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WDFW Looking at restrictions for steelhead season

29K views 363 replies 80 participants last post by  cjemerson1991 
#1 ·
Here's a link to the article. Four options presented. Guides are weighing in and I'm sure the department will pander away to them as they have cause they get their fees and the rec fees as well in one boat so to speak. I'm an option 3 at a minimum with option 4 being my second choice. No fishing from a boat should be instituted on more rivers before and after now. The D in Oregon works and experiences high use. No, is not perfect but it is a better scene than the side drifting pornography winter steelhead has become in western Washington. It's time steelhead anglers got creative and learned to fish again without dragging an offering out of a boat. Option 2 is attractive from a comedic angle just to see the show all be in forks at once. Could you imagine. There will be lots of crying and wailing. What do we think?

 
#51 ·
BDD-
I believe the policy was 10% impacts (dead fish) not 10% encounters. Typically that is that sort of impact on a wild stock is what is allowed while targeting say hatchery fish or another species. It seems to me that is a reach for wild only steelhead fishery that is expected to be under-escaped.

Curt
 
#52 ·
While probably the least popular, I think #4 is the answer, if escapement isn't met and the numbers are accurate. @Salmo_g

No fishing from the boat seems reasonable, but for me I haven't been out to the OP for quite a while now. Am planning on a few Skagit and Sauk trips, got an opportunity to float the Sauk and actually never had. Closer and can do a day trip!

I do miss the Queets and would love to explore that further, even float it. James Mello took me out there a few times and it was one of the prettiest areas that I've been in WA. Hope it's stayed the same.

Don't know what the answer is, but for me I say leave the fish alone for a bit. Been tried, but it's better than the cluster that can go on out there. Won't be popular with guides and I sympathize, but it will be interesting to see what the WDFW does and how all of the affected stakeholders take it.

Happy Thanksgiving! Time to head down south, Belize, and chase bones and tarpon. The water is warm and the beer is cold!! Sounds good to me!
 
#56 ·
Chris/Ryan/WW-
Given the huge role that resident rainbows played in the recovery of steelhead (summer-runs) in the Elwha our argue to WDFW has to be that only chance our steelhead have in the near future lies in a robust resident rainbow population. Those rainbows will represent that major genetic reserve of our once great steelhead.

Given the ages of those rainbows (age 3 to age 10) and the high mortality of released bait caught trout (30%) to develop that resident rainbow population strict catch and release of all trout under selective gear rules on any anadromous stream during any fishery; includes those directed towards salmon.

The State has demonstrated that it has been unable to improve the habitat to meet the resources basic needs. Equally the excessive early smolt survive in Puget Sound has not bee addressed. Literally the last bullet remaining in the gun for our O. mykiss in anadromous streams is those resident rainbows. It will likely take a focused concerned angler effort hammering on WDFW for as long as it may take to accomplish the needed change. Unfortunately I doubt that we as a group have the will to carry that task to completion.

Curt
 
#58 ·
Plant the hell out of every ditch, creek, and river with summer steelhead and keep the rivers open to Jan31. Steelhead will be available from May to Jan to catch and keep, you can call your December summer run a winter if it makes you feel better. A limited number of true winters will be encountered before shutdown...That's my idea. It won't fly, but oh well....
 
#63 ·
I believe they use to. I remember in the 90's and 2000's that the S rivers had hatcheries. One could fish the nf, sky, cow, Kalama, etc. Thanksgiving used to be the winter kick off with the cow and sky being prime. Plenty of fishing opportunities spread out. Until someone one cried save the wild ones. Then hatcheries go and look where we are at.
 
#59 ·
Here is an excerpt from a paper I posted earlier this year by Jim Lichatowich, it's in the conservation forum if you care to read the whole thing.

Author Richard Powers has condensed the importance of genetics into an easily understandable statement. He was speaking of plants and forests, but the idea is applicable to salmon.

