puget Sound runs.

What it will do, though, is prevent further harvest of these fish as the other issues that need to be dealt with are being dealt with.

As an environmental attorney and a scientist, I feel that pointing out the inaccuracies of other's statements to be my obligation, especially when it involves a subject that they clearly haven't thought through very well, and make statements that are patently incorrect.

Fish on...

Todd

Todd when did you start calling yourself a scientist?

I see that a lot of people who have a degree of some sort in "biology" are now classifying or claiming them selves to be "scientists" Is that what you are now doing? What are the degrees that a person must hold to be "officially" called a scientist?


Cowlitzfisherman

CFM,

I started calling myself a scientist after getting my degree in marine biology, with a minor in chemistry, spending half a year at a marine center in the San Juan Islands, and working as a biologist for several years.

Fish on...

Todd

**edit to follow**

Sorry, CFM, I tried to let it slide, but here goes, anyway...

For someone who claims to have all the answers about law, politics, and science, not to mention the fine art of sniffing out all of the conspiracies out there aimed directly at you and all other "real" sportsmen, I don't recall you having any education in any of those fields, other than years of battling the powers that be over Cowlitz River issue.

Not to say that you don't do good work there, work that I personally respect and am glad that you are doing. I also know that you have many years of experience doing it there. However,...

I know you've heard this before, but here goes again...very little of anything that goes on with the Cowlitz bears any resemblance, other than passing, to the issues that are involved in fisheries management of wild fish.

Todd,

The so called trends you see are just short snap shots. With a dynamic population that moves up and down as rapidly as salmonid populations do, your really aren't showing any meaningfull trend. If you look at most of the graphs on WSC's web site, the only data points that really indicate a downward trend are the last 2 data points (years). The last 2 data points out of 20+ data points can't really define a meaningful trend.

If you look at the data for most of these graphs and exclude 2002, and 2003. Then the trends are flat or for many cases upwards.
To me this indicates a very weak downward trend based only on the most recent events. Not really a long term trend.

Sure steelhead have had a bad couple of years but that does not define a 20 year trend of decline. That defines a bad two years for steelhead.

The case for the puyallup is much stronger. You can remove any two data points and the trend is still obiously down.

The data for the puyallup support a general twenty year trend of decline.
The data for most other rivers shown don't.
That's why I call it junk science.
The conclusions aren't supported by the data.

Futhermore, WSR, I believe has been in place for 20+ years on the puyallup yet it has not been improved. In fact the data depict a downward trend despite WSR. Likewise for the cedar where all fishing has been closed.

What about the quilayute? It has shown a very weak increasing trend. How do you defend WSR for a river with steelhead population growth? Clearly that run can withstand some pressure, its been growing in the face of it.

So I think WSR makes perfect senes for the puyallup, but not for the quilayute. Other rivers lie in between. A reasonable standard could certainly be applied.

I just think WSR supporters and WSC should come clean as to why this is so important to them. It is not biologically justified. It may be justified from a recreational maximization or economic standpoint, but nobody has pushed that justification much.


Finally Todd, should this precendent of blanket managment be applied to other fisheries? If not, why are steelhead so special? As I've said before this is a very dangerous precedent from the perspective of future fishing opportuntity.

Clearly puget sound chinook are in worse straights than steelhead. Likewise puget sound halibut, and black rockfish are severely depressed. Shall we close retention of wild chinook, halibut, and black rockfish in the rest of the state even though there are healthy populations outside puget sound?
Such blanket closrues would result if the logic dictated by WSR is applied.

Todd
Your about as sorry as Bush was for getting you know who!

How many times has this board heard that one whenever someone put you on the spot Todd?

It doesn't seem that long ago Todd that you posted a reply back to me on this board that gave your FULL background. Have you already forgotten about that post… not me, I am pretty sure that I have the original post…you know me

I've been here on this board now for almost 4 years, and this is the first time that I can ever remember that you called yourself a "scientist"! Maybe your stretching the definition just a tad bit…you think?

That's carries just about as much water as me claiming to be a "legal Assistant" or a legal aid

Yep, Todd I am just one of those dumb old kids that got married in high school at 17, became a father at 18, worked all night/weekends , and then got my diploma and retired at the ripe old age of 39 and started guiding to pay for my play. How old did you say you were now Todd? …..and your still working as an "attorney" and a scientist both….my bad!

Oh, can you tell us what special things that you have learned in all your years of working on all those "other rivers" after you been out of school for how long now?

What is that old saying again….an eye for and eye Even Bob will understand my response to your bait.

Old Geoduck is doing some really serious butt kicking here, and it kind of nice for once to sit back and see you guys backstroke on someone that can play your number games just as good….if not better then WSC top "scientists" can

Go for it Geoduck! During the relicensing process on the Cowlitz, I learned a lot about data and how easy one can screw with the numbers to get whatever numbers out of it that you want. I was unlucky enough to spend almost a full year going through what is called Ecosystem Diagnosis and Treatment Analysis or more commonly referred to as EDT. Have you Todd , ever been through the "full course" yet ? I think not!

I got to see first hand how your kind of "science & data" can be screwed with and I called the owner on how his junk science was being used. He got all pi$$ed off, but he could not come up with how his supper scientific process had came up with the data that brought him his desired results. I highly suspect that WSC has also used the data in ways that it was not intended to be used to come up with your results.


Cowlitzfisherman

Sort of reminds me of my dirt bike days... bunch of guys sitting on their bikes talking smack in the pits... wouda, couda, shouda type stuff....eventually, a drunk always would yell " hell !!! everybodys an expert !!! "

What that has to do with this, I am not quite sure. Seemed like the thing to say.

Hindsight, otherwise known as Anal vision is 20/20

B-RUN STEELY

If that's the "best" that IDAHO can up up with, I can see why you guys will never get your fish up there!


Cowlitzfisherman

Anyone looking for good science in a fisheries management setting is a lunkhead. What are you going to do........set up a controlled double-blind experiment to test your hypothesis? Yeah, good luck with that.......

Geoduck is doing nothing more than telling us what we already know. WSR alone won't save the fish. Nobody said it would. He also appears to believe that doing nothing is better than doing something.

WSR is one step. Dig? There are many steps to take, but just standing there will only get you run over.


Hey cfm, you realize that when you graduate with a BS, or Masters, or Ph. D., they don't give you a certificate that says "cfm is hereby a scientist", right? But if you hold a Bachelor of Science degree, and sell cars, that makes you a scientist that sells cars. If a doctor becomes a Congressman, is he no longer a doctor?

But, hey, we can argue for another couple pages about who's a scientist and who isn't.............but sooner or later THAT horse is going to die from the beating, too.

