A good thing to do if you personally feel a run is in danger is to begin by not fishing it. Then work to convince others of the same.

Step 1 of course, is to walk the walk.

-S

In all the years of Skykomish Chum fishing I've done...I can count on my hands and toes how many I've bonked for myself and for my clients...good advice though.

All I am trying to say is that 3 and 4 years ago...the excapement was dismal and those few smolts should be scheduled to return to the river this year...based on a dismal escapement 3 and 4 years ago we can assume that there are not going to be an abundance of fish...hopefully nature thinks otherwise and more then a few show up. Close the season until we get some strong consistent data (several years worth) in order to open it back up...it's going to take a few cycles to build the run if it rebuilds at all.

Rotten Chum -
A returning adult run of chum is only partially determined by the parent escapement.

The forecast for Snohomish River chum (and other rivers in the area ) are fry based. That is beach surveys of key index areas in the spring of the year count the fry seen. Based on a regression (based on more than 40 years of data) the resulting counts are used to forecast the upcoming run.

By using the fry counts/regression the manager is able to get a look at the overall survival of the eggs placed in the gravel. A large escapement that experiences a flood at the wrong time may produce few fry while a low escapement whose eggs/early fry encounter good conditions may produce excellent numbers of fry result in much larger run size than the parent year.

The change to a fry based forecast methods in the mid-1990s has generally preformed much better than rely on just the escapement numbers. Because there can be such variation in the marine survival conditions that those fry find (that survival can vary as much as 10 fold between the best and worst conditions) there still can be significant errors in the forecast.

Tight lines
Curt

Curt,
Appreciate the knowledge you have and share...it is a complicated matter and I surely don't have the answers to fix any of this other then to shut her down for a few years from all users groups but that won't happen.

That must explain why the most recent annual sports catch harvest numbers posted on the WDFW website are from 2007.
http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/harvest/
The state must be really slow counters.......

The fry counts haven't been reliable for several years, this is what caused the over harvest, which involved netting in the salt and ultimately lead to where we are now. Not as stated in one of the earlier posts that had a press release or report saying that it was from commercial "and" sport harvest, sport harvest had nothing to do with it, it was 100% netting. As stated by Salmo G. and WDFW, the sport retention has little or no effect on the run and escapement, I do believe continual harassment on the beds can have an affect though.

We haven't had a decent return in years, so why schedule a season based on unreliable (at least recently) forecasts. Why don't we let at least one season go by that exceeds the escapement goal before opening it up again. Why should we manage them into an ESA listing.

I don’t care if they ever open it up again for sport retention, I can’t imagine why anyone would keep one, but if the retention number has no effect, then it really doesn’t matter.

Ondarvr -
As I mentioned once the fry leave the river there still is much of the story to be told.

The forecasts based on those fry counts in recent years probably as reliable as they were 15 years ago. It is just that those earlier estimates were underestimating the returns - the fry experiencing better than expected marine survival. It is odd that generally folks don't seem to get to excited if the runs are better than forecasted.

Often those marine survivals are somewhat cyclic. In those cases the manager typically adjust for improving or declining survival cyclics by using recent average survival to adjust the forecast. As a result the returns at the start of a survival cycle change are bigger misses than later in the cycle.

BTW -
It is clear that the excellent marine survival that chum fry experienced a decade ago (with record returns in for much of Puget Sound) has declined in recent years. That should be expected - hopefully we will see the managers adjustted better to those changes though that will not mean larger runs just that they will be better at predicting those smaller returns.

It is unrealistic to expect to see "record" returns as the norm.

Tight lines
Curt

Ten years ago you could go and pick up all the chum meat you wanted at Hoodsport, now those chums are sold and there are contracts with foreign countries. Now the majority of the salmon sold here in this country may be chum but at one time the majority sold and consumed in restaurants were farm raised coho.


Fact is the commercial value has increased exponentially for chum and we will continue to see this resource targeted.

Fishy

Smalma


From what I understand from your posts, plus talking with the current WDFW staff and bio's for the tribe, we are trying to predict something that we don't really understand and have little relevant data on, plus the parts of the puzzle we do have don't appear to be the major controlling factors. The one thing we do know, and have complete control over, is netting, so why not do the least possible harm with what we can control.

