WDFW closes all coastal steelhead fishing!

[HUNTIN4SIX]

Several of your questions would be answered if the department was transparent even the smallest bit.

They won’t want us to know they have been cutting steelhead/salmon hatchery production.  They are bowing down to the enviro’s striving for a wild fish utopia. 
It is so obvious and most have no idea.  They like sportsman fighting over other stupid reasons for the decline.

[Jake Dogfish]

Steelhead are on a path to extinction and have been for years.  The biggest factor is not habitat or hatcheries.  It’s simply lack of abundance.  This can be solved by using all available habitat instead of planting them all in the same place.  This does not make economic sense to WDFW so they will continue to spiral the toilet bowl.

[HUNTIN4SIX]

Steelhead are on a path to extinction and have been for years.  The biggest factor is not habitat or hatcheries.  It’s simply lack of abundance.  This can be solved by using all available habitat instead of planting them all in the same place.  This does not make economic sense to WDFW so they will continue to spiral the toilet bowl.

Hatcheries create the abundance.

[MonstroMuley]

Steelhead are on a path to extinction and have been for years.  The biggest factor is not habitat or hatcheries.  It’s simply lack of abundance.  This can be solved by using all available habitat instead of planting them all in the same place.  This does not make economic sense to WDFW so they will continue to spiral the toilet bowl.

Hatcheries create the abundance.

Closures forced our group pivot to Oregon ... Fish'n Buddy touts ODFW New "Wild Broodstock" program reason
for Oregon's successful Metalhead Fisheries ... we'll see? 

[BigGoonTuna]

Steelhead are on a path to extinction and have been for years.  The biggest factor is not habitat or hatcheries.  It’s simply lack of abundance.  This can be solved by using all available habitat instead of planting them all in the same place.  This does not make economic sense to WDFW so they will continue to spiral the toilet bowl.

Hatcheries create the abundance.

while in some cases this is true (where some small programs that made for good fisheries have been completely eliminated like the little green, grays river, east fork lewis etc), the fish just aren't returning.  by some of the rhetoric you hear nowadays you'd think that the cowlitz gets 1/10th the amount of fish planted in it that it did 20 years ago, simply not true.  the fish aren't returning from the ocean, or in some cases (like puget sound streams) aren't even getting to the ocean.

probably the biggest factor in modern times is predation.  seals, sea lions, humboldt squid, cormorants, terns.  everything but the squid are protected by federal law, and there's little motivation by those in charge to actually manage any of them.  kind of sounds like the same problem we have with wolves and cats, hmm...

[metlhead]

Jinx. Was hoping the state overlooked the squid. Protections for them soon to come😞

[Stein]

Jinx. Was hoping the state overlooked the squid. Protections for them soon to come😞

They fail the cute test, so they will be left alone.

[JimmyHoffa]

Steelhead are on a path to extinction and have been for years.  The biggest factor is not habitat or hatcheries.  It’s simply lack of abundance.  This can be solved by using all available habitat instead of planting them all in the same place.  This does not make economic sense to WDFW so they will continue to spiral the toilet bowl.

I think it's harvest mostly down the food chain--smaller food fish, forage fish, shrimp, etc.  A healthy river should have tons of fish moving in and out all year long of all species--spawning, rearing, dying, etc.  If you harvest all different types of salmon to minimum yield, then it doesn't matter what steelhead protections you have.  You wouldn't need a steelhead hatchery program if you could get enough ocean nutrients back into the spawning grounds year round.

[Mudman]

It is not our fish...  Fish belong to Native peoples.   Put you poles in the attic.  No surprise and will only get worse.  Focus on elections if ya want to fish. 

[Jake Dogfish]

Steelhead are on a path to extinction and have been for years.  The biggest factor is not habitat or hatcheries.  It’s simply lack of abundance.  This can be solved by using all available habitat instead of planting them all in the same place.  This does not make economic sense to WDFW so they will continue to spiral the toilet bowl.

Hatcheries create the abundance.

No, God created abundance and man has done nothing but mess it up.
We need hatcheries to rebuild the runs now because the numbers are so low.  We should plant every creek with all species of salmonids and leave the large rivers alone.  We are doing it backwards.

[nwwanderer]

Little worried about that abundance deal, more than 95% of all the species that have ever existed are extinct, nearly all before man

[HUNTIN4SIX]

Little worried about that abundance deal, more than 95% of all the species that have ever existed are extinct, nearly all before man

You sound like some of the WDFW employees I worked with....

[nwwanderer]

Ouch!! 

[Forks]

Unbelievable the number of bug chuckers in their rubber boats on the Hoh pounding it like a cheap one. All the while most likely, claiming no harm done. People just can't help themselves.

[Slow-drifter]

This closure is ridiculous,  backed by false science and a lack of real world numbers. Most people on the peninsula are reporting seeing a larger than normal number of reds already this season due to low river levels, but Noone seems to care that due to those levels the creel reports are low because fishing is tough. It's not a lack of fish. It's a lack of proper management from our bull@@$% state