Don't count old Cowlitz out Dan... If ANYONE has a degree in BS around here... it's certainly him!


Just kiddin' ya a little Cowlitz.

Dan/4Salt ….It seems that you two always come in with the humor!

But when I left high school, I had no less then three degrees!

1) Black belt in Kurcruchy;
2) Silver belt in leaning how to read BS;
3) my best degree of all …Gold belt of life!

That one takes a lot more then a couple years of someone else telling you how to think!


Cowlitzfisherman

Well, see cfm...........that's the thing about many science classes. They tell you how to think because..............that's what's right. Thinking that 2+2 = 5 REAL hard because you want to think for yourself just isn't going to take you anywhere.

I'm not even going to begin to say that being educated makes you "smart", but you don't want someone "street wise" or "wise in the ways of the world" building that guidance system for your cruise missile, now do you?

By the same token, GWB has a Harvard MBA and yet doesn't seem to grasp the concept of paying back money you borrow on credit.

Let's just say that I've been fishing around Western Washington for 30 years, and I'm not about ready to believe that wild steelhead are in as good of shape now as they were then. If somebody claims they are, then I'm skeptical of the methods/staistics/data they used to base that conclusion on.

So, my belief is that I'm going to do WHAT I CAN DO to lessen my impact on wild steelhead. I can't stop the tribes from netting, I can only go so far preventing non-tribal commercials from netting them, and aside from killing every person I see, I can't stop the environmental impacts we all have merely by living.

Anyway, I'm washing my hands of this argument now. You want to whack a wild fish because they aren't in trouble on the system you're fishing, go right ahead. Then, when the Quilayute system starts falling victim to the same pressures every other river system in the state has succumbed to, you can be the first one to gweeb about how it was the nets/commercials/environment that led to it.

Just keep in mind that all these whacked wild fish ALREADY made it past the nets/commercials/environment obstacles BEFORE you hooked the damn thing. Pheeew......it's a good thing some an angler whacked it, ate it, and shat it before the nets/commercials/environment wiped it out, huh? Nice.

OK, that's all from me, you guys carry on. I promise. Really. I mean it. See you later. Bye, then. Buh-bye.

Whack them and kill them and ate them….or hooked them, fight them to near death, and then released them to die a little later…now that paints a really good picture for true conservation!


Cowlitzfisherman

Geoduck,

A trend? Heck, what is a trend? 5 years? 10? 20? 100? 500? Hey, compared to the period immediately following the recession of glaciation, there are lots of wild salmon and steelhead around here right now. As the scientist you are, you know just as well as I that a trend period comes down to a matter of opinion. You don't think the data exhibit a trend. OK, fine. WSC thinks it does exhibit a trend, and that's fine, too. Technical disagreements occur because opinion does matter.

BTW, what little technical data there are suggests that there were a lot more wild steelhead 20, 30, and 40 years ago than there are today. Is that a trend? I think so. But a DSI aluminum company executive doesn't. He believes salmon and steelhead have recovered, based on recently available data and observations. Is he correct?

This harping about data, trends, and junk science would be humorously entertaining if I wasn't observing people I care about, "brothers of the angle," ***** about who's got the real straight skinny on killing the last of what once was. I expected this. But not until the day after the wild steelhead apocolypse.

You want to think about a trend? Try this one. No one asked me, but I've got opinions too. Here's my opinion. I think we're damn lucky to have WSR with CNR. This is symptomatic of a declining trend, but we're still a ways from the bottom. The trend is that before long we'll have WSR, but not CNR, due to too many wild steelhead populations consistently falling below the threshold of at least 80% of the escapement goal. The trend then leads to not only no CNR, but no WSR either, as rivers are permanently closed as populations hit critically low levels, and extinctions become common on one river system after another as the human population in the Pacific NW continues to grow and grow, smothering the preponderance of the native flora and fauna. And while this happens, what we will have done about it is post away on internet BBs about how there was no clear trend, and killing a few wild steelhead for the table wasn't the problem, and WSR doesn't recover populations, and killing steelhead with low CNR incidental mortality rates was just as harmful to the populations as CNK. And while this happens, most of us won't see ourselves as part of the problem, disregarding the many impacts we level against native fish populations every day be just living in this wonderful region. And while this happens, we'll disavow that our inactions, wrong actions, and all the rest of our actions contributed directly and indirectly to the very outcome people appear to be denying in these pitiful threads.

Whew! Was that Salmo with a rant? And it hasn't been a bad day, at that.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

What you just said is exactly why we need the attitudes to change across the board. How many times have we heard some say: "There's nothing I can do about the nets ...nothing I can do about the tribes overfishing...nothing I can do about overpopulation,habitat degradation....on and on and on blah blah blah

So much oxygen has been used up arguing about WSR as if it is the Holy Grail....It is not. It is a flea on and elephant....important but not the cure all end all that this board makes it out to be. Mindsets need to change and major changes in harvest need to become reality. The feel good thinking that has brought us indian casinoes and indian harvest of geoduck and king crab and sea urchins...etc etc has got to change or everything we hold dear is going to be wiped out. Try to envision what our fisheries would be like without nets

Nobody (at least the WSC) is saying that WSR is a cure all. It is just one step in the many steps we need to take. WSR is relatively cost free to the state, and to the fishing public. All the other steps will require money to begin the process. As far as Geoduck and his theory that the WSC has some unspoken motive

"I just think WSR supporters and WSC should come clean as to why this is so important to them"
it's about the fish.

Grandpa, it seems like you are trying to grasp it and thats good. Your right, what would fishing be like without nets. However, here is how it reads from some of you guys.

Step one: stop killing wild steelhead.
Step two: we won't do step one.
Step three: end of process, just live in it, things remain the same

Fine Salmo, I won't argue with you on the trends. I think everyone can agree that the trends for some rivers are very clear while the trends on others are more ambiguous.

My point is that each river is different and maybe the science doesn't really support a one size fits all regulation. I think the managers could come up with something better if they were allowed to try.

How come nobody will address the precedent this sets for fisheries managment?

Surely you are not a fan of blanket regulations in general.

The logic of WSR is clear and there are other species of fish that are worse off than steelhead in parts of the state.

Shouldn't we take equal mesures to protect those wild fish? Or is there something sacred about steelhead that they deserve special treatment?

Maybe its time for C&R halibut seasons . . .

One other question for Salmo (sorry, I guess I have to argue this morning).

If one or two data points can define a 20 trend of decline, if the next data point or two are way up what does that say about the so called trend?

The only good thing about this discussion of trends is that we will find out which was right as time goes on.

