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Emergency closure on the Nooksack!!!

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4K views 50 replies 24 participants last post by  barry w.bruington 
#1 ·
Here's the post from WDFW


Fishing to close on the Nooksack River

Action: Close the Nooksack River


Effective dates: Jan. 9 through Jan. 31, 2014.

Species affected: All species.

Locations:

The Nooksack River from mouth to the confluence of the North and South Forks.

The South Fork Nooksack from mouth to Skookum Creek.

The Middle Fork Nooksack from mouth to city of Bellingham diversion dam.

The North Fork from mouth to Nooksack Falls.

Reasons for action: The Kendall Hatchery has been unable to collect enough returning hatchery winter steelhead broodstock to meet egg take needs. Closure of the fishery is necessary to collect sufficient fish to meet egg take needs.

Other information: On Feb. 1 the fisheries will re-open to fishing as listed in the 2013-14 Fishing in Washington sport fishing pamphlet.
 
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#2 ·
Well, I thought we might get a reprieve this year when they announced the stilly closure and the Nookie wasn't on the list, but I never dreamed they would shut the whole river down. I guess when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. (0(&suckers!
 
#3 ·
So you'll get to fish from the confluence to the hatchery in the n. fork for 15 days in feb. Whoopie, I hope the fuckin river is blasted.
 
#4 ·
I guess I'll head out to the Hoh and join the parade ( insert circus music here).
 
#6 ·
Apparently, to waste money. An absolutely pathetic display.

For Kendall Creek Hatchery on the Nooksack (data for 2001-2009):



1) The worst hatchery steelhead year was 2009 with a cost of $2,485 per harvested hatchery steelhead

2) The best hatchery steelhead year was 2001 with a cost of $89 per harvested hatchery steelhead

3) The average cost per harvested hatchery steelhead for all nine years was $754
 
#8 ·
Bill McMillan. Bill did a fine job in researching and collecting all the necessary data that shows just how ridiculous these hatchery programs are in some cases.

Not to digress but here's the Skagit.

From Marblemount Hatchery on the Skagit (data for 1999-2010):
1) The worst hatchery steelhead year was 2003 with a cost of $942 per harvested hatchery steelhead

2) The best hatchery steelhead year was 2002 with a cost of $148 per harvested hatchery steelhead

3) The average cost per harvested hatchery steelhead for all 12 years was $488
 
#9 ·
Don't you just love fishing in Washington. First they close down the river because there isn't enough natives coming back. Now they shut down river because not enough hatchery fish come back. Maybe they ought to look into why their zombies aren't coming back home.
 
#10 ·
Keeping some of these hatchery programs open makes no sense.
The Puyallup was my home river as a kid. I had lots of fun days on that river, including my first steelhead.
It is now another system that gets very few hatchery steelhead returns.
I really don't see the benefit of the 25-30K smolts they dump in there. The costs are to high to get back 10 fish or so every year.
SF
 
#11 ·
If they're going to put a hatchery on the river, they should put enough smolt in to get a decent return. They know that their stock has crappy numbers, they need to adjust accordingly. The better option would be to just stop putting fish into a system that doesn't work. The steelhead program is a waste of money. End of story. Pick a river for hatchery fish, and leave the rest of the pathetic rivers alone.
 
#12 ·
Funny you should say that. Bill McMillian has a section in a new book discussing this. Interestingly, increasing smolt plants have REDUCED hatchery returns, and as a result plantings have been scaled back (i think Mr. McMilan was discussing the Skagit).

I agree wholeheartedly that stocking should cease in some places. I think more people are beginning to come to terms with this.
 
#15 ·
CB has a good point. More plants doesn't guarantee better returns.
I've always wondered what the returns would look like if they planted hatchery steelhead as fry rather then smolts.
Might be worth a try, as things can't get much worse return wise then they are now.
Perhaps growing up in a river rather then a concrete pond would make those that do survive more likely to return at a better rate?
SF
 
#17 ·
Stonefish, The hatchery plant are much larger than their wild cousins and more aggressive pushing them off the good feeding lies.
 