Nature is not responsible for the very small runs in recent years, plenty of fish returned in the first few years of poor escapement, it was our repeated and "managed" over harvest in an attempt to get the last paper fish that created the mess we've been in.

As far as I'm concerned the forecasting methods have proved to be so poor that until we can better use the data that we can acquire there should be no harvest at all.

Ondarvr-
I understand your position about no harvest until there are better forecast methods and it is certianly a legitimate one.

The fry based forecast gives the managers the best measure of what the in-river survival of that particular brood year was and is a significant improvement over the previous method of attempting to forecast the run off just the escapement numbers. The next step is to get a better handle on what happens to the fish once they enter the salt and even more difficult how they do in the open ocean. Improving that information pass the current understand is going to require both time and investiment. Given the realities of the world I don't expect any substaintal improvements in my life time.

Understand that in today's world if there are not enough chum to harvest we are not going to see even CnR fisheries on chum. See Salmo g's previous post on this thread.

I have tried hard not to inject my personal opinions in this discussion but rather to provide some factually information upon which we can have informed discussions.

BTW -
The forecast method for pink salmon is vritually the same as for chum (with just half of the historic data - fish only return every other year). Is it safe to assume that those proposing no fishing for chums beleive that should apply to pinks as well?

The best forecast methods for Chinook, sockeye and coho also depend to measures of the young fish leaving the river (smolt counts). What happens to them once they leave the river is nearly as variable as the chum and pinks. Until better information on the ocean survival of thise specis is available no fishing for them as well?

Those of us out fling flies for sea-run cutthroat in the fall on local rivers might get pretty lonely -LOL!

Relying on in-season updates with the exception of those rivers with concrete fish counters will rely on some sort of terminal fisheries to provide the info for that update and of course would mean no mixed stock fishing.

Would the above actions be the best for the fish - you betcha!

For the fishermen and local economies - not so much!

Tight lines
Curt

The 60's and 70's the Sky and Snoqualmie smelled so bad (good bad) you could hardly fish for early winter-runs!
Todd hit it earlier, those fish need to spawn and die in the river, not the nets.
Forcast mean nothing and escapment means nothing until the season starts and you find out just how many were intercepted BEFORE they got to the river. Then you can make an edgucated guess as to how many may spawn.
As long as the state manages a speices for the good of a user group instead of the health of the fish and runs, the fishery is doomed. They have proven many times over the last 40 years!

Smalma

You and some others seem to think I am in favor of opening it for CnR or something similar, I think it should stay closed for all until we have at least one good run again. The current management plan is to kill every last paper fish the first time the forecast shows the run may meet or slightly exceed its escapement number in several years. This doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Let the run happen and see if the pre-season estimates are correct, if a few more fish spawn than what the experts feel is needed (dangerous over escapement) I guess we will just have to suffer through it. They aren’t predicting a huge run, it’s only supposed to be 38,000 fish, let the run build back up before the slaughter begins.

I also feel that Pinks will be the next victim of managed over harvest, as their value rises on the world market the pressure from the tribes and commercial fisherman for a bigger take will turn the odd year run into something resembling the even year run. It won't be long before the same discussion is taking place about them.

And again, I feel the forecast methods used may be based on the best information we can obtain, but that doesn't mean we have enough information to set escapement numbers as low as they are now. It appears that a much larger buffer is needed to protect the runs and help ensure these fish return in good numbers even when there are factors outside of our control or knowledge base that limit the run size.

As for people not getting excited when there is a huge chum run, just look at the number of licenses sold and the crowds on the river during very good years. From this I have determined people do get excited, then spend money when fish are available.

I also think you should share some of your feelings on the subject, not just facts and data.

or...

So it seems like what I’m hearing is that a big enough buffer should be proposed this year when the commission reviews policy C-3608 to ensure escapement goals, sport fishing, and nutrient enhancement?

They will probably be managed till they are gone. They are the least desirable to catch so they are the last to be depleted. How many times does the cycle of commercial overfishing untill depletion have to be repeated before we learn?

I do know of at least one guide that fished for and retained spawner chum for his clients.