I suspect for some rivers the WSC rightly has identified real trends of decline, but for other rivers they have just caught the population down in a valley and they will cycle upward.

Your rant about population growth, human impacts, and the environment were dead on as far as long term threats to steelhead.

Overfishing is easy to fix. Stop fishing. no problem in a few fish generations

Habitat degradation takes many human generations to fix.

I just think all this WSR talk is a waste of time. If it weren't justified as being mandated by strong evidence, I wouldn't care. OUr time would be better spent trying to prevent human encroachment into steelhead habitat.

As for the science the evidence for statewide delcining populations isn't particularly strong.

Furthermore, the evidence that WSR will help is also weak. It certainly doesn't seem to have helped the puyallup.

I

And how it reads from your other guys...

step one. stop killing wild steelhead.
step two: talk about how wild fish are now saved, and bask in the glory of our victory..
step three: wonder( five years from now) why the numbers are still declining and other fishing opportunities have been taken away.......

I haven't killed a wild steelhead since the early 80's. I rarely kill a brat. So dont throw me into the CNK group. I always thought they were just to pretty to kill.

We have set a precident that we will regret. We have taken away our own choice under the guise that it will make a difference in the long run... how will we argue it when they make blanket rules later that demolish other fishing opportunities?

My take is that many feel that WSR IS the answer, and they will ignore the real issues....

dont forget....there are nets out there RIGHT NOW killing your Wild Steelhead before they get the chance to spawn.

Here is an email I received about Vancouver Island wild steelhead stocks:

By MARK HUME
> >
> >
> > UPDATED AT 12:19 PM EST Tuesday, Mar. 23, 2004
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Advertisement
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Something dreadful is happening to the rivers on Vancouver Island. Pool
>by
> > pool, riffle by riffle, they are dying.
> >
> > To a casual passerby, glancing down from one of the slick new bridges on
>the
> > Island Highway, nothing seems amiss. Rivers like the Cowichan, Nanaimo,
> > Little Qualicum, Englishman, Trent and Tsable look just as beautiful as
> > ever, running from under the mossy, green forests to the blue waters of
> > Georgia Strait.
> >
> > Mike McCulloch knows better.
> >
> > Mr. McCulloch, a fisheries technician with the B.C. Conservation
>Foundation,
> > helps organize small teams of swimmers that are responsible for taking
>an
> > unusual annual census. They pull on wet suits against the bone-numbing
>cold,
> > and snorkel the rivers that flow out of Vancouver Island's rugged
>mountains.
> > They are looking for an increasingly rare species of salmon known as
> > steelhead. They aren't finding many.
> >
> > The Gold River, on Vancouver Island's West Coast, historically had runs
>of
> > as many as 5,000 steelhead.
> >
> > Last year, swimmers counted 900; this year they found 35.
> >
> > "The magnitude of decline is overwhelming," said Mr. McCulloch. There
>are
> > worse statistics. In the little Trent River, which should have 100
> > steelhead, the snorkel team found only two. Both females.
> >
> > In Goldstream, a small river just outside Victoria that spills from one
> > dappled pool to another, there should be several hundred steelhead
>waiting
> > to spawn. The swimmers found none.
> >
> > The trend is repeated in river after river. The fish population data,
> > compiled by swimmers who peer under banks and dive into the gloomy
>darkness
> > of deep pools, is mathematically plotting the path to extinction.
> >
> > "When you get down to one or two fish in a stream we call it
> > quasi-extinction," Mr. McCulloch said. "At zero, it is termed
>extirpation,
> > meaning the species is extinct locally."
> >
> > Steelhead rivers on Vancouver Island have been in trouble for several
>years,
> > but never have the numbers been so low. "It's a situation that's getting
> > quite desperate," Mr. McCulloch said. "We're only a life cycle away from
>a
> > spiral into oblivion."
> >
> > Steelhead aren't like other salmon on the Pacific Coast. They are
>believed
> > to be the progenitor species, the fish that spawned all the other kinds
>of
> > salmon.
> >
> > There are six species of wild Pacific salmon, each filling its own niche
>in
> > the ecosystem. Some, like pinks, are small but prolific. Others, like
> > chinook, are fewer in number but grow to immense sizes. But only one,
>the
> > steelhead, survives spawning. The irony is that, for reasons not fully
> > understood, steelhead, the survivors, are now dying out as a species.
> >
> > Mr. McCulloch said habitat destruction is part of the problem. Vancouver
> > Island watersheds have been logged and many rivers run through heavily
> > urbanized areas. Some watersheds are dammed. Poor ocean survival, due to
>a
> > shift in temperatures, is a major factor affecting all salmon species.
> > Steelhead, which have been tracked all the way to the coast of Russia in
> > their Pacific migrations, have been the hardest hit. Because they live
> > longer in their freshwater phase, they have also suffered the most in
>the
> > rivers.
> >
> > The B.C. Conservation Foundation, a non-profit group, is working jointly
> > with the provincial Ministry of Land, Water and Air Protection to
>restore
> > Vancouver Island steelhead. One plan, not yet funded, is to fertilize 15
> > rivers where nutrient levels are low because of declining salmon runs.
> >
> > When salmon die after spawning, their bodies decompose, enriching the
> > watersheds and stimulating the growth of aquatic insects, which feed
>young
> > fish. But overfishing and habitat problems have robbed many rivers of
>the
> > massive salmon runs they once had, stripping the streams of nutrients.
> > Steelhead usually live for two years in freshwater before heading to the
> > ocean. If they are underfed, they will be too small to survive when they
>run
> > to the sea. Mr. McCulloch has been scrounging dead salmon from federal
> > salmon hatcheries and placing them in rivers as fertilizer, hoping to
> > stimulate the growth of baby steelhead. From the dead bodies of one
>species
> > they hope to revive another. In one experimental program, artificial
> > fertilization saved the Keogh River, where steelhead runs are stable and
> > salmon stocks are increasing.
> >
> > Mr. McCulloch calls the Keogh "a beacon" in the darkness, but the
> > restoration project can't be copied without more money. The foundation
>and
> > government fisheries agencies need $4-million a year in excess of their
>core
> > funding, about double what they have. BC Hydro and some forest companies
>are
> > helping with corporate donations, but the federal government, which has
> > $1-billion to help beef farmers, which squanders millions on sponsorship
> > scandals and which dithers over endangered-species legislation, seems
> > oblivious to the steelhead crisis.
> >
> > "There are too many rivers in trouble and not enough money," Mr.
>McCulloch
> > said.
> >
> > Meanwhile, in the Trent, two females wait alone -- the last hope for a
> > river.
> >
> > mhume@globeandmail.ca
> >
>

_________________________________________________________________
Isn't it strange that the two salmon stocks that are doing the best(pinks and chums) are the stocks that spend little time in the rivers---- they hatch and leave.

