By now most Puget Sound salmon anglers have heard that North of Falcon hit a rock and sank.
The annual salmon season setting process, involving negotiations between user groups, has always been more or less successful in apportioning the resource among tribal commercials, non-tribal commercials and recreational fishermen. But in this summer of substantially lower numbers of salmon predicted to return to Puget Sound rivers, the participants could not agree.
The procedure has, until this year, resulted in a harvest plan for summer fisheries agreed to by everyone and sent to the feds, in one package, for approval. The OK by NOAA/National Marine Fisheries is necessary because some Puget Sound salmon stocks are on the Endangered Species list.
Failure to agree means each user group must design and submit its own harvest plan to the feds, and some observers said that process could take so much time that a decision wouldn’t come down until too late for all or most summer fisheries.
All of which creates the possibility of zero salmon fishing this summer.
At the last moment, however, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife and tribal representatives agreed to meet one more time. Results of the meeting, which was held Wednesday, were expected to be announced late in the day or some time Thursday, and will appear first on the department’s web site at www.wdfw.wa.gov/fishing.
Tom Nelson, host of “The Outdoor Line” on 710 ESPN (www.theoutdoorline.com), said Wednesday morning “we’re almost certainly headed to an ESA-driven scenario with NOAA/NMFS, and if our Congressional delegation doesn’t join with us to fix this thing, then I say we fire the incumbents this fall.”
Gary Krein, president of the Puget Sound Charterboat Association, was a little more hopeful. “While the sportsmen’s coalition and WDFW are working on a plan for a separate path, I’m hearing from some folks that perhaps it wouldn’t take all that long for the feds to review the whole issue and come to a decision. I don’t know, we’re in uncharted water here.”
Krein said the majority of sport fishermen he’s hearing from say a bad deal is worse than no deal at all, and that the Department of Fish and Wildlife should hold firm this time.
“Guys are saying the tribes shouldn’t be able to tell us where and how we can fish,” he said, “and we’ve shown we can accomplish conservation goals through hatchery-only and catch-and-release fisheries.”
In addition to the charterboat association and The Outdoor Line, other members of the sportfishing coalition working on this issue include Puget Sound Anglers, the Northwest Marine Trade Association, the Coastal Conservation Association, and the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association.
Lings, crab and shrimp
The Puget Sound lingcod season opens Sunday and just in time comes the 2016 Shrimp, Crab and Ling Seminar. The event is scheduled from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday at Harbor Marine in Everett (1032 W. Marine View Drive, 425-259-3285, www.harbormarine.net). Nick Kester of All Star Charters will present “Puget Sound Lingcod 101: Getting hooked up with the tastiest fish in the bay.” Tom Nelson will cover “Dropping the Pots for Shrimp and Crab: Beyond the Basics,” and representatives of CMP/MARTYR Anodes will talk about zinc and aluminum anodes to protect your boat and help make it “fishy.”
A bonus will be an update on the salmon situation along with a question-and-answer session on the status of summer fisheries. There also will be door prizes and hot deals on shrimp and crab gear, bottomfish equipment and more. The event is free.
Lake Tye Kids’ Fish-In
Chalk up another highly successful kids’ fishing day at Lake Tye in Monroe. Even though it rained most of the day on Sunday, Gary Bee of the sponsoring Sky Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited said just about everyone limited and a bunch of prizes were handed out. The largest rainbow in the kids’ event weighed 4 pounds, 1 ounce, and was caught by Russell Tucker of Gold Bar. The second-largest was caught by Hailey Howe of Stanwood, 3 pounds, 14 ounces, and third place, at 3 pounds, 13 ounces, went to Sonja Garcia of Monroe.
The adults’ derby was won by Paul Northrop, at 3 pounds, 10 ounces, and the special tagged trout was not caught.
Bass tourney
The Potholes Open Bass Tournament held April 16-17 was won by Steve Backlund and Russ Baker with 12 bass weighing 45.55 pounds. That weight included the event’s big fish, a largemouth of 7.39 pounds. Second went to Kelly Ross and Levi Meseberg with 44.78 pounds, and third to Dennis and Susan Boyd at 42.10 pounds.
MarDon Resort on Potholes Reservoir also hosted a bow fishing tournament for carp, and resort owner Mike Meseberg said the archery sport is becoming more popular each year.
Halibut competition
The annual Port Angeles Halibut Derby is scheduled for Saturday and Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, offering $20,000 in cash prizes. First place will be worth $5,000; second, $2,500; and third, $1,500. Tickets are $40 per person, for one or both days, and are available at Swain’s General Store in Port Angeles; Jerry’s Bait and Tackle, Port Angeles; and Brian’s Sporting Goods in Sequim. The only ticket outlet on this side of the pond will be Ted’s Sport Center in Lynnwood, and derby spokesman Norm Metzler said Ted’s should have tickets by this weekend.
Last year’s winner was a real beast, at 143 pounds, caught by Oregon resident Phil Flanders. Metzler said the most productive area in last year’s derby was “out toward Freshwater Bay,” and that an increasingly popular technique is to anchor in 100 or 150 feet of water and put down chum bags.
Steelhead plants
The restart of steelhead smolt planting on central and north Puget Sound rivers, after a hiatus of two years, is under way from five state hatcheries. Jim Scott, special assistant to the director of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, said the releases will be made only into the rivers on which the hatcheries are situated: 27,600 into the Wallace; 140,000 into the Skykomish from Reiter Ponds; 130,000 into the North Fork Stillaguamish from the Whitehorse Hatchery; 150,000 into the Nooksack from Kendall Creek; and 74,000 into the Snoqualmie from Tokul Creek.
For two years the smolts intended for these rivers were released into area lakes as trout plants (with the exception of the Skykomish) because a lawsuit brought by the Wild Fish Conservancy claimed the hatchery operations were not protecting wild steelhead as required by federal law. The objections were met, an agreement was reached, and NOAA/fisheries allowed operations to resume.
These hatchery steelhead will return as adults starting in the winter of 2017-18.
For more outdoor news, read Wayne Kruse’s blog at www.heraldnet.com/huntingandfishing.
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