"At some time over the last 400 million years, some plant [or for our purposes some fish] has tried every strategy with a remote chance of working. We're just beginning to realize how varied a thing working (emphasis added) might be. Life has a way of talking to the future. It's called memory. It's called genes. To solve the future, we must save the past.51
Life tells a story of survival to future generations of trees, wild salmon and all living beings. That story is written in their genes."
The future of salmon depends on the how well the present generation of salmon can talk to future generations of salmon about the lessons acquired during their long evolutionary testing. The best hope for the future of salmon is to save the past, save those priceless lessons. Unfortunately, the hatchery, which is the primary tool of commodity-oriented salmon management, rewrites the story of wild salmon survival acquired through evolutionary trial and error. Adaptation to the hatchery environment occurs rapidly in a single generation. The change can be significant. First generation hatchery steelhead trout showed a difference in the expression of 723 genes compared to wild steelhead.52
The question is, which survival story, the one contained in the genes of wild salmon and steelhead or the altered story in the genes of hatchery salmon and steelhead, will be more beneficial to future generations? If the answer is the wild salmon's survival story, the region must quickly change salmon management's status quo.
 
#61 ·
Everyone is an armchair expert, I’m no different. My solution to this situation on the coast is really simple: all steelhead anglers are issued a punchcard (like we have for salmon retention), but this card is for the 7 days we choose to fish in the spring. Before you start to fish for the day, you have to punch that day on your card. This system allows for equal opportunity, and keeps crowding down. Guides can still work. If it costs almost nothing, reduces impacts considerably, keeps things open and is easy to enforce, why wouldn’t it be a great option?
 
#62 ·
Everyone is an armchair expert, I'm no different. My solution to this situation on the coast is really simple: all steelhead anglers are issued a punchcard (like we have for salmon retention), but this card is for the 7 days we choose to fish in the spring. Before you start to fish for the day, you have to punch that day on your card. This system allows for equal opportunity, and keeps crowding down. Guides can still work. If it costs almost nothing, reduces impacts considerably, keeps things open and is easy to enforce, why wouldn't it be a great option?
In your system I would go get a guide license and party on.....
 
#69 ·
Any regulation that prevents bank-walking anglers from catch and release fishing that intends to kill zero steelhead while allowing gillnet fisheries that intend to kill as many as possible to continue seems a bit misguided, if the goal is conservation, that is. All I will say about that.

I think guiding should be limited to a select group of guides. Those who live locally (I'm talking Western OP here) get the first dibs on permits. We also need to get creative to limit the impact each guide can have each day. Maybe reduce the number of hooking encounters by placing a reasonable limit on how many fish an angler can land before they have to start fishing hookless lures, for example....

No fishing from boats would certainly reduce encounters, but as was pointed out earlier, that might not have a positive impact on the fishing experience, because it would concentrate everyone into the relatively few places where fish are accessible by wading. Probably a win for the fish, though....

Taking us off the water is not a conservation measure; it's a preservation measure. Once that transition occurs, it's all over... For fishing, and not long after, for the steelhead themselves. If we've reached that point, so be it, but I personally hope I'll be allowed to spend my 10-12 days working to hook maybe 4 or 5 fish each year a little longer.
 
#82 ·
My favorite daydream is to let anyone who wants to be a guide do so, but put a hard cap on the number of rod days (with a maximum number per day on any given river) and sell them off at auction.

Guides that provide an experience that's worth whatever the daily cost comes to in an open auction format do well, those that don't eventually do something else for a living.

Of course you'd have to enforce the rules. I was recently on a Columbia trib that supposedly requires permits to float, which I duly secured well in advance, only to see 5-10X the number of guide boats working that stretch of the river. And this was on a weekday.
 
#72 · (Edited)
WA is overpopulated for the resource and other states and countries are creating rules to limit the impact of WA people, while being sure to get revenue from our visits.

However, WA is not as big of a destination and we have many "day trippers". Maybe a 5th option is to reduce fishing, charge a large premium for selected number of permits and help fund the work that needs to be done?

I can assure you the guides are not limited by the supply of clients and adding a $1000/day "wild steelhead" fee would hardly impact the number of people wanting to catch a trophy fish. It may even add to the marketing appeal.
 
#73 · (Edited)
It is a shame that we have let our fisheries deteriorate to the point of having to implement such conservation measures, intentionally trying to reduce encounters but unfortunately that is where we are at.

I think it would be interesting to put a single barbless hook, no bait, no fishing from a floating device on the entire region just as an experiment to see how much it would reduce angling effort. The only exception would be for disabled anglers. Put those restrictions on and see how many people still want to fish. I wonder if there would be so many as to clog up runs like folks are predicting? It would likely greatly reduce guided fishing (except for the non-bead fly guides) except to those operations that have been in the business the longest with the most established clientele but as stated, guides already have one of the highest encounter rates by any user group and that would the the whole point. I think it would be a great experiment for the department to see how much angler effort is reduced and what the CPUE would be. Of course this would require an extensive creel program and there would be a lot of complaints but there will be lots of complaints if there is no fishing and/or when the populations become listed so really the department will need to prepare for the public outcry regardless of what happens.
 
#76 ·
I think it would be interesting to put a single barbless hook, no bait, no fishing from a floating device on the entire region just as an experiment to see how much it would reduce angling effort.
Upon reading this, my first thought was, "Hey, that's how I've been steelhead fishing for nearly 50 years. Upon further consideration, I think as a regulation, that would be the surest way to reduce steelhead encounter rates on the coast since most fish are caught be anglers fishing with guides from boats. Funny tho, it would have no impact on me.
 
#78 ·
The problem is guides. Eliminate them and there is no problem. Eliminate guides.
It is really not a hard exercise at all.
Go Sox,
cds
While the problem might be guides in many cases, it doesn't seem fair to eliminate them! I mean they're small business guys just making a living doing what they love to do! Sure limit them to certain days, but getting rid of them isn't fair or the American way.

I don't use guides very often, but see their value and support my guide friends! It's hard enough to make a living in the FF industry.... what's next, close all shops, and only buy online... hard to figure out wader sizes or buy rods and lines if you can't at least test them out!
 
#85 ·
I've ranted on this far too often - living in the Columbia basin (home of the Wenatchee, Methow, Entiat, Okanagan, Similkameen, and the main stem of the "upper" Columbia) there are no more steelheading opportunities (legal opportunities). There aren't enough wild fish returning to meet any kind of escapement goals. Yes, I miss fishing the W, M, O, S and main stem. In order to fish for steelhead now - I'm joining the throngs on the OP but since that's a long, long way for me and I don't know jack about those rivers, I want to fish with a guide.

Walk and wade fishing takes time, locating those fisherman less runs (is there such a thing)? I don't think I have that kind of time. I'd be happy to leave the beads and glo-bugs alone and happily pay a guide to at least put me on a couple of runs (I love swinging flies). Sounds like finding that run with the guide armada isn't the easiest thing anymore.

I wonder how much longer it will be before the OP steelhead rivers are closed because of ESA listings? Where ya going to go? Alaska? BC - oh yeah, the Thompson, right on: chum roe)?

Sure easy to rant I don't have a solution. This armchair quarterback got benched.
 
#88 ·
I've ranted on this far too often - living in the Columbia basin (home of the Wenatchee, Methow, Entiat, Okanagan, Similkameen, and the main stem of the "upper" Columbia) there are no more steelheading opportunities (legal opportunities). There aren't enough wild fish returning to meet any kind of escapement goals. Yes, I miss fishing the W, M, O, S and main stem. In order to fish for steelhead now - I'm joining the throngs on the OP but since that's a long, long way for me and I don't know jack about those rivers, I want to fish with a guide.

Walk and wade fishing takes time, locating those fisherman less runs (is there such a thing)? I don't think I have that kind of time. I'd be happy to leave the beads and glo-bugs alone and happily pay a guide to at least put me on a couple of runs (I love swinging flies). Sounds like finding that run with the guide armada isn't the easiest thing anymore.

I wonder how much longer it will be before the OP steelhead rivers are closed because of ESA listings? Where ya going to go? Alaska? BC - oh yeah, the Thompson, right on: chum roe)?

Sure easy to rant I don't have a solution. This armchair quarterback got benched.
It is certainly different regionally. What has happened to the Columbia Basin is different than the issue on the OP.

The Columbia Basin steelhead recovery, on a perfect day, is a tiny fraction of the potential unless you remove the Chief Joseph, Grand Coulee, Hell's Canyon area dams.

So we are trading hatchery fish and fishing for the warm feeling we get when a wild steelhead returns.
 
#86 ·
To me it seems the best three ways to reduce impacts are to implement gear restrictions, remove guides and remove fishing from boats.

I'm all for gear restrictions although this wouldn't go over good with a lot of folks. Removing bait and making barbless hooks mandatory, with perhaps even a hooks size restriction are sort of inarguable from a mortality/impact saving standpoint. That should be the first step considered before limiting fishing opportunity.

If we're at the point where impact has gotta go lower than simple gear restriction (we've been here for years without real action) then someone has to get shafted. Taking away fishing from a boat would do two things- first and most importantly, it would drastically reduce fish encounters, and the gear guys would all throw a hissy fit. Good for conservation. Second and never really mentioned, is that it would make all the good fly fishing bars and bank spots a freaking zoo. It would significantly bottle anglers into specific water and not be terribly enjoyable for the angler unless you enjoy riverside MMA matches between retired egg-drifting pluggers and the defiant hordes of spey-folk. But in the case of reducing impacts where the state decides to cave somewhere, this would probably be the most likely. But as a standalone rule, guides would be allowed to function to some degree and still be fairly happy.

The day the state outlaws guiding is when there's no longer a functioning state government due to a nuclear apocalypse and a gun-toting Spey Jesus named MacPhearson is the de-facto overlord of Forks.
Strictly from a money, jobs and PR perspective I just can't see the state ever caving here. I'd argue that the boat restriction would be more effective too in limiting impact, although the guide restriction would lower angler numbers.

As far as the decision to be made, I think WDFW will eliminate a season before they decide to target one of their constituent groups with restrictions, and in turn we'll all be pissed off- just based on history. It's funny how they phrase certain things- "we don't want to eliminate bait/catch and keep for resident rainbows (steelhead) because we don't want to limit opportunity" yet they'll happily close entire fisheries/rivers/marine areas indefinitely because of angler impact on stocks of fish.

As rec anglers we're all just mad that we bear the heaviest brunt of everyone's collective failure to protect the resource. But if the science says the rivers need to be closed.... I'd tell science to investigate impacts of gillnets and commercial fisheries and keep that same energy, and then agree to do what's best to protect and rehab our fish stocks.

And, maybe salmon shouldn't be a product available on every supermarket shelf and restaurant. Just sayin.
We should all get together and convince the world that Yellow Perch is the new great wonderfood.
 
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#93 ·
As far as the decision to be made, I think WDFW will eliminate a season before they decide to target one of their constituent groups with restrictions,
Yeah, and that doesn't make a lick of sense. Non-treaty commercial and treaty fishers make up less than 2% of WA's population. So the other 98% of us includes the taxpayers and fishing license buyers that provide the revenue that keeps the doors open and lights on at the Natural Resources Building, yet WDFW doesn't hesitate for a second to throw sport fishing under the bus at nearly every turn. Therefore it is completely inconsistent that they hesitate to further fracture us marginal segments within the sport fishing group to help achieve actual conservation objectives like reducing steelhead encounters with fishing gear.
 
#91 ·
I did my part more than ten years ago when I decided to stop fishing for steelhead. I‘m old enough and lucky enough to have caught more than my share of steelhead back in the 70’s and 80’s. The best thing we could do to save the fishery is leave them alone, not harass them to extinction.
 
#94 ·
The best thing we could do to save the fishery is leave them alone, not harass them to extinction.
Yes and no. Not fishing for fish is always the best thing for fish, especially from a fish's point of view. On the other hand, anglers, especially heavily invested (time and or money) anglers are the most outspoken advocates on behalf of fish. Add that to the fact that in the vast preponderance of cases, CNR fishing for steelhead has no measurable adverse effect on population abundance and the argument against such restrictive fisheries gets very weak very fast.
 
#100 ·
I think the state is leaving an awful lot of money on the table, for no apparent reason. Just copying BC's regulations and fee structure would be an easy way to start.

Washington could increase the cost of obtaining an out-of-state license to fish for wild steelhead on the OP by a factor of 4 or 10 and there'd still be plenty of people who would gladly hand over the money to have that experience, and it'd still be a good value relative to most other destination fishing experiences.
It would do nothing. There would still be a bunch of guided fishemen. Honestly, nothing positive happens but revenue generation. No positive. None. Nada. Zilch.
Guides are the problem. This is really simple. Guides get prople who can't fish to catch fish. They advertize the resource as do their clients. Fishermen (not guide jons) who want to catch a fish, can't find water or fish because it's been privatized by guides. It is no different than Europe now. Pay to play or no soup for you.
Guodes are the problem. Eliminate guides = no problem.
This is not hard.

Go Sox,
cds
 
#101 ·
Agreed. I just thought it was strange that the state was leaving money on the table by not charging a non-residents a significant premium to fish premium water. Nothing to do with conservation.

Putting a hard cap on rod days that's about 1/5th the current number, putting up a fraction of those days for guides to bid on at auction, eliminating bait and fishing from boats would probably lead to modest improvements in the fishery.
 
#102 ·
eliminating bait and fishing from boats would probably lead to modest improvements in the fishery.
Anglers fishing with guides who fish from boats account of a majority of the encounters with steelhead. Prohibit fishing from boats and Shazaam!, you eliminate that majority of encounters with steelhead. No other single action short of closing rivers completely does as much to reduce encounters.
 
#103 · (Edited)
Family and friends have told me for years I should try to be a guide. My response is that I hate people first off and a guide is someone who has come to grips that the fish are literally fucked and might as well exploit as much as possible and pretty much fuck everyone else and the fish. Unless you are completely a CNR guide and you fish like a normal person and don't plant yourself at the "hole" for the next thousand years then maybe. It's shitty that if you want to catch larger fish or even a fish to eat you have to be fishing with others or travel extremely far and waste a bunch of money. Or you have to launch your boat 2 hours before the sun even thinks of showing just to "claim" a spot. Not to say that all guides are turds, I like the idea of the guiding that Nick Clayton does, his focus seems to be on CNR for cutts, and also for catch and keep hatchery coho. Showing the right kind of people good spots to return to fish and be the eyes and ears of those spots. He fishes the sound that has a regular stocking of hatchery coho so as not to be smashing a wild population of other fish by catch and keep. This is a positive guide giving positive results to anglers that care.
 
#104 ·
Definitely a weird vibe...rivers today are kind of like photos of *pick a WA town* from 100 years ago. There aren't any trees and yet there was still tons of logging, racing up the watersheds higher and higher. My town looked like moonscape! Now, we have awesome 80-year stands that have been preserved close to town that everybody can enjoy...we have nice trees throughout the town, too, including a beautiful arboretum where a barren hilltop once was.

I'm not sure that we're in a cultural era where the fishing can recover. NT commercial, treaty fishing, and widespread guide traffic are here to stay. It is apparently everybody's God-given right to pillage a public resource, because somebody else once pillaged it and the genie is out of the bottle. I'm a little jaded since I lately spent a bunch of hours on a beautiful river that should've been full of fish. Instead, it was nearly empty.
 
#106 ·
I must be the odd one out. I think this is incredibly complex, and probably not solvable in the long run. I understand wdfw needs to be seen as taking action, particularly to a certain audience who may benefit from rec fishing restrictions. But mildly diminishing rec impacts on wild steelhead isn't going to do anything for long-term escapement. Neither is the dream of ending tribal netting. The ocean looks hostile, and while some of that may be cyclical, a lot of it is not. The deck is seriously stacked against these poor fish. Stopping harvest isn't going to bail them out.

I advocate continued low (lower) impact recreational fisheries, and would rather further limit my (already limited) ability to hook a wild steelhead, than take the last advocates for these great fish (recreational steelhead fishermen) out of the equation. I'm fine with boat and gear and guide restrictions, but let a poor guy have a chance at a hookup, and preserve a chance for the last desperate advocates for these fish to keep plying the waters.

Looking at my numbers the last few years, I'm definitely not responsible for their demise!

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