Because steelhead are such good colonizers(up to a 20% wandering factor) shouldn't you strive to protect the last few semi healthy runs.

Jerry

That story makes a lot of people think…..

that maybe WSC should have proposed Wild salmon release instead of wild steelhead release. So is that one next?


Cowlitzfisherman

The name of the group is Wild Steelhead Coalition-----

Here is an email from Bob Hooten-- a very well known and respected B.C. biologist.


Sure hope the Dean return of the summer to come is not a reflection of what
we're experiencing with winter fish. Information continues to trickle in
since Fort Worden. Our Keogh research facility on the northern tip of
Vancouver Island has the 2002 steelhead smolts surviving at 0.23% for fish
returning after two ocean years (usually the majority). That is the worst
return rate in 28 years of record. Recent anecdotal reports from the Queen
Charlotte Islands indicate dismal winter runs there as well. West coast of
Vancouver Island off the bottom of all previous charts. I'm reminded a bag
of decent golf clubs costs lots less than the double handers I own!


Bob Hooton
Senior Fisheries Operations Specialist
Environmental Stewardship Division
Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection
2080-A Labieux Rd, Nanaimo, B.C. V9T 6J9

Please find me atleast one quote on this board that actually supports that claim. I have yet to run across anyone that beleives WSR is the answer.

But there are many who think it has complicated the problem! Where's all the attention focused currently? Right now theres a beautiful slab hen native hung up in a net somewhere on the OP, along with a lots of her buddies. This is a far bigger impact ....

This has just been a nice smokescreen for the bigger issues to hide behind, a distraction that will have minimal impact at best. The potential precident of blanket regulations has far greater impacts on the future of fishing than WSR, or the "keep em wet rule", and they wont be good.

As for your quote: "never give away what you wish to keep"

Jerry - Here is a more readable version...

B.C. salmon: something\'s not fishy

Vancouver Island's rivers no longer leap with steelhead. Populations are dwindling to record lows, prompting worries of extinction, says MARK HUME

By MARK HUME - Tuesday, March 23, 2004

Something dreadful is happening to the rivers on Vancouver Island. Pool by pool, riffle by riffle, they are dying.

To a casual passerby, glancing down from one of the slick new bridges on the Island Highway, nothing seems amiss. Rivers like the Cowichan, Nanaimo, Little Qualicum, Englishman, Trent and Tsable look just as beautiful as ever, running from under the mossy, green forests to the blue waters of Georgia Strait.

Mike McCulloch knows better.

Mr. McCulloch, a fisheries technician with the B.C. Conservation Foundation, helps organize small teams of swimmers that are responsible for taking an unusual annual census. They pull on wet suits against the bone-numbing cold, and snorkel the rivers that flow out of Vancouver Island's rugged mountains. They are looking for an increasingly rare species of salmon known as steelhead. They aren't finding many.

The Gold River, on Vancouver Island's West Coast, historically had runs of as many as 5,000 steelhead.

Last year, swimmers counted 900; this year they found 35.

"The magnitude of decline is overwhelming," said Mr. McCulloch. There are worse statistics. In the little Trent River, which should have 100 steelhead, the snorkel team found only two. Both females.

In Goldstream, a small river just outside Victoria that spills from one dappled pool to another, there should be several hundred steelhead waiting to spawn. The swimmers found none.

The trend is repeated in river after river. The fish population data, compiled by swimmers who peer under banks and dive into the gloomy darkness of deep pools, is mathematically plotting the path to extinction.

"When you get down to one or two fish in a stream we call it quasi-extinction," Mr. McCulloch said. "At zero, it is termed extirpation, meaning the species is extinct locally."

Steelhead rivers on Vancouver Island have been in trouble for several years, but never have the numbers been so low. "It's a situation that's getting quite desperate," Mr. McCulloch said. "We're only a life cycle away from a spiral into oblivion."

Steelhead aren't like other salmon on the Pacific Coast. They are believed to be the progenitor species, the fish that spawned all the other kinds of salmon.

There are six species of wild Pacific salmon, each filling its own niche in the ecosystem. Some, like pinks, are small but prolific. Others, like chinook, are fewer in number but grow to immense sizes. But only one, the steelhead, survives spawning. The irony is that, for reasons not fully understood, steelhead, the survivors, are now dying out as a species.

Mr. McCulloch said habitat destruction is part of the problem. Vancouver Island watersheds have been logged and many rivers run through heavily urbanized areas. Some watersheds are dammed. Poor ocean survival, due to a shift in temperatures, is a major factor affecting all salmon species. Steelhead, which have been tracked all the way to the coast of Russia in their Pacific migrations, have been the hardest hit. Because they live longer in their freshwater phase, they have also suffered the most in the rivers.

The B.C. Conservation Foundation, a non-profit group, is working jointly with the provincial Ministry of Land, Water and Air Protection to restore Vancouver Island steelhead. One plan, not yet funded, is to fertilize 15 rivers where nutrient levels are low because of declining salmon runs.

When salmon die after spawning, their bodies decompose, enriching the watersheds and stimulating the growth of aquatic insects, which feed young fish. But overfishing and habitat problems have robbed many rivers of the massive salmon runs they once had, stripping the streams of nutrients. Steelhead usually live for two years in freshwater before heading to the ocean. If they are underfed, they will be too small to survive when they run to the sea. Mr. McCulloch has been scrounging dead salmon from federal salmon hatcheries and placing them in rivers as fertilizer, hoping to stimulate the growth of baby steelhead. From the dead bodies of one species they hope to revive another. In one experimental program, artificial fertilization saved the Keogh River, where steelhead runs are stable and salmon stocks are increasing.

Mr. McCulloch calls the Keogh "a beacon" in the darkness, but the restoration project can't be copied without more money. The foundation and government fisheries agencies need $4-million a year in excess of their core funding, about double what they have. BC Hydro and some forest companies are helping with corporate donations, but the federal government, which has $1-billion to help beef farmers, which squanders millions on sponsorship scandals and which dithers over endangered-species legislation, seems oblivious to the steelhead crisis.

"There are too many rivers in trouble and not enough money," Mr. McCulloch said.

Meanwhile, in the Trent, two females wait alone -- the last hope for a river.

Again Elkrun, please find me a quote where a supporter of WSR actually states that he/she thinks WSR is the magic bullet steelhead solution.

I don't think any of us are ignoring any other issues as I know that many of us are involved in projects and such in addition to WSR.

