Sol Duc wild steelhead management zone established

[Dhoey07]

So what kind of fish is it considered if eggs are incubated at the salmon hatchery? How about if they're held in rearing ponds?

Incubation and rearing facilities can and will spread disease.

I'm assuming they feed the fish the same things as they do other hatcheries in the state...

Hmmm... Sounds like a hatchery fish to me.

Oh and 100K is a lot of smolt. Assuming 10 % stay in freshwater like you say that's still 10,000 fish.

If these snider creek smolts have such an effect on wild smolts, why have wild escapement numbers gone up since it's inception?

They havent.  It's fluctuated quite a bit, but returns between 1991-2010 have shown no significant stable increase in wild fish escapement.  I'm interested as to where you got this figure.

http://wdfw.wa.gov/publications/00150/oly_pen_esu.pdf

[teal101]

So what kind of fish is it considered if eggs are incubated at the salmon hatchery? How about if they're held in rearing ponds?

Incubation and rearing facilities can and will spread disease.

I'm assuming they feed the fish the same things as they do other hatcheries in the state...

Hmmm... Sounds like a hatchery fish to me.

Oh and 100K is a lot of smolt. Assuming 10 % stay in freshwater like you say that's still 10,000 fish.

If these snider creek smolts have such an effect on wild smolts, why have wild escapement numbers gone up since it's inception?

They havent.  It's fluctuated quite a bit, but returns between 1991-2010 have shown no significant stable increase in wild fish escapement.  I'm interested as to where you got this figure.

http://wdfw.wa.gov/publications/00150/oly_pen_esu.pdf

Interesting.

Pre hatchery wild escapement was avg. 9300 while post hatchery it was 10900.  The interesting trend is the mass return of wild fish within 5 years of the hatchery implementation, then the steady decline to mean average returns.  It would have been interesting to see if the wild runs would ever hit those peak numbers again right after hatchery implementation.  It's contradictory of the hatchery review paper.

[Phantom Gobbler]

I would entertain that the Pacific Northwest scientific fisheries community (as a collective whole) and the responsible professional/public authorities that have spawned the Sol Duc Wild Steelhead Management Zone, would now adhere to sound reasoning and halt the immediate planned proliferation of similar management zones in other watersheds within Washington State.  Unbiased and objective research is now critical (for a reasonable interval of years), to determine how the Sol Duc native steelhead population responds to the elimination of the unique Snider Creek Hatchery Program.  How often have we seen popular (based on then current science/research) new measures/policies implemented on a wholesale scale, only to later realize the magnitude and misdirection of the implemented policy in a changing and highly diverse natural world.

Only time and proper field evaluation/documentation will show us if the elimination of this specialized type of hatchery was ultimately in the best interest of the native steelhead population and of all the associated user groups.

Short term impacts will likely be the elimination of the one native fish retention limit per year.  This then would be followed by a reduction in the allowable season interval for the catch and release of native steelhead in the Sol Duc.  The far reaching social, economic, and cultural impacts of the new Wild Steelhead Management Plan will prove to be significant.

[TheHunt]

Here is a view from a person who has only been fishing since last October. 
1.  I want to fish for Salmon and Steelhead.
2.  I want to bonk Salmon and Steelhead to eat them and use their eggs as bait. 
3.  I don't give a $hit about anyone's opinion or the WDFW scientific data.  If the bottom line that I do not get to catch and bonk Salmon and Steelhead I will go find something else to do.  And there goes my money too.
4.  If the WDFW screws up the fishing in this state rivers and the Indians sell licenses to fish their reservation I will not be buying a State Fishing license.  As I said, I want to catch fish and bonk em.  If this state does not provide that and an Indian Tribe does...
5.  I don’t mind working for the fish, or studying how they think and how to catch them.  But I am just old school that if I am going to put in the work effort there better be some fish to catch and take home.  I really don't care if I can take home a native or a hatchery as it makes no difference to me.  As long as it is legal of course.  So I am the SOB that bonked that natived last year on the OP.


 

[Button Nubbs]

That is one of the contributing factors as to why we got in this predicament in the first place.

[TheHunt]

For old salts like you who have cought ten's of 1,000's of fish you most likely tired of eating fish.  For the new fishermen like me I want to eat them.  Sorry if that offends you.  I think after I have cough just 10% of what you have cought I can live with out bonking and fish for the sport of it.  I am honest with the statement that I need that bonking right now.  I am the hatchery fish consumer and I know it. 

I do not care if they close the Sol Duc as long as there are other rivers to fish.  Heck the OP is getting hammered by large numbers of people fishing.  I wonder what the size of the fishing population was in the following years:

1060's
1970's
1980's
1990's
2000's
2010's

I would assume it grows every year.  I would think that eventually it will be like hunting and you will be required to draw a permit to fish specific weekends. 

[JimmyHoffa]

Ha!  I was joking the other day about when the time will come that we have to draw a permit for fishing "Quality River Native Steelhead permit".

[Button Nubbs]

Its hard for me to wrap my head around how someone could be so selfish as to not care what numbers, science, or anything else says because they just want to kill. I have never personally felt the need to kill a wild steelhead but that stems from personal beliefs. How can you not care or understand that wild fish are on the brink right now? If everyone who fished the rivers where wild retention is allowed and  killed their 1 nate year after year what do you think is going to happen? Do you really want permit only? Ill keep releasing wild fish and I guess you can keep bonking them. There will come a time when you will figure it out and for the fish's sake I hope that's sooner than later.

[JimmyHoffa]

If everyone who fished the rivers where wild retention is allowed and  killed their 1 nate year after year what do you think is going to happen?

My guess is we'll see it happen rather quickly.  The Sol Duc has been really busy the last few days, I'd be surprised if there is even room at the hatchery boat launch this weekend.
I won't even fish the river in the timeframe between hatchery steelies and springers.  So many fingers get pointed at the bonkers, but the C&R guys contribute plenty to the mortality.  I'll look and see if I can find the paper about it, but it had fish survival rates and successful spawning rates for things like proper handling, time to land, time removed from water (including the ambient air temps), number of times caught, etc.

[Button Nubbs]

I would like to see that paper, I'm sure its very interesting. I realize c&r kills fish but at least they stand a chance of surviving. I beef up my gear and put the wood to the fish this time of year. Looking forward to hooking some piggies tomorrow!

[jackmaster]

keep in mind this is my own personal opinion.. so here goes.... the only true way to fix these rivers without dams that have a wild run is to shut it down for a few years, stop this b.s gill netting that hurts more than anything when it comes to fish, the indians got to find it in themselves to quit netting the rivers period, i know that is wishful thinkn, but the way i see if people quit buying fish at the stores or from the war hoops then the comercial guys and war hoops wouldnt have a reason to fish, thus protecting the runs, i dont know if any of you recall but back in the day the puyallup and the white 'stuck" river had one hell of a steelhead and salmon run, now the only desent fishn is every other year when the humps run, now when it comes to the hatchery rivers, increase the numbers and be more selective about what fish they turn loose, oh and i know damn good and well that they have the ability to genectly alter salmon so when they spawn they can return to sea and come back a couple years later, ok that might be asking to much, but could you imagine 100 pound salmon that keep runnin back up are rivers, now keep in mind this is my own opinion and and by no means a fishn expert or do i claim to be scientifically in touch with fish.....

[teal101]

Its hard for me to wrap my head around how someone could be so selfish as to not care what numbers, science, or anything else says because they just want to kill. I have never personally felt the need to kill a wild steelhead but that stems from personal beliefs. How can you not care or understand that wild fish are on the brink right now? If everyone who fished the rivers where wild retention is allowed and  killed their 1 nate year after year what do you think is going to happen? Do you really want permit only? Ill keep releasing wild fish and I guess you can keep bonking them. There will come a time when you will figure it out and for the fish's sake I hope that's sooner than later.

Me as well.  I'm only 22 and started fishing for Salmon and Steelhead this August.  I've fished all my life, just not for these species.  To see these opinions is asinine to me.

[teal101]

If everyone who fished the rivers where wild retention is allowed and  killed their 1 nate year after year what do you think is going to happen?

My guess is we'll see it happen rather quickly.  The Sol Duc has been really busy the last few days, I'd be surprised if there is even room at the hatchery boat launch this weekend.
I won't even fish the river in the timeframe between hatchery steelies and springers.  So many fingers get pointed at the bonkers, but the C&R guys contribute plenty to the mortality.  I'll look and see if I can find the paper about it, but it had fish survival rates and successful spawning rates for things like proper handling, time to land, time removed from water (including the ambient air temps), number of times caught, etc.

www.wildsteelheadcoalition.org/Repository/WSR%20rpt%20full.pdf

There are many papers on it.  One that is often brought up was a study done on trout in 57* water which hardly applies to most Steelheaders here in the PNW.  The general consensus is 2-3% mortality by experienced fishers, 5% as an average for all, and 10% mortality as a buffer number. 

90-98% survival is better than 0%

[huntnnw]

I caught my first steelhead when I was 10....and didnt care to eat them then or now.  to me the guys who fish for steelhead mostly dont do it to keep them as opposed to the guys who fish for salmon do it to keep them

[TheHunt]

My personal opinion, if the native steelhead is in such poor shape the WDFW would stop the bonking.  YET, they still allow it.  The Natives gillnet the heck out of the rivers and they do not see an issue or they would stop or use different type of nets.  Don’t forget neither one of those groups care about the sea lions eating the fish.   So until the two of these groups feel it needs attention I personally think it is not as big deal as many portray.   

I am just glad those two groups have hatchery's for me to catch those fish. 

As for my opinion on scientific studies, any data can be twisted and turned to whoever wants the values to come out they want it to.  Look at the entire wolf model as an example.  I do not have time to figure out who are the zealots in the issue of native fish verses hatchery fish.