Watching Our Water Ways

Washington state’s salmon managers provided so much interesting information on Tuesday that I could not fit it all into my story in yesterday’s Kitsap Sun.

Pat Pattillo, salmon policy coordinator for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, deserves recognition for his patience with me and the numerous sport and commercial fishers who ask him questions. He and WDFW Director Phil Anderson are two of the most mild-mannered guys you will ever know, and yet they manage to work through tough salmon negotiations year after year.

Let me recount some of the issues expected to come up over the next few weeks, with a focus on things not covered in my story.

— Ocean chinook fishing should be up this year, with run size up higher by 234,000 fish. If selective fishing is adopted, recreational fishers should have plenty of time on the water this summer, and the charter boats should do well.

— Ocean coho fishing could be down this year. About 390,000 returns are forecast, compared to about 1 million last year. It is not yet clear how reduced quotas will translate to time on the water. (If the catch is down, fewer people usually go out, which can extend the seasons.)

— In addition to protecting threatened and endangered salmon species, new state regulations are designed to protect rockfish, three of which are likely to be listed under the Endangered Species Act before salmon season begins. See NOAA Fisheries. For most areas of Puget Sound, you must return any rockfish you catch and fishing for bottomfish is prohibited in waters deeper than 120 feet. In Hood Canal, no fishing for bottomfish is allowed.

— Fishing in the Skokomish River could go selective this year. The number of anglers has been growing in recent years. Human waste problems became acute last year, and everybody will be watching the health issues next time around. This fishery could be a hot topic, since managers for WDFW and the Skokomish Tribe must figure out a way to reduce the exploitation rate on wild salmon from 60 percent to below 50 percent, as proposed in the new management plan for chinook.

— Tribal managers are leery of the state’s ability to manage a selective fishery in the Skokomish River. In the Nisqually, selective fishing apparently has worked, but the Skokomish involves far more fishers and remains somewhat untamed. Both state and tribal managers would like to resolve ongoing conflicts on the river between state and tribal fishers.

— In Hood Canal, last year’s four-fish limit for coho will be reduced to two. Hood Canal might become be a driver stock — meaning low returns could limit fishing in other areas — but that will be determined through modeling. There is some talk about a selective fishery in Hood Canal.

— Director Anderson talked about budget problems, saying it will be difficult to add selective fisheries in most areas, because they take more staff for monitoring and enforcement. The Skokomish selective fishery could be funded through a special account set aside to improve coded-wire tag data in freshwater fisheries. (Coded wires, imbedded in the fish heads, provide info about the specific stocks of origin.)

— Concerns continue for coho in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, but measures adopted the past few years to protect Thompson River coho in British Columbia may be adequate to protect those returning to rivers in the Strait without reducing fishing seasons.

— Coho numbers look pretty good for rivers in North Puget Sound, namely the Skagit, Stillaguamish and Snohomish.

— Conservation efforts negotiated under the Pacific Salmon Treaty with Canada will allow more fish to return to the United States, but those fish must be passed through to spawning grounds. Under the treaty, the U.S. fishery cannot be allowed to scoop up savings negotiated in the treaty, officials said.

— A plan to protect threatened Puget Sound chinook will expire this year. State officials hope NOAA Fisheries will approve an interim plan based on a draft that the state has submitted to the feds and is currently undergoing review.

— With less snowpack in the mountains, managers will need to keep an eye on what streamflows are doing to salmon stocks. Where salmon have not entered streams because of low flows, fishing may be restricted to protect fish waiting in front of rivers for higher flows.

— Anderson said he has heard the call from people who would like to discontinue fishing altogether for a number of years to allow threatened stocks to recover. While that would provide a temporary increase in returns to the rivers, it would do nothing to address habitat issues, which ultimately limit salmon production. Anderson said he does not want to give a “free pass” to those responsible for restoring habitat.

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Tags: Chinook salmon, coho salmon, Fish, fishing, Hood Canal, Salmon, Skokomish, Skokomish River, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 4th, 2010 at 4:30 pm by cdunagan and is filed under Fish, Fishing interests, Oceans, Recreation, Salmon, Streams, Tribes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.