Just out of curiousity, what would you propose to do?

Sparks - Why not go fishing?

I know I would if there was something good that I could keep without going all the way to the North Coast.

Please elaborate.

Like several others have said... Nobody says that WSR is going to solve all the problems...

" Sitting back and basking in what"... Elkrun, that was stupid, and you don't seem to be.

Your right, there are a bunch of fish hung up in nets right now. If your not willing to stop killing them, why should they ????

I think Jacob answered your question for you early in this thread Geoduck ...

Why are some streams that are not doing quite so well still open to kill?

If it takes a blanket policy to stop the trend of fishing until the fish are all gone then I'm all for it.

The Hoh is perhaps the best example. It has not met escapement in a number of years .. however, had there been a WSR policy in place on that stream, it's more than likely the reduction in sports impact would have allowed the river to make the goal. Wonder why I've spent less time there in the past few years than I used to? The fish aren't there in the numbers they used to be, plain and simple!

And because we have our own blanket policy in place to judge the health of the run my a magic little number on the Quillayute system, I think the "new blanket" is appropriate because of the poor health of the first half of the run.

Perhaps over the next two years we can look at the little things that the models don't really seem to address and go from there.

I'd also like to address Grandpa's mention of the difference between the "... angler who is lucky to catch and keep a couple of wild steelhead on an Op river or the guide and his customers on the same OP river catching and releasing hundreds of wild steelhead in a single season."

First off, the customer in front of that guide boat is an angler who likely only fishes here several times a season ... no different than the other "non-guided" that you mention.

Secondly, you're assuming that the guides here that allows guest to keep fish stop fishing after they've killed their wild fish. This simply isn't the case. Even though an angler must stop fishing after retaining his / her two hatchery fish early in the season, because f the mythical latter season hatchery fish, clients in these boats continue to fish. So ... not only do they kill one for sure, they also play C&R the rest of the day just like the those in boats like mine, with one important distinction ... rarely do you see the the higher mortality methods used by many of these anglers change after the one wild fish is retained. there is a big difference, thank you

I try not to be stupid, hopefully it works sometimes.

read my other posts B-run, I released nates before it was fashionable or politically correct.... back in the 80's along the puyallup where WSR has been a dismal failure. Haven't killed a nate in 24 years intentionally anyway. I live on the OP. I fish on the OP, I dont have the passion for steelheading I once had. It became to trendy, too crowded, and to generally depressing. I watched the Puyallup go from a great winter steelhead fishery to nothing, under the "protection" of WSR. I am not against it on a Stream by stream basis, IF it is the real problem. All that I see being accomplished is to create opportunity for a larger tribal harvest. IF numbers were to go up, their "half" goes up too... so really it turns out to be a lot of spinning your wheels so to speak. We also have given the WDFW liscense to create other blanket regulations in the future.... hell we proposed one on ourselves, why should they force one on us later. I dont like it when opportunity to fish goes bye-bye. It becomes harder to get it back again.

Sparky asks what I suggest people do next. Its simple. If you feel that strongly about saving the nates, stop fishing when they are running! Put up or shut up I guess. Fish your a$$ of for the brats, then voluntarily put the rods away in march and april..... if you really care about the fish . WSR is a token rule change at best, and most likely not going to a measurable difference except to divide an already divided user group. Nets and habitat are the only things that once changed will make a real difference. By the way, Since I have lived on the OP, I haven't fished one time for steelhead in April. If that's stupid, so be it.

On what scale do we in WA fertalize our rivers? And I keep hearing phrases like "a major factor" used in describing the percentage of decline caused by habitat. Can anyone put an @ number on what percentage is habitat like spawning grounds and low water levels, vs water temps at sea and factors outside of local river areas? These rivers, as bad as they are, can be excellent case studies for future recovery efforts. I hope they choose more than one method for recovery so we can see what method has the greatest affect.

Sure does open my eyes.....

Jerry -
The recent email from Bob Hooten (and thanks for sharing it) regarding the state of steelhead to our North is dire indeed. The return of 0.23% for the two salts is nearly unbelievabe. To put it in context the average smolt to adult survival during the 1980s as I recall was 15% with at least one reaching 25%. alowing for some addition returns of 2 salt this year and the 3s next year we are looking at as much as a 20 fold decrease in marine survival.

Tight lines
S malma

Elkrun,

Well put.


Smalma,

A twenty fold decrease in one generation is a trend even I would recognize.

Do you think it is really marine survival, or do you believe this stream fertilization business?

Hey you guys that claim the sky is falling on the OP for steelhead. It is not.

If you want to know what a falling sky looks like see Vancouver Island streams.

My 0.02

Those V.I. streams looked healthy once too. I wish I had your optimism Geo, but I would much rather me wrong(that the runs need help/ no harvest) but what if your wrong Geo, what is your fallback position?

The Clean Water Act may make it very difficult to fertilize rivers here in the states.

JG,

Yeah, the CWA may actually get in the way of some stream fertilization projects.

The problem is that we have rivers that are very barren of nutrients up top (cold water, no salmon, no bugs), but very high in nutrients downstream (farms, people's lawns, golf courses). If fertilizer is put in the upper river to raise the nutrient level there, by the time it gets downstream, CWA levels for phosphorous and nitrogen will have been exceeded.

I would guess it would be easier to not permit a fertilization project than to try and regulate farm outflows and lawn fertilizers for lawns and golf courses.

Those pollutants have, and will continue, to help create a very unbalanced nutrient gradient in the rivers.

Fish on...

Todd

Well Jerry,

It seems that whether you fish or not on some rivers, the run will decline due to habitat issues. On those rivers, I would not waste the effort. If I were in charge, I would take the rivers that have hopeless habitat issues (it would appear the puyallup is in this class) and turn them into hatchery fish factories (like the cowlitz).

In return, I would stop putting hatchery fish in rivers with relatively intact watersheds like the skagit and put down restrictive harvest rules (ie C&R only, or 1 wild fish per season).
I would spend all of my conservation effort on habitat preservation on these wild only rivers.

I realize this would never fly with the ESA, but I think some rivers are too far gone to easily fix. It is clear that at best half measures will be taken to fix these problems. Why waste the time and resources.

It takes very little time or resources to protect existing intact habitat. We should focus on this first as we get the biggest bang for the buck in terms of helping fish.

Tremendous amounts of time and resources are needed to restore degraded habitat. (It can be done, I have seen it on midwest trout streams.) This should be done only after we have protected everything that is still intact that may be threatened to maximize the benefit to fish.

