Sports

<< Previous   of   Next >>   ADVERTISEMENT   CONTACT THE HERALD Report scores and results to 425-339-3470 or 1-866-6-SCORES (Call after 4:30 p.m.) E-mail information including items for Tuesday's Communities Sports Roundup and Thursday's Outdoor Calendar, to sports@heraldnet.com Kevin Brown, Sports Editor kbrown@heraldnet.com   Published: Thursday, April 17, 2008 Salmon anglers take big hit By Wayne Kruse, Herald Writer It looked for a while like Washington anglers might get away unscathed this summer from the Pacific salmon disaster which will close seasons completely in California and much of Oregon, but it turns out we'll have to ante up as well. The "North of Falcon" season-setting process, involving state, feds, tribes, non-tribal commercials and recreationists is over, and sport fishermen have taken some licks. Our neighbors down the coast will suffer the most, simply because the precipitous drop in some salmon numbers is particularly dramatic in Sacramento River chinook stocks. That doesn't affect us much, but we have our own depressed runs to worry about. Probably foremost are Columbia River coho, where predictions are for less than half the number of returning adults as last year, which wasn't a particularly robust run, either. Only a certain number of these fish may be taken in the mixed-stock fishery off the coast, so Westport, Ilwaco, LaPush and Neah Bay summer salmon fisheries will be shortened and quotas lowered. Because the chinook picture is marginally better, however, the season will start earlier than normal this year, on June 1 in marine areas 1-4, giving anglers an opportunity to harvest hatchery chinook while protecting later-running Columbia River coho. In north Puget Sound, the culprit is named Stillaguamish River chinook, and this badly depressed run will drive season and opportunity restrictions on down the line. Particularly since the tribes have insisted on fishing close-by Skagit Bay for relatively healthy populations of Skagit River chinook and Baker River sockeye. A few Stilly fish figure into the Skagit Bay incidental take, and even just a few adults from this run means the loss must be made up elsewhere. The federal cap can't be adjusted. Retired Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist Curt Kraemer, now a recreational advocate, said that in fairness the recreational fishery takes twice as many incidental Stilly chinook as the tribes' nets, and 10 times as many as the non-Indian commercial fishery, and it seems reasonable that anglers bear the brunt of the inevitable cuts. So Stillaguamish chinook become an important factor in the hugely popular "selective" summer season for fin-clipped adult kings in marine areas 9 and 10. Anglers have been drooling while they waited for the second edition of this happy hatchery fishery, the first one for adult chinook in our back yard in years. But hey, guess what? Area 9 is closer to the Stilly than Area 10. And there is likely to be a slightly higher incidental mortality on a few genetically valuable Stilly chinook in Area 9 than in Area 10. Now what does that mean? You saw this one coming, didn't you? The total quota for adult chinook in the two-area fishery remains the same as last year, at 7,000 fish, but there's a major difference in how it's structured. It's a little complicated, and the terms are obscure, but the bottom line is that anglers in Area 10 will be able to catch more chinook in the selective fishery this summer, and those fish will be taken away from anglers in Area 9. Possession Bar and other top spots are included in Area 9, a convenient run for boaters from Everett and Edmonds. All Star Charters owner Gary Krein in Everett, a long-time sport fishing activist and major player in the North of Falcon process, said that the numbers last summer in the mid-July fishery were 5,300 kings for Area 9 and 1,700 for Area 10. This summer, he said, the harvest has been moved southward, with a ceiling of 4,000 in 9 and 3,000 in 10. "Last year, Area 9 stayed open for 13 days," Krein said. "With the lower quota, we'll be lucky to be able to fish for a week." More bad news is the closure, to all extents and purposes, of the popular Stillaguamish River fall coho fishery. The river won't open to fishing until November 1. Still more bad news is the change to a selective coho season in Area 9 from July 16 to Sept. 15. Only fin-clipped silvers may be kept during that time frame, and only about half the hatchery coho coming through the area were clipped as juvenile fish. The arithmetic says you've just reduced the coho success rate in Area 9 during the peak of the fall season by about 75 percent. The state and tribes, making this decision without public discussion, almost hamstrung the big and very popular Everett Coho Derby, scheduled for Sept. 20-21. Only a major outcry made them back the selective issue off a couple of weeks. There will be a coho/chum fishery allowed this fall, in the south end of Area 8-2 during October, Krein said, which was closed last year. More bad news with the closure of areas 8-1 and 8-2 to all salmon fishing during the months of November and December. A change from last year and a loss of two months of winter blackmouth time. The Tulalip bubble will open June 15, two weeks later than last year's June 1 opener. On a more positive note, one significant change from last year is that the Strait of Juan de Fuca in marine areas 5 and 6 will be open for chinook and coho, July 1 to Aug. 9, with a two-fish limit. "Generally, the sport fisherman made out very badly this time around," Krein said. "Terrible results. We took significant cuts in both time on the water and the quality of the opportunities we were left." I believe Gary Krein was as angry as I've ever heard him, and other recreational fishing advocates knowledgeable about the process weren't any happier. But at least we have the opportunity to put a hook in the water in this down year, however limited, and that's more than a lot of Californians and Oregonians can say. Mike Chamberlain at Ted's Sport Center in Lynnwood said that this year's salmon problems will also affect Alaska fisheries. He said recreational fishermen heading to southeast Alaska (Sitka and others) should expect one-chinook limits and 48-inch minimum lengths in some areas during some time periods. Be sure to check before booking, he said. HALIBUT: The April 10 in-Sound halibut opener fell during some big, bad tides, but fishermen with some idea of what they were doing still nailed fish. Ron Garner, prez of Sno-King Chapter, Puget Sound Anglers, boated a trophy 132-pounder, and though he hesitated to say where, the smart money is on either Partridge or Eastern bank. Mike Chamberlain said he had reports of a few halibut from Mutiny Bay to 70 pounds, and that another party of three checked in with three fish going 33 to 76 pounds, also from either Partridge or Eastern bank. Remember that the big Port Angeles halibut bash is coming up Memorial Day weekend, he said. Curt Kraemer (above) said he and two friends fished Mutiny Bay, boating two halibut of about 30 pounds, losing another, and bringing in a 6-pound blackmouth. He said they saw two other fish caught for about 15 boats in the area, but they heard the better fishing was on Admiralty Bay, off Keystone. Both Chamberlain and Kraemer said better tides this weekend should provide top opportunity for halibut anglers. State checks at the Port of Everett ramp on April 11 showed 33 boats with 6 halibut; on Saturday, 107 boats with 8 blackmouth and 7 halibut; and Sunday, 52 boats with 2 blackmouth and 8 halibut. Saturday was top dog at the Cornet Bay ramp near Deception Pass, the launch from which a lot of anglers access the banks on the eastern Strait. Some 57 boats there were checked with 6 blackmouth and 8 halibut. The best halibut fishing in the area, no surprise, was found farther out the Strait. Checks at Ediz Hook in Port Angeles on Saturday, for instance, tallied 41 halibut for 64 boats. DERBY RESULTS: The Stanwood Hotel & Saloon derby over the weekend drew a pretty good crowd, and they took some nice fish. Marilyn Guthrie said the prize winners -- a shy bunch -- preferred not to give their names, but first place and $1,215 went to a fish of 15 pounds, 12 ounces, caught in Area 8-1 on flasher/squid; second and $675 to a fish of 15 pounds, 2 ounces, caught in Area 8-1 on flasher/squid; third and $405 to a fish of 12 pounds, 14 ounces, caught in Area 8-2 on herring; and fourth and $135 to a fish of 10 pounds, 1 ounce, caught on herring in Area 8-2. TROUT: While waiting for the April 26 lake opener, try Goodwin, Tye, Blackman's or Flowing, or Stevens for kokanee, said guide and avid angler Sam Ingram of Arlington. The trout lakes are cold and no slam dunk, he said, but he has scored using a size 6 brown woolly bugger about 18 inches behind some type of single-blade spinner. Fish it shallow and very slowly, he said.

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