Steelhead on the Pilchuck. A good read

[bankwalker]

Anyone who has actually fished the pilchuck on any regular basis, and knows the local snohomish fishermen...knows how many native fish get bonked every year. 

That river is entirely to small, not enough access, and way to much poaching, to be worth dumping hatchery fish into. Every river in the snohomish system is alot more logical candidate for more hatchery fish.

[Button Nubbs]

just close it all down for 5 yrs including tribal fishing and we would have fish again ....Pretty simple solution to the problem ...

I would be ok with that

[RG]

I'm going to jump off my soap box.  Here's what I know though, for decades the rivers around here, specifically Snohomish County, received a lot of steelhead hatchery plants.  Hundreds of people fished, caught fish, had a wonderful time in the rain, snow, and ice, or in the summer, and spent thousands in the local economy.  The region benefitted greatly, and there were a lot of wild fish in the rivers in March and April.  Hmm, seems like it was working really well.  I owned a sporting goods store back then so I talked to steelhead fishermen, and fished for steelhead about 3 mornings a week, for a living.  Now I drive around the back roads of the county on a regular basis all during the seasons.  I used to see dozens of cars out there when the fish were in, now I see none.  I fished the Pilchuck regularly, I live on its bank.  I saw fish caught and taken but not that many.  It was too difficult a fishery for the masses requiring lots of hiking and wading and learning the river.  Most people took their lawn chair to Lewis St. in Monroe and caught fish there, or stood in the crowd at Reiter.  I miss it and it's a tragedy that generations of northwest young people will never experience it because it got shut down for all the wrong reasons, budget being a big piece of that too obviously.

[Kola16]

just close it all down for 5 yrs including tribal fishing and we would have fish again ....Pretty simple solution to the problem ...

I would be ok with that

....me too 

[Button Nubbs]

I'm going to jump off my soap box.  Here's what I know though, for decades the rivers around here, specifically Snohomish County, received a lot of steelhead hatchery plants.  Hundreds of people fished, caught fish, had a wonderful time in the rain, snow, and ice, or in the summer, and spent thousands in the local economy.  The region benefitted greatly, and there were a lot of wild fish in the rivers in March and April.  Hmm, seems like it was working really well.  I owned a sporting goods store back then so I talked to steelhead fishermen, and fished for steelhead about 3 mornings a week, for a living.  Now I drive around the back roads of the county on a regular basis all during the seasons.  I used to see dozens of cars out there when the fish were in, now I see none.  I fished the Pilchuck regularly, I live on its bank.  I saw fish caught and taken but not that many.  It was too difficult a fishery for the masses requiring lots of hiking and wading and learning the river.  Most people took their lawn chair to Lewis St. in Monroe and caught fish there, or stood in the crowd at Reiter.  I miss it and it's a tragedy that generations of northwest young people will never experience it because it got shut down for all the wrong reasons, budget being a big piece of that too obviously.

i personally think (no scientific data behind this) that we have reached a breaking point with hatchery and wild stocks. it has worked well in the past but any time you mess with ma nature she is going to eventually say f&$k you. it must really kill you living on the bank of that river and not being able to fish it. i feel for ya man, even though our opinions may differ.

[wapitislayer]

they shut down nisqually for 20plus yrs and it has not helped the native run .

[Bullkllr]

 The official answer would likely be that pumping hatchery fish in would not achieve many actual results anyway. All Puget Sound steelhead populations are now low in abundance. And the condition gets worse from a north sound to south sound direction, with the Skagit (and possibly Nooksack) being the least affected and the Nisqually being the most affected. When the runs were abundant, they supported both the treaty and recreational fishery and were quite productive. But, with every PS river, the evidence suggests that low ocean survival is the proximate cause of low population abundance, and not treaty or recreational fishing.

[Gobble Doc]

Bulkllr,

Are you including commercial fishing as part of ocean survival? 

[RG]

I'm going to jump off my soap box.  Here's what I know though, for decades the rivers around here, specifically Snohomish County, received a lot of steelhead hatchery plants.  Hundreds of people fished, caught fish, had a wonderful time in the rain, snow, and ice, or in the summer, and spent thousands in the local economy.  The region benefitted greatly, and there were a lot of wild fish in the rivers in March and April.  Hmm, seems like it was working really well.  I owned a sporting goods store back then so I talked to steelhead fishermen, and fished for steelhead about 3 mornings a week, for a living.  Now I drive around the back roads of the county on a regular basis all during the seasons.  I used to see dozens of cars out there when the fish were in, now I see none.  I fished the Pilchuck regularly, I live on its bank.  I saw fish caught and taken but not that many.  It was too difficult a fishery for the masses requiring lots of hiking and wading and learning the river.  Most people took their lawn chair to Lewis St. in Monroe and caught fish there, or stood in the crowd at Reiter.  I miss it and it's a tragedy that generations of northwest young people will never experience it because it got shut down for all the wrong reasons, budget being a big piece of that too obviously.

i personally think (no scientific data behind this) that we have reached a breaking point with hatchery and wild stocks. it has worked well in the past but any time you mess with ma nature she is going to eventually say f&$k you. it must really kill you living on the bank of that river and not being able to fish it. i feel for ya man, even though our opinions may differ.