As for the vancouver island streams, I seriously doubt a 20 fold decline in populations was due to an increase in fishing pressure. I suspect that something has changed in the stream ecosystem. Whether that was caused by logging or depleted salmon runs or natural parasites/predators I don't know. If I am not mistaken, this happened under a WSR policy.

Show me a stream where WSR has created population growth for a steelhead stock in serious decline before the WSR policy.

I'm not aware that such a precedent has been set, yet WSR has been in place in many rivers for many years.

So because it sounds good, we are going to statewide WSR, for lack of a better plan to help steelhead.

Then we as sportsfishers pat ourselves on the back for having "helped the fish".

I think the best thing we can do to help the fish is to leave their habitat alone (ie prevent development, logging, etc). This approach has a proven record of maintaining healthy wild fish populations. It is not glamorous, but it works. It is about the only thing that really does.

It is clear that when we overfish, the population takes a dive, but when we stop they come back (at least salmonids). This has been demostrated repeatedly over the past 100+ years. Therefore overfishing is a temporary, relatively easily fixed problem.

What has also been clear is that when you radically alter the habitat the fish suffer (ie the columbia dams). So, habitat distruction is a permanent, difficult to fix problem.

So I think that all this talk about WSR is at best a half measure aimed at a short term problem.

We would should take the long view and presreve as much habitat as we can while we can, because once its gone, it doesn't come back.

Given the right conditions animal populations will grow exponentially. Habitat doesn't. It is essentially fixed.

There's a nice little friday rant.

As for the vancouver island streams, it is simple. If they were overfished stop fishing and wait a few generations. If the habitat is intact, the fish will come back. If the habitat is degraded they will not.

You cannot have healthy wild fish populations with degraded habitat.

Isn't it a little strange that this topic is supposedly about the precedent that WSR sets for managing other fisheries, but nobody has said much about this precedent.

Todd or any other WSC member,

can we get you at least to comment on the precedent that WSR sets as it pertains to other fisheries?

It doesn't set a precedent for other fisheries here just as it hasn't in Oregon, Idaho and B.C.
Your plan for the fisheries is strikenly similar to the plan the HSRG is working on and one that the WSC is going to sign onto.

Geoduck -
The decline on Vancouver Island clearly a marine survival issue - Hooten was reporting on the smolt to adult survival that is the survival from the time the fish leave the river until they return. It is true that they have experimented with adding nutrients to the system and have demostrated increased freshwater production but that apparently has not translated to increased marine survival.

There has been suggestions that the putting more salmon on the spawning grounds would result in increased production. If that is indeed the case I would have expected better production from the Snohomish. The wild salmon escapements have been among the largest in the State and that last couple of years essentially off the charts (more than 1 million pinks in both 2001 and 2003). Could supply more details if anyone is interested.

Jerry -
As you may know neither B.C. or Oregon have blanket bans on the retention of wild steelhead. The majority of the waters have such bans but not all. In fact the Oregon streams are being managed much as the recent norm for Washington - that is on streams that have "healthy returns" wild fish harvest (1/day and 5/year) is allowed (at lest the last time I checked). One reason there are not more such opportunities is that until recently many systems had not been monitored to deteremine the population status.

Of course there is no wild steelhead retention in Idaho as all the populations are ESA listed.

Tight lines
S malma

Smalma, Thanks for the info. I for one would always like to learn more about salmonid populations and their dynamics.


Jerry, I respectfully disagree.

Clearly under the blanket WSR, sports harvest of wild steelhead is banned on all washington rivers. This is despite robust healthy populations in some streams that can (and will under the tribes) withstand some controlled harvest.

Using the exact same reasoning, the WDFW would be justified to close all retention of wild halibut, sturgeon, dolly varden/bull trout, black rockfish, and chinook salmon (they are all but extirpated in certain parts of the state where they were historically abundant). There are local populations of each of the above species that are certainly in worse shape than any OP stream steelhead population. Nonetheless, there are healthy populations in other parts of the state that can and do support fisheries.

The problem is that now, whenver it is too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient, the WDFW can throw down a blanket closure statewide as it sees fit. Clearly, if steelhead, the most popular fish in the state, can be managed in such a way so can all other fish.

Now, if WDFW gets budget cuts in the future, maybe they put down a statewide ban on retaining chinook and let the comercials and tribes split the catch. They are much easier to monitor than the zillions of sport fishers in the state.

The danger of this sort of precedent, is that a vocal minority (WSC, and others) have convinced the commission to give away some steelheading opportunity supposedly for the sake of conservation (based on dubious science at best). Not only that, they have potentially jeapordized other unrelated fisheries, but setting a regulatory precedent.

Essentially the sportsfishers are not allowed to harvest, while other parties continue to do so. This may be politically expedient for taking the moral high road against the tribes on steelhead managment, but it sacrifices some opportunity for steelhead and potentially opportunity for many other species.

Clearly the steelheading community is split on the value of such a sacrifice.

I doubt most non-steelheaders appreciate the ramifications of WSR, but when they find out they will be most displeased.

There is already a closer on yelloweyeout in the salt, has been for two years. I believe there is also a closer on six gill sharks for three years. So has the sky begun to fall, did you miss the beginning of the end?????

NO, so far as anyone knows there are no healthy populations of sixgill or yelloweye anywhere in the state.

The logic of WSR is close all independent populations of the same species in the entire state to retention whether healthy or not, because some populations are unhealthy.

This doesn't apply to yelloweye or sixgill because there is either no data, or the data that exists indicates there are no healthy populations anywhere in this state state.

If they close wild upriver brite chinook on the big C (a healthy population) because of puget sound wild chinook ESA status that would be using the same logic as WSR.


Or close the sturgeon below bonneville becuase the fish above the damms are in trouble. Or halibut in the rest of the state because central and south puget sound don't have halibut like they did 100 years ago. Or pacific cod in the rest of the state because puget sound cod are totally depleted.

Closing a healthy fishery to help an declining fishery doesn't help the declining fishery at all.

Sure its better for the healthy population but so is not fishing at all.

The logic for WSR seems flawed to me, unless you don't care about angler opportunity.

If all you care about is steelhead populations and angler opportunity is irelevant, then close all fishing. THat's clearly better for the steelhead.

That's my problem with the logic of WSR

The difference with steelhead is the wandering factor that makes them such good colonizers. The fish from healthy stocks wander to help rebuild unhealthy stocks.

Geoduck,

It appears you equate WSR with a reduction in angler opportunity. It is a reduction in harvest opportunity, altho the harvest opportunity in question may in many cases be ill-advised. I think WSR actually maintains or increases angler opportunity, particularly when the alternative would be total stream closure.