#21 ·
Chris,
Thanks for the reply.
That was part of my thoughts behind planting fry versus smolts. Perhaps planting them as fry may help even out the playing field.
What is worse for wild steelhead, planting 30K smolts or 30K fry? Neither are great but I'd think the fry would has less effect on wild fish.
Make it so the hatchery fry either compete or perish without giving them the added benefit of being fed or released as a larger smolt.

I know in many stillwaters I fish the fry plants seem to produce a much better quality fish then the catchables. Growing in a more natural enviroment can't hurt. Perhaps it could work for steelhead as well.

With the terrible ROI's being stated in this thread, it might be worth a try from a cost savings standpoint.

Just my thoughts. Perhaps Smalma or others could chime in on this as I'm certainly no biologist.
SF
 
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#19 ·
"From Marblemount Hatchery on the Skagit (data for 1999-2010):
1) The worst hatchery steelhead year was 2003 with a cost of $942 per harvested hatchery steelhead

2) The best hatchery steelhead year was 2002 with a cost of $148 per harvested hatchery steelhead

3) The average cost per harvested hatchery steelhead for all 12 years was $488 "

What are the numbers (Data) that determines these results??
 
#22 ·
The cost per hatchery harvested steelhead took into account a $1.00 per smolt cost x the number of smolts released = total dollar smolt amount. Divide total dollar smolt plant costs by the number of harvested hatchery steelhead and there you have it.

So, in the worst year on the Nooksack 2009, we had 146,599 smolts or $146,599. There were 59 hatchery fish harvested. $146,599 divided by 59 equals $2,484.73 per harvested hatchery steelhead in 2009 on the Nooksack river.

Bill based the $1.00 smolt cost on numbers from the State of Oregon Columbia river hatchery programs as well as estimated smolt costs for the Great Lakes programs. There is not such information available for Washington hatcheries apparently; or, they just don't want us to know.

Included in this smolt cost number is feed cost, annual hatchery operating and personnel and annual maintenance and repair. It does not appear that initial construction or major hatchery upgrade expenses were included in the Oregon or Great Lakes hatchery numbers. So, this may be a low estimate of what a smolt actually costs in this analysis.

Stunning picture isn't it.
Ed
 
#23 ·
"The cost per hatchery harvested steelhead took into account a $1.00 per smolt cost x the number of smolts released = total dollar smolt amount. Divide total dollar smolt plant costs by the number of harvested hatchery steelhead and there you have it.

So, in the worst year on the Nooksack 2009, we had 146,599 smolts or $146,599. There were 59 hatchery fish harvested. $146,599 divided by 59 equals $2,484.73 per harvested hatchery steelhead in 2009 on the Nooksack river."

Very CREATIVE indeed...

I'm sure if I wanted to create "gloom n doom", I'd use the same "logic" that someone took the time to dream up with this math equation.

How sad!!!

BTW...did it take into consideration, the number of tags purchased, the number of people fished the river, the number of hours fished, and the number of tags returned to the fish & game agency to come up with "rate of return"???

How many total fish returned and how many escaped the fisherman's onslaught???
 
#24 ·
Stonefish -
Folks have experiment with steelhead fry releases to enhance steelhead populations for years. In fact the earliest steelhead hatchery efforts (early 1900s) would put a weir across a tributary stream, collect adults, spawn them, and release the resulting fry back into the stream (and elsewhere). Typically such programs would last 6 to 8 years before they ran out of returning adults and needed to move some other stream that still had returning wild adults - the return from those releases was essentially zero. It was not until the old Department of Game figured out that they needed to rear young steelhead to smolt size (about 1950) did the hatchery programs begin producing significant returns. Remember form the early 1950s to the late 1980s the release of hatchery smolts (of acceptable size) were pretty successful in getting adult steelhead back to rivers. In 1983/84 the estimate of the hatchery return to the Snohomish system was over 26,000 adults (it is that kind of success that probably still drives some of the desire to continue to release hatchery fish with the hope marine survival conditions would improve).

Studies 30 and 40 years ago looked at the fate of steelhead fry released in streams (sorry don't have a citation). The basic finding was that only those fry that were able to find rearing "niches" in the first 100 meters or so were able to establish territories the rest simply disappeared. To successfully introduce fry one would have literally release a handful of fry every 100 meters or so (still expecting most to simply disappear immediately); those few that found rear areas still would have to survival the same sort of mortality that the wild fish (remember just a fraction of 1% of the eggs a female puts in the gravel will survive to return as an adult.