It's still a great river, I love it.  I have an active eagle's nest right by my house, a beaver ate half way through the alder tree in my back yard, I went swimming with a mask and snorkel in the pool by my place and saw rainbow trout with ragged tails they are so old.  My grandkids play in the river in the summer and they see herons, raccoon tracks, beaver sticks.  It's a nature lesson.  Tne humpies come upriver in such high numbers I can hear them jumping from my bedroom window at night.   When the river is running high it scares the crap out of me even though I've never been flooded, or even close.  Nature is awesome and the Pilchuck is amazing. You really should find a copy of Bob Heirman's book though if you are a fisherman.  It's a great read.  I have a signed copy.  It does make you sad.

[Bullkllr]

Off the top of my head, most recent findings have indicated that smolts are not surviving to migrate out of Puget Sound. Recent hatchery returns to south sound rivers like the Puyallup have been extremely low, like a fraction of 1%. Incidental steelhead are rare in open water commercial fisheries throughout their range (low numbers and large dispersal). Of course in-river (tribal) gillnets are a direct fishery. But since sport fisheries in most Puget Sound rivers have been reduced, so has directed tribal netting. Neither has resulted in more fish returning.

That, and, since steelhead stocks in the sound have fallen under ESA protection as threatened since 2007, further hatchery propogation will likely not be allowable under protection plans.

[WSU]

Off the top of my head, most recent findings have indicated that smolts are not surviving to migrate out of Puget Sound. Recent hatchery returns to south sound rivers like the Puyallup have been extremely low, like a fraction of 1%. Incidental steelhead are rare in open water commercial fisheries throughout their range (low numbers and large dispersal). Of course in-river (tribal) gillnets are a direct fishery. But since sport fisheries in most Puget Sound rivers have been reduced, so has directed tribal netting. Neither has resulted in more fish returning.

That, and, since steelhead stocks in the sound have fallen under ESA protection as threatened since 2007, further hatchery propogation will likely not be allowable under protection plans.

There it is.  I don't know why people think pumping hatchery fish into the Sky and Snohomish will produce good fishing.  They are already pumping hundreds of thousands of hatchery smolts into the Snohomis system every year (in 2010 it was about 318K winter fish and 182K summer fish).  Those fish just aren't returning.  Adding more smolt so they can die in Puget Sound isn't the answer. 

We've planted millions and millions of hatchery fish and don't have robust spawning populations.  Can someone in the pro-hatchery camp explain to me why planting more would result in more spawners?  I'd love to hear why it would now, especially given the 100 years of it not working.

[87Ford]

I pounded this river in the 80's and 90's..  As stated they no longer plant hatchery steelhead.  I don't like that, but I understand why..  It's also closed before the nates show up in February.  Not sure why it's even open any more..  No hatchery plants and closed before the nates show up.  You're wasting your time if you fish it in December..  It's over for this river and it's not coming back.  Glad I got to enjoy it back in the day.  It's gone..

[singleshot12]

Do you think in the future we'll ever get to fish for the natives or the off spring of the natives? Not likely. Atleast with the hatchery program we had something to fish for. The Pilchuck is just another example of lost opportunity forever.

[Button Nubbs]

Do you think in the future we'll ever get to fish for the natives or the off spring of the natives? Not likely. Atleast with the hatchery program we had something to fish for. The Pilchuck is just another example of lost opportunity forever.

i may not get to but maybe if were lucky my future children will get to.

[huntnphool]

A couple things to consider:

Trying to create a new run of "wild fish" by letting hatchery fish spawn naturally is just plain stupid. They are genetically inferior.

I get a laugh whenever I hear some of these "anti hatcery" guys talk, they remind me of a lot of the trad archery elitists.

 I was talking to one of these guys a couple weeks ago about the Ceder River Hatchery and told him how I hoped it would be a success, potentially opening Lake Washington for sockeye retention in the next few years. He had absolutely nothing good to say about it or any other hatchery program, saying hatcheries and hatchery fish ruin native runs and it would destroy the native sockeye in the Ceder. He didn't have a answer when I told him that the sockeye in the Ceder were introduced from hatcheries in 1937, so much for his "native" fish arguement.