At times, like recent years on Puget Sound rivers, WSR doesn't contribute to increased steelhead population size, it does maintain, and even increase angler opportunity. Most WA rivers have had WSR, or late winter season CNR, for many years. My own observations on the Skagit River in particular are that more angler days occur by far during the 2 month CNR season than during the 3 month CNK season. I apologize for mixing a CNR comparison with WSR, but my central point is that the lack of WSK opportunity doesn't keep anglers away, once the word gets out that there are fish to be caught. Therefore, I think it's misleading to characterize WSR as reducing angler opportunity. At worst, it's a kill reduction opportunity that maintains and or increases angler opportunity.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

Well said Salmo g!

Salmo -
In your Skagit example have you included the substantial punk fishery during the keep season? When there was an ongoing creel census on the Skagit it was common during the keep season that 60% of the total number of anglers counted on a given angler count were plunkers. Often more than 50% of the total Skagit angler effort was downstream of the pipeline at Sedro Woolley.

Most up river anglers never see that effort so in their mind it doesn't exist. The first time I ran a boat from the lower North Fork to above Rockport I was shocked at the extent of the plunk fishery. While you and I may not care to fish in that manner many do and they represent significant angler interest. For some reason they are not be fans of CnR.

Tight lines
S malma

Salmo & other WSC memebers.

You may be right about WSR leading to more potential angler opportunity (ie more potential days to fish). To bad it wasn't justified as such, that arguement makes much more sense to me.

However, I think for many fishermen (not myself, but others I know of) they would rather catch and kill one fish for the table, than catch and release ten fish.

The impacts are equivalent for the fish (using the 10% mortality rule of thumb 1 fish dies in either instance). Why can't the regulations reflect that in some way? (maybe some rivers are CNR and others have wild fish harvest until the allowable impacts are reached).

Clearly, WSR was justified on a biological argument. Biologically speaking it makes no difference if a fish dies by hooking mortality or by being bonked. As long as the same number of fish are dead it is a wash from a biology and management point of view.

Why should the bonkers be the only one's to sacrifice opportunity for the sake of fish?

IF WSR had been justified on a maximization of recreation argument, then I think it would make sense for the bonkers to sacrifice opportunity so that more C&R opportunity was available. But WSR was put forward as being scientifically sound managment (A position I think most dubious). In terms of fisheries managment does it make any difference how the fish dies? I don't think it does.

Thus, WSR could appear to be a fishing opportunity grab by CnR fishers from bonkers.

Even if this is completely untrue, the mere appearance is a very devisive state of affairs. Clearly this is very bad for sportfisher unity; not our strong suit in the first place.

Also, why doesn't anyone want to comment on the potential ramifications of WSR for managment of other species with populations in decline? I have brought this up repeatedly and only Jerry has even acknoweledged the issue (albeit he denied it was an issue). Clearly the logic of WSR could be applied to other species in local decline. If it were significant statewide reductions of angler opportunity would result.

The WSC has been so single-minded on getting WSR rammed through that I don't think some of these things have been fully considered. If they have, nobody seems wiling to express what WSC's position on the issues I described above.

GD ... Your profile says you've been reading since Aug of 2002. If you go back to a number of discussions, you see that angling opportunity has long been an argument for C&R of wild steelhead. In fact, look back to the formative threads of the WSC and and that's where most of the ire of anglers laid ... the loss of any fishing opportunity at all.

Precedent setting? Not sure you could call it that. Please refer to the 5 questions for the WSC thread to learn why some of us feel that a "blanket nban" was needed ... specifically for the Quillayute as whole issue as well as the Hoh numbers. I didn't even bother to touch on the fact that it also ionvolves ceratin portions of the runs that are clearly weak - the early component for example that led to the formation of the Snider Creek Project over 20 years ago.

Personally, I think you're comparing appleas and oranges. With many other species you're referring to, the models seem to work to some degree. You've got some seriouys habitat issues in some areas that will never allow any of the species to thrive ... so a blanket policy will not do them any good.

Let's take the Queets for example ... superb habitat, the same oceanic conditions as Quillayute fish yet they're not doing well at all. While there is some hatchery influence, I'd venture a guess that your primary factor here is likely harvest ... yet we've seen kill fisheries there off and on for some time.

Something isn't working ... perhaps the goal issue there between the state and the tribe is a mahor factor. Perhaps the tribe's goal is too low, perhaps the state's goal is too low.

Over the next two years while we reduce harvest to a fair degree .. perhaps we can figure out what's happening. Doesn't sound too unreasonable to me ... and it certainly can't hurt the fish population now can it?

Wasn't it just a year or two ago that the river had to be shut down totally earlier than normal becasuse the run was so low? Is that what we'd like to see in all streams down the road? My guess is most would answer 'no".

Well said Geoduck. I agree that most likely it wasn't well though out by its advocates. We will not know the full extent of imposing our own blanket regs for years to come. But rest assured, we haven't seen the end of it! All we know for sure is that the tribes and commercials will be getting more fish....

I would guess that Chinook will be next to fall under a blanket closure.

Bob,

I agree that at this point the best thing to be done is to give WSR a whirl and see what happens. I think the process used to get WSR done was irregular at best, but we might as well make the best of the situation. And see how the experiment turns out.

The only problem is that we really won't know if WSR has done anything until five years from now (when the progeny of the first WSR protected spawners return), but two years from now we'll have to decide wether WSR should be extened.

What was the logic for two years of WSR, or is that all WSC could get the comission to commit to?

I predict (my crysal ball sometimes works) that steelhead runs will take an upswing in the next year or two making WSR's shakey scientific justification even wekaer.
If that does come to pass, WSC better put together some stronger maximization of recreation arguements forward if they want to see WSR extended.

Smalma,

Yes, I was thinking back to the period of the regular creel census. Plunkers on the lower river made up most of the effort during the early season. They continued to be a significant presence as late as the river was open. The big difference was the large increase in middle and upper river effort in March and April (upper river only for April). Once the word was out that good fishing was available on the Skagit and Sauk, anglers came out of the woodwork, it seemed.

An important note in this regard is to Geoduck who thinks CNK anglers are foregoing opportunity for the benefit of CNR anglers. That presumes that one is either a CNR angler or a CNK angler. Bad presumption. By the mid-1980s, many of the participants in the Skagit CNR fishery were Wildcatters, whose club policy was CNK, or close the river. But many of the members found CNR fishing was so much more satisfying than staying home working in the yard. It turns out that a lot of the anglers participating in CNR fisheries are not opposed to CNK, and would kill their catch if legal to do so.

Which leads me to ask: just who are these high-falutin’ CNR, expensive sunglass-wearin’ anglers, any-dam*- how? Speaking for myself, it didn’t start out that way. I kept fish, hatchery or wild, because it stroked my ego, and they were good to eat. Eventually, I became more of a fish snob, and preferred not to eat frozen fish. Also eventually, I became lucky enough or skilled enough to occasionally catch more salmon or steelhead than I could eat before it went bad. But I liked to fish, so I began releasing my catch. Not for conservation reasons, just for a purely pragmatic reason.

After watching the Skagit wild steelhead run rebuild in the 80s from its low point in the 70s, I decided not to keep any wild steelhead, whether it was legal to do so or not. I had no problem with the continued harvest of “surplus” wild steelhead on OP rivers when some of my friends opposed wild steelhead harvest anywhere for general reasons. But the more I consider the OP rivers, the more I think, as Bob also suggested, it’s just a matter of time, and those rivers won’t be able to meet the demand for harvestable wild steelhead. We anglers grow more numerous every year, and technology makes us ever more effective (maybe this could be titled “curse of the pink worm.”). The OP rivers are our best last place, and unfortunately, it’s our best, last, chance to make a stand for this treasured resource before the OP joins the long list of Washington State has-beens.

The upshot is that none of the WSR and CNR advocates that I presently know started out that way. Most of the advocates gravitated to this philosophy based on severe wild steelhead population declines throughout their North American range. I find it much harder to understand the mentality of the person who would choose to kill one of the last few. Perhaps they adhere to the Boldt-case theory of conservation; as long as there’s more than two, it’s surplus.

Geoduck, for the last few years I’ve thought that WSR was justified on the OP mainly for the increased recreational benefit more than conservation. However, after looking at the “charts” that have been posted here, and I realize there’s room for differences of opinion, the conservation position wins out in my opinion. I understand that WDFW biologists didn’t support that position, but I also understand that they are under pressure to provide opportunity to a diverse constituency that includes an element that doesn’t comprehend or accept fishing without harvest. Heck, that describes some of the biologists I know. Nonetheless, given the direction the state’s human population is going and the direction that the state’s wild steelhead population is going, it’s just a matter of time until WSR and CNR will be the only wild steelhead fishing opportunities available in this state. If you think we are not there yet and should continue to harvest wild steelhead, see the paragraph above.

You asked for a response about the precedent this WSR action sets for other species statewide. I didn’t respond because I wasn’t sure what you meant, and I haven’t thought about that. My first thought is that no matter what WDFW does, it will be wrong. Time and time again, anglers have complained about the complexity of fishing regulations that differ among the many rivers and lakes, etc. The public and the department have usually preferred blanket regulations. Remember the days when the fishing regulation pamphlet was only 20 small pages? But things change. There are too many people and too many people angling today, and our knowledge of the fishery resource has increased. The combination require more complex regulations if the goal is to maximize or optimize angling opportunity. WSR might seem like a step backward to you, since it is a “blanket” regulation. But it is a statewide regulation that allows exceptions, except for the next two years. I don’t see any particular adverse ramifications. WDFW could suggest a blanket ban on chinook fishing because there are many ESA listed chinook populations and because many hatchery chinook are unmarked. However, I don’t think they will. And if they propose it, it will go through at least all the back door channels that this latest ruling did, giving astute followers of the Commission an opportunity to question and even oppose it, or at least offer less adverse alternatives to it. So no, I’m not concerned at present about potential adverse ramifications of this statewide WSR policy.

I agree that the WSC has been rather single-minded in pushing this policy through. I think that was a wise choice on their part, not that the issue is necessarily finished yet. I think WSR represents the best choice as a first step in a longer-range plan that would maximize recreational steelhead angling opportunity statewide. I generally favor actions that would result in there being more steelhead in rivers, and especially so if that results in increased angler opportunity.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

Geoduck, I've been part of the WSC since its inception, and we have always included economics and opportunity, in addition to science, as part of our argument in support of statewide WSR. Back in 2000 members of our group wrote a white paper titled:
The biological and economic benefits of wild steelhead release: seeking a balance between conservation and recreation, the case for wild steelhead release

Our white paper has been highlighted on the WSC homepage for about 3 or 4 years now. We gave copies of our white paper to each of the commissioners 3 years ago before the rules meeting, and again this year in Port Townsend when they were taking public testimony.

Our white paper does have some flaws and some opinions not shared by others. For what I felt was a very constructive discussion about my article titled Maximum Sustainable Yield: an antiquated and high-risk concept for wild steelhead management, see this old thread on the WSC forum:


http://www.flyfishingforum.com/flytalk3/...c&threadid=7690
(I've bumped this to the top of the WSC forum)

This details a critique of my chapter provided by WDFW's Curt Kraemer. We went back and forth a few times in what I felt was a very constructive dialogue.

To learn more about what the WSC has been arguing, I encourage you to read our white paper.

As noted on our web-site, 1 copy is free with a WSC membership and 5 copies free with a club membership. Copies are availible to non-WSC members for a donation of $7.50 per copy.

To order a copy please send check or money order to:

Wild Steelhead Coalition
218 Main Street, Box 264
Kirkland, WA. 98033


sincerely,
Nate Mantua
Wild Steelhead Coalition VP of Science and Education

Nate,

Are you kidding me? You want me to pay to get WSC's white paper? In effect financially supporting WSC for taking a position that I find dubious? What a joke!

I am curious about how they justify some of what's been done, but I'm not paying to find out.

If you can't provide it for free, then why should I read it? If anything WSC should pay me to read it and comment.

WSC has a nice web site, surely they could put it out there for free.

If WSC wants people to understand where they are coming from (maybe they don't), then they need to put it their information on the internet for everyone to see (for free).

Charging the public for WSC's take on steelhead managment just further supports the common public impression that WSC is an elitist group with a self-serving agenda.

At the very least get a few copies out the public libraries.

Geoduck

You are SO-SO-SO- SO-SO- So SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSO

RIGHT!!!!!

It would be just like me telling this board that you have to pay to read my 45 pages of written comments to Tacoma's FHMP about the Cowlitz!

Cowlitzfisherman

If copies have been submitted to the Commissioners as public testimony it would follow that every interested member of the public might be entitled to receive a copy from the commission upon request.

Or perhaps a club might have an extra amongst the 5 copies they received.

Would the WSC object to my posting a free copy online?

Sorry to say that right now there are only 2 of the 7 chapters available for online reading, they are linked under WSC articles. I'll look into getting the rest up there soon, either for online reading or as downloadable pdf's, and report back here tomorrow.

If all goes according to plan, we'll have the full white paper available for download as a pdf by the end of the week. I'll post an announcement on this thread when it's up.