More to the point the release of hatchery fry in the wild would have significant hatchery/wild impacts. Frist question would be where to get the eggs (if hatchery brood stock is used and the fry scattered through out the system there would be no collection point. Using wild fish for brood stock would simply be a mining exercise of the wild population that would likely produce fewer returning adults than if the wild brood stock was left to do their own thing. Further any fry that were so lucky to find a rearing niche would become direct competitors to the wild for the two years it would take for them to become smolts.

In short replacing the hatchery steelhead with a fry program would like produce fewer returning adults than the current program (is a negative return possible LOL) with a dramatic increase in hatchery/wild interactions/impacts.

Curt
 
#26 ·
Yep...gloom n doom indeed. Out of those 146,599 smolt released. There were 59 fish harvested and another 109 that actually made it back to the hatchery. Pretty piss poor performance. The Kendall creek winter steelhead hatchery program is absolutely pathetic.

Total return = 168 Kendall creek hatchery steelhead...period.
 
#28 ·
Last count there were 32 steelhead @ the hatchery, out of 100,000+ released.
 
#31 ·
Ed -
"Yep...gloom n doom indeed. Out of those 146,599 smolt released. There were 59 fish harvested and another 109 that actually made it back to the hatchery. Pretty piss poor performance. The Kendall creek winter steelhead hatchery program is absolutely pathetic.

Total return = 168 Kendall creek hatchery steelhead...period.

Ok so just for the record I am not a supporter of the hatchery on the Skagit - they got 900 fish back last year and it looks even more bleak on the Nooksack - not cost effective one bit - UNDERSTOOD.
But this mechanism and cost per hatchery harvest did not take into account many other items, that some in government would use to justify this program - the angler had to buy a license (money to the state), he had to purchase a rod, waders, boots, lures, gas to get to the river. He maybe bought a Ding-Don at a gas station with a cup of coffee. We understand that Forks gets about a 1million dollar (That is what I heard) injection into their economy each Steelhead season. So while I would like to see these hatcheries closed there are other aspects of the hatchery/harvest ROI that were not taken into account - Does that justify them, no - but we need to prove first that the hatchery fish take a toll on the long term recovery of the wild fish (should be easy). Second (much harder) that a CnR wild fishery will bring in the revenue that is perceived this hatchery program does - but on a regional economy.
 
#40 ·
Ed -
"Yep...gloom n doom indeed. Out of those 146,599 smolt released. There were 59 fish harvested and another 109 that actually made it back to the hatchery. Pretty piss poor performance. The Kendall creek winter steelhead hatchery program is absolutely pathetic.

Total return = 168 Kendall creek hatchery steelhead...period.

Ok so just for the record I am not a supporter of the hatchery on the Skagit - they got 900 fish back last year and it looks even more bleak on the Nooksack - not cost effective one bit - UNDERSTOOD.
But this mechanism and cost per hatchery harvest did not take into account many other items, that some in government would use to justify this program - the angler had to buy a license (money to the state), he had to purchase a rod, waders, boots, lures, gas to get to the river. He maybe bought a Ding-Don at a gas station with a cup of coffee. We understand that Forks gets about a 1million dollar (That is what I heard) injection into their economy each Steelhead season. So while I would like to see these hatcheries closed there are other aspects of the hatchery/harvest ROI that were not taken into account - Does that justify them, no - but we need to prove first that the hatchery fish take a toll on the long term recovery of the wild fish (should be easy). Second (much harder) that a CnR wild fishery will bring in the revenue that is perceived this hatchery program does - but on a regional economy.
Intuitively, using the 'Sac as an example, I am hard pressed to believe a river that kicks out 59 fish a year helps sell much gas, tags, rods, reels, etc. I would assume some kind of larger ROI argument is made regarding hatchery supplementation, but when only 109 harvestable fish are produced, the ROI is tiny. I actually assume at $150K to produce, the ROI is actually negative. As noted earlier a fair amount of capital expense is probably not included in the $ figure, so costs are higher.

You'd probably get better ROI using half the funds for fish production on the 'Sac to offer license discounts, free rods and reels and gas cards to the anglers who fished this river.
 
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