why is fishing closed?

[hunter399]

I think they should shut it down an fund the hatcheries an turn washington into the go to place in five years. But that will never happen . Not enough money going into certain areas. An the tribes can't provide it all. Just like hunting especially on the east side. Shut all cow an doe harvest down for 5 years an go to a 3 point or better deer an elk minimum. The herds would be amazing. An bring back hounds for cats an bears. Just my 2 cents but most people won't agree.

You'd be surprised.
Not a bad idea at all.👍

[jay.sharkbait]

I think they should shut it down an fund the hatcheries an turn washington into the go to place in five years. But that will never happen . Not enough money going into certain areas. An the tribes can't provide it all. Just like hunting especially on the east side. Shut all cow an doe harvest down for 5 years an go to a 3 point or better deer an elk minimum. The herds would be amazing. An bring back hounds for cats an bears. Just my 2 cents but most people won't agree.

You'd be surprised.
Not a bad idea at all.👍

What about the folks that only have a few years fishing left?

[metlhead]

Quit funding DFW ourselves. Tax the non consumers or the first Lib to voice concern. Make it their problem. I am all for closures if the Evergreen bios were kept out of the process. Put user groups in charge of season setting. Seems sportsman have been able to get all other game animals to flourish. We're the only folks that care.

[hunter399]

I think they should shut it down an fund the hatcheries an turn washington into the go to place in five years. But that will never happen . Not enough money going into certain areas. An the tribes can't provide it all. Just like hunting especially on the east side. Shut all cow an doe harvest down for 5 years an go to a 3 point or better deer an elk minimum. The herds would be amazing. An bring back hounds for cats an bears. Just my 2 cents but most people won't agree.

You'd be surprised.
Not a bad idea at all.👍

What about the folks that only have a few years fishing left?

As a person that isn't going live forever.
Sometimes the future is your legacy.
Think about if you die tomorrow,you would want a whole nother generation to be able to hunt and fish.

I'm not a big fisherman,few times a year is all,didn't even buy my license this year.I went back in February and March,before my expiration.
So I was agreeing with the hunting part.
But still id be ok with the whole idea.

[HUNTIN4SIX]

Collage is accurate, a little bit of everything, not enough of anything.

Exactly

I can vouch for that after 24 years of employment with those clowns.  You will also find over educated, liberally brain washed students working for this outfit.  Trust their science 
Hatchery production needs to be brought back to the 80's and 90's level.  The wild fish BS has significantly reduced hatchery production.   

[2MANY]

Collage is accurate, a little bit of everything, not enough of anything.

Exactly

I can vouch for that after 24 years of employment with those clowns.  You will also find over educated, liberally brain washed students working for this outfit.  Trust their science 
Hatchery production needs to be brought back to the 80's and 90's level.  The wild fish BS has significantly reduced hatchery production.

Winner.
On the Cowlitz for example mitigation was a REQUIREMENT to build the damn dam.
Bring back our fish mitigation WDFW and Tacoma Power you liars.

[salmosalar]

Seems to me that king runs in WA state have benefitted from the reduction in harvest in BC and Alaska. The Vancouver Island troll fishery in particular really impacted our stocks. Since much of the commercial ocean harvest has been reduced, we are seeing more and possibly larger average sized fish. This is mostly anecdotal from my own personal experience and that of the fishermen that I hang around with. It is also difficult to exactly quantify since fish runs fluctuate greatly from year to year as do average fish sizes and the reduction in commercial pressure has only been the case for a couple of years. The Canadians have reduced their chinook harvest for the SRKW populations. The upshot is that it appears more of our adult kings are making it back.

We all would like more opportunities and we'd all like more fish. We often disagree as to how to get there. That is the public process and that is how we manage a public resource. Like it or not, all residents have an equal right to push for how they would like for the resource to be managed. People who think differently than you do are not necessarily less informed. They have different goals or values potentially. They may even be much better informed.

The one common theme that I see when people bash WDFW on threads like this is that they don't understand what WDFW is responsible for and what they are not responsible for.  The aren't responsible for native nets, for instance. They are not responsible for changes to the Cowlitz relicensing agreement. They do some odd and unpopular things but they rarely have the power or leverage that people think that they do. The whole Puget Sound Chinook permitting scenario is the best example of that. So, while they do deserve blame for a lot of things, they are also often blamed for things that they don't control.

The state has ramped up chinook hatchery production in recent years. The governor and legislature have pushed for that. This is due to the SRKW population. You won't see the same increases for other salmon or for steelhead because the SRKW population does not eat them. You may not see increased fishing opportunities for a while either. I suspect that at some point we will see harvest opportunities but hey will be in the form of in-river fisheries. 

[2MANY]

Fisheries managers are failing the sportsmen period.
They are late to act and then make excuses and point fingers at other agencies.
Congrats on NOT successfully managing ALL our species that head to the salt.
Epic failures government pension after government pension.

[Bullkllr]

Seems to me that king runs in WA state have benefitted from the reduction in harvest in BC and Alaska. The Vancouver Island troll fishery in particular really impacted our stocks. Since much of the commercial ocean harvest has been reduced, we are seeing more and possibly larger average sized fish. This is mostly anecdotal from my own personal experience and that of the fishermen that I hang around with. It is also difficult to exactly quantify since fish runs fluctuate greatly from year to year as do average fish sizes and the reduction in commercial pressure has only been the case for a couple of years. The Canadians have reduced their chinook harvest for the SRKW populations. The upshot is that it appears more of our adult kings are making it back.

Do you know how much Canadian harvest has actually been cut? I'd look it up, but short on time today.

[metlhead]

I don't agree with the entire public having equal say in resource management. When you start putting down the cash for the propagation of the fodder, you can have your vote.

[salmosalar]

Here is a C&P from the pacific fishery Management Council
https://www.pcouncil.org/documents/2023/02/review-of-2022-ocean-salmon-fisheries.pdf/

I think that he month that the fish are being killed on that coast is significant as well. The data did not transfer well. Sorry for that. If you read the last figure as the total and work back through the months it makes sense. If you use the link and go to page 29 and 30 the data is more easily read. The graph is actually showing an elimination of most harvest outside of Aug-Oct. for the WCVI commercial fishery and a reduction of about 75% from 10 years ago.  What is it saying, basically is that he majority of the fish killed are in Aug-Sept. Prior to 2018-2019, he fishery was conducted throughout the year. My thought is that there are likely to be fewer US bound fish in the fishery, the later it is conducted. So it's not just the amount of fish killed but when they are killed.

It seems logical that the impacts to Columbia River and Puget Sound fish was reduced starting in 2019-2019. PS fish have other issues to deal with from large pink fry abundance to the lower nearshore marine survival that happens for many reasons in the PS. My belief is that he coastal WA fish are effected more from the late summer-early fall troll fishery that remains. The Columbia River should see impacts reduced the most from the recent reductions. This is discussed on page 10 here:


Northern British Columbia (B.C.) and Southeast Alaska (SEAK) fisheries impact far-north
migrating Chinook stocks from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. These include Washington
coastal stocks, Columbia and Snake River bright fall and summer stocks, and far-north migrating
Oregon coastal Chinook stocks. The West Coast Vancouver Island (WCVI) troll and recreational
fisheries, in addition to recreational fisheries in the Strait of Georgia and the Strait of Juan de Fuca,
impact far-north migrating stocks (including LRW) to a lesser degree but can have a major impact
on more southerly-distributed Columbia River tule and Puget Sound stocks
There is a good discussion on pages 10-11 in the report above. Of note is that hey do say that CR and Puget sound fish have historicall

TABLE I-12. West Coast Vancouver Island aggregate abundance-based management troll Chinook salmon catch by month.

Seasona/ Oct. Nov. Dec. Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug.b/ Sept. Total
2005-2006 12,198 2,156 1,689 1,468 5,154 7,883 20,561 7,078 20,807 - 886 24,098 103,978
2006-2007 16,000 1,200 800 5,500 2,600 2,300 5,200 23,500 25,000 - - 6,000 88,100
2007-2008 3,137 - - 1,634 1,911 - 1,717 11,105 15,944 - 9,099 45,157 89,704
2008-2009 1,882 1,209 1,107 3,394 1,540 586 3,616 18,062 12,165 - 9,630 - 53,191
2009-2010 - - - - - - 8,553 31,296 23,652 - 11,642 3,980 79,123
2010-2011 - - - - 1,849 875 8,670 41,239 34,394 15,619 21,284 - 123,930
2011-2012 - - 245 129 542 243 10,493 22,334 - - 4,280 17,264 55,530
2012-2013 3,344 230 312 1,018 358 501 1,374 25,737 - - - 2,519 35,393
2013-2014 2,358 28 25 49 586 1,422 13,345 40,336 - 26,494 10,002 15,360 110,005
2014-2015 213 56 - 186 612 731 3,841 27,405 - - 13,953 7,341 54,338
2015-2016 178 13 1 51 342 315 6,456 31,799 - - 7,574 2,390 49,119
2016-2017 - - - 72 276 358 4,065 23,557 - 8,169 6,758 4,279 47,534
2017-2018 - - - 74 141 297 - 11,009 - - 5,063 2,572 19,156
2018-2019 - - - - - - - - - - 20,113 3,082 23,195
2019-2020 - - - - - - - - - - 9,524 1,781 11,305
2020-2021 - - - - - - - - - - 24,485 740 25,225
2021-2022c/ - - - - 430 242 - - - - 21,946 2,068 24,686
b/ Fishery restricted to plugs only.
a/ Includes commercial Area G troll only since the 2015-2016 season.
c/ Preliminary.

The difficulty with all of this is the large fluctuations in abundance that is normal with salmon runs. It takes years to actually see what actions are are likely to have helped. Sometimes helping means reducing the downward trend as well. So, although Chinook numbers for the Columbia river are up recently, it's hard to say it is from reduced harvest because it naturally fluctuates.
This thread started discussing PS chinook. It' even harder to pinpoint there due to the other impacts those fish deal with from predation to pollution, wild fish competition with larger pink runs etc.
The fact is though, Canada is harvesting less fish. I believe Alaska is too. and the reason is SRKW.

[JimmyHoffa]

Haven't seen mention yet, but there's a lucrative struggling salmon industry made up of NGOs, academia, political agencies, tribes and rich donors getting tax incentives. For them, it is best when salmon are on the brink. They all get money for little pet projects like moving a dike, putting some logs in a river or planting trees. Many of the executives of these groups are making over six figures and routinely hangout in the wine and cheese circle with the politicians.

[2MANY]

Very good point.
Once again follow the money.

If there were lot's of fish we wouldn't need as many experts.