The state Fish and Wildlife Commission’s decision earlier this week to impose a two-year, statewide moratorium on the retention of wild-stock steelhead seems to have raised as many questions as it answered.
Beginning April 1, it will be against the law to keep a steelhead with an intact adipose fin anywhere in Washington. The ban runs for the next two years. The commission, a citizen oversight group appointed by the governor, also adopted specific rules for releasing, without boating, such fish.
Commissioner R.P. Van Gytenbeek of Seattle initiated the discussion about the release of wild steelhead by calling for a permanent ban on retention. That didn’t fly with the rest of the commission, nor did a motion for a six-year moratorium. The two-year ban passed on a 5-3 vote.
“In this case, I think a half a loaf is better than no loaf at all,” Van Gytenbeek said. “A lot of people in this state are concerned about the decline of our wild steelhead stocks and I think a moratorium gets us started down the right path.”
Commission chairman Will Roehl of Bellingham did not share that view, noting that the Fish and Wildlife Department is working on a comprehensive steelhead management plan tailored to specific rivers and specific stocks.
“I can’t support banning retention of wild steelhead on rivers where runs are healthy and returns are strong,” Roehl said. “I don’t think this broad-brush action is warranted.”
Because wild-steelhead release has been in effect for years on the vast majority of state rivers, the new regulation won’t have a widespread impact.
“There are only about a dozen rivers where a limited retention fishery for wild steelhead still exists,” said state spokesman Craig Bartlett in Olympia, “and all those are on the Olympic Peninsula, except for the Green.”
The most popular of those rivers include the Quillayute, Bogachiel, Sol Duc, Calawah, and Hoh, all near Forks, where a limit of one wild fish per day – with a maximum of five per year – has been in effect.
Bob Gooding, owner of Olympic Sporting Goods in Forks, said he can live with the situation either way.
“Personally, I haven’t kept a wild steelhead for 10 years,” he said. “On the other hand, I haven’t heard any hard science behind the decision to close it. Will the commercials (tribal fishermen netting under treaty rights) go along? How does the state plan to enforce it? With one agent to cover deer, elk and fish in 2,200 square miles here?”
Said Bartlett: “As of (Tuesday), our people weren’t entirely sure what the tribes would do, or what the law would say about the commercial aspect of the regulation change.”
Everett resident, avid angler and president of the Everett Steelhead and Salmon Club Jim Brauch, said the impact locally won’t be much.
“We’ve released wild steelhead on our local rivers for a long time, so it won’t make any difference here,” he said. “And I never kill a wild steelhead. But I wouldn’t want to say to the guy next to me that he must release a fish that may be the biggest one he’s landed in his life, or maybe the only one he’s hooked that year, or is perhaps his son or daughter’s first-ever steelhead.”
Brauch said the blanket approach was a mistake, and that the state should be allowed to manage on a river-by-river basis.
“I don’t think anyone has proven the catch-and-keep fishery on the Peninsula is having a negative impact on the strength of the wild runs,” he said.
Major groups lobbying for the moratorium included the Federation of Fly Fishers, Trout Unlimited and the Wild Steelhead Coalition, Bartlett said.
“As for the science behind it,” he said, “commissioner Russ Cahill (in Olympia) told me it was pretty much a matter of whose biologists you believed. Our (state) people told him that even on a down cycle in the natural flux of things, we’re easily meeting our wild steelhead spawning escapement goals on those (Peninsula) rivers. Biologists for the proponent groups, on the other hand, told him the runs are declining, period. With no clear consensus, he said he was forced to vote conservatively for the resource.”
Bartlett said that in two years the agency’s new steelhead management plan should be finished, and that the divisive issue undoubtedly will be revisited.
Local blackmouth: Marine Area 8-2 (Port Susan, Port Gardner, Possession Sound and the south half of Saratoga Passage) reopens for winter blackmouth Saturday and, for a few days at least, there should be some pretty good fishing. All Star Charters owner/skipper Gary Krein (425-252-4188) said the south and north sides of Hat Island should hold fish, along with the underwater bar (called “the racetrack”) between Hat and Camano Head.
“The tides aren’t great, but it could be better than Area 9, for a while anyway,” Krein said.
He’ll be fishing a Coyote spoon or a green squid, behind a flasher, starting at 75 or 80 feet and working deeper to find fish. The “super trooper” Coyote spoon pattern was a producer in that area during the first half of the winter season, he said.
Smelt: The first really fishable numbers of smelt entered the lower Cowlitz River from the Columbia late last week, according to state biologist Joe Hymer in Vancouver. Recreational dipping was good through Saturday, but had slowed some early this week
“Evenings have been better, because the water is clearing and the schools have been a little spooker,” Hymer said.
Whether or not this was simply a “pilot run,” or the advance of the main body of spawning smelt, no one could say for sure. “It’s probably safer for someone up your way to call first, for the latest conditions,” Hymer said. The regional fishing hotline number, which includes smelt, is 360-696-6211, then press star and 1010.
Carnival Market in Kelso also provides up-to-date information at 360-425-6622.
Razor clams: The next recreational razor clam dig on several of the coastal beaches is tentatively scheduled for Feb. 19-21. Whether it takes place will depend on last-minute marine toxin tests by the state. As soon as the final clearance is given, it will be announced on the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Web site at www.wa.gov/wdfw and on the recorded shellfish hotline at 1-866-880-5431.
Beaches scheduled to open (for afternoon tides only) include Long Beach, Twin Harbors and Kalaloch. Low tides for the three days are: Feb. 19, 6:01 p.m., minus 0.4 feet; Feb. 20, 6:43 p.m., minus 0.3 feet; and Feb. 21, 7:22 p.m., 0.0 feet.
Big trout: Last year’s extremely popular trout fishery in several local lakes, featuring big, multi-pound triploid rainbows, will be repeated this season and likely will be expanded. The Everett Steelhead and Salmon Club, the Snohomish Sportsmen’s Club and The Reel News are raising funds to purchase the high-quality trout from a commercial supplier and, according to the Everett club’s president, Jim Brauch, it’s possible the coalition will be able to purchase up to twice the number of trout planted last year.
The fish are scheduled to go into Blackman’s Lake, Flowing Lake, and possibly one other, Brauch said. Planting could start as early